my big fat oxymoronic day: the handmade-only craft fair in the wal-mart parking lot!!!

on saturday, october 11th, 2 of my sisters and i had a table at the wal-mart craft fair. the site fees went to the childrens miracle network. we showed up at 6:30 to set up, the fair was from 9-5. i had sadie with me as she had gotten up when i did and couldn't go back to sleep without me. the boys would come later with scotty who would be on his way to work. it was a long day. when i got home i decided to write to CG about it because i had so many many thoughts and since i'm a very lazy blogger i am just going to paste most of my letter here:

(written october 11th)
"well, we are returned from the craft fair. i didn't sell anything. it was not well organized or advertised, it seems that they simply assumed the foot traffic in and out of wal-mart would be a good customer base for a fair. uh. no.

i came home with all these mixed emotions that i couldn't quite get straight. i really felt drained from the long day, but it was more than that. so i went to putting all our things up and then to doing the dishes. aaaah. meditation time. i started processing it all, and i realized i was talking to you in my head. so i knew that writing to you was the first place to put all these thoughts. the next will...you guessed it...be a blog post. of course!

i didn't go into it with a deep desire to sell anything though. i'd not been looking forward to it. and last night i figured out why. i talked to scotty for awhile about it (which helped me fall asleep). i do not really want to be an artist for pay. i enjoy making things. creating. i'm good at it. but i do not want to attach the need to sell to the desire to create. you know in all those internal struggles artists have i think that it boils down to this: we don't know how to justify our desire to create for creation's sake alone. but we feel some sort of societal (which has become also an inner) push to sell. then we start to try and figure out how to do that. when we can't figure that part out we feel all those things we artists talk about feeling, which boil down to yet another thing: i am not good enough. therein lies the heart of it. and the struggle begins. especially when you want to buy supplies to create. how do i justify that?? oh, yeah...by selling what i make with said supplies. and the circle begins again. scotty agreed that i really needed to detach from doing art for any other reason than that i enjoy doing it. the process. ah yes, the process. i love the process. but i hate how it often gets clouded with those voices in my mind telling me how great it will be to sell the product of that process.

as i was driving away from wal-mart, i thought...well, at least i'll still have some stuff for ARGH (we'll be having a fair there). but the thought didn't bring me any pleasure or relief or anything. this was a really distracting something...awareness? not sure what to call it. so while i was doing dishes my mind did wander to selling at ARGH. and again, it didn't settle into place well. then this light when on. i had this vision of giving things away to people. gifts. it was such a satisfying vision that i nearly forgot i was doing dishes. not kidding. i realized suddenly i was rinsing a bowl i did not remember washing. so that's where i'm at right now. in this moment. sitting here writing to you before i lost the real meat of it and also warming up some pretty amazing chili. oh but i've got so much in my head. so much more than even this. thoughts about your response to my blog post. which i totally love. because it was as if you read my mind. as if you knew the true direction i had meant to take that post. which i responded to over there. but my mind is all a buzz. a good buzz.

my favorite part of today was getting to spend all day with 2 of my sisters. i told them right from the start that that was my only expectation of the day...that if nothing else, we would get to just hang. my second favorite part was buying a jar of local apple butter and talking to the lady who made it and listening to her story of her apples and how last year they were tiny and this year they were so much better. and i have a big big brownie that i bought from a guy at the last minute sitting in the fridge for later. yum. i didn't sell anything, but i came home with so much more than a pocket full of money. so much more."

on tuesday i received a package from dickblick. i had finally decided to order myself some nice supplies back on the 3rd of the month. i have not done that since i was in college. it wasn't until late that night that i finally got a chance to open my pencils and check them out. i got a little scrap of watercolor paper and tested them. i almost cried. okay, i did cry...just a little. it felt so good, the saturation was amazing and felt so silky and delicious going down on the paper (no wrist cramp from trying to get good color). let me tell you that i've been using rose art and foohy brand colored pencils for longer than you can imagine. these pencils i got were so very worth the little extra i spent on them. no sharpening every 5 seconds from cracked leads!! when i first ordered them, i nearly puked. i was back in that justifying mode...i had ordered them before coming real clear about that. i also got some new grumbacher watercolors that i haven't tested out but i've used them before, i'm looking forward to pulling those out real soon. here are the pencils i got: koh-i-noor woodless pencils and dick blick brand colored pencils. i also got some new watercolor paper. now, what will i create???Share