Tonight I had a short, 2.5 hour show. It’s one I’ve done the past couple of years and it’s actually one of my favorites. See, this one’s in an elementary school and it’s mostly for the kids to do some holiday shopping for their parents. That means the parents go roam, mingle and enjoy some baked goods while the kids mostly do their thing on their own. It also means that there aren’t parents looming behind them, arms gripping them backwards, saying “Glass, don’t touch! Look with your eyes! Very fragile!”
One of my favorite things about glass is that it’s such a tactile material. It warms to your touch, it cools to the air around it. It can be smooth, it can be rough, it can be sharp, it’s a lot of things all in one depending on what the artist decided to do with it. Of course I want people to touch the merchandise! 99% of the kids that wander through are perfectly OK touching the glass, and the other 1% usually are messing with it just to drive their parents mad. I break more things than my customers (or their kids) do.
So it’s nice, the kids come by, ooh and ahh, pick stuff up, ask questions, call their friends over. It’s just overall, a very pleasant experience.
Don’t get me wrong, the parents are nice too, but it’s just a much more relaxed experience with the parents not stressing the kids, and by doing so, sucking them away from my table (and potential sales!).
So I had this show, and incidentally I think I did better at this one than I did last year, so that’s a plus. But my guilty pleasure was on the way out, several other vendors commenting they were jealous of my packing “system”. The way I have it set up, barring my nemesis, the stairs, I can move my tables and all 7 boxes in and out of the building in one trip. Ah, the little things.