Somewhat out of the blue, I got a mailing (on pink paper, hmmph) in the postal mail the other day. It was an invitation to participate in a Country Craft Fair at a semi-local gift shop. I didn’t recognize the person who sent it, so I was intrigued. Plus, last year I did a show that took me by the shop hosting the fair and I kind of wanted a look inside but didn’t have time at that point. This is a job for stealth artisan.
We packed up the family and went for a little drive this afternoon to do some recon on the other folks selling and the setup/format of the location. There were 8-10 vendors including someone that does PMC, a dollmaker, a couple of jewelry makers and a glass fuser/stained glass maker. I’m not the sort that has oodles of glass manufacturer branded schwag around, so unless I tell you or you happen to find me manning a table at a craft show, you’re not going to know that I make 2000 F balloons. So we poked around and talked to each of the vendors. Just as an aside to folks who frequent craft fairs, go ahead and talk to the folks behind the table. Rarely do we bite and depending on at what point in the day it is, we often welcome the conversation.
Well I happened to take a closer look at the fused and stained glass table, they had lovely work. I’m not a big fan of stained glass, but the Tux pane was adorable. I liked the fused jewelry too. Some of it was likely scrap fusing, but most of it showed some thought into the color selections and placement, it was nice stuff. The scrap fusing comment isn’t derrogatory, by the way, most fusers will do it. Glass fusers are really good about using every last bit of glass on the table.
Well, incognito as I was, I listened politely as she explained the fusing process and then we went in out of the sun to check out the merchandise inside. Sadly it was pretty much all imported, but it was nice. I may get a few Christmas items there, though Vaillancourt Folk Art happens to be just down the road a short ways. If I’m going to get decorative tchotckies, I may as well get the good stuff, but I did like the carved wood Tigger trying to sort out Christmas lights.
But back to the story. So the woman who owns the gift shop is the one running the craft fair too. Much to her credit, folks encounter the hand made stuff on the way in. Unless I parked on the wrong side of the building that is, which honestly is entirely possible. But anyway, I bought a couple things for the kids and I mentioned I received her mailer. It turns out she got my address from a crafters list from someone else that hosted a fair every year. We got to talking about what I make and stuff, and she took me outside to introduce me to the glass artist.
She didn’t look terribly pleased when she found out that I make things out of glass. I’m not sure why exactly, but that kind of amused me. I think it’s that twinge of “that’s right, I’m the competition, muahahahaa”, but really I don’t do that much fusing so we’re in different categories of glass.
Still, it was kind of funny to see the look on her face.
The Country Craft Fair runs every Saturday from now through the fall. The setup fee is a wonderfully low amount and is meant to help defray the costs of advertising, and the organizer’s doing a nice thing by encouraging local purchases. I’m thinking about doing a few Saturdays, I just need to figure out which ones and get back to her.
And get sides for my tent in case it rains.
Tags: shows