munkinarts.com: the blog

I did stART on the Street: Spring Edition today, and it was most certainly a mixed day.   The awesome thing about the day, my wonderful wife spent the day with me rather than dropping me off

and heading back to the house.  Normally I do a solo act, so it was really nice to have such an awesome co-pilot to help out and keep me company.

But on to the business end of things…

Weather wise, it was pretty darn nice.  Mostly sunny, but windy as all get out.  I do believe that our location in an urban canyon had quite a bit to do with that, but I travel with some cement filled PVC pipes that I had lashed to the legs.  I did try something new later in the day that I believe helped; I

Hey baby, wanna buy some glass?

hung the weights from the tent corners with bungees.   I’m not an aerodynamics engineer, but my guess is that having a flexible tether meant that as the tent corner lifted the weight descended slightly holding it down.  Regardless, I didn’t feel a need to hold onto the rails as often.   My table signs, however, they got tossed back into the boxes.   Mysteriously, the only thing lightweight thing that didn’t try to go airborne was my business cards.  I did hear of at least one tent that went skyward and almost came down on someone.   Glad it wasn’t me.  Oh, and I lost 2 glass pieces to the wind, more on that in a moment.   As my plastic Visa/Mastercard sign started to lift off the table, my wife made a pretty good joke, “In

Holding down the fort. Literally.

Worcester, Visa/Mastercard takes you!”  OK, I found it amusing.  After a day of gusty wind, jokes were helpful.

Monetarily…the day was a bit of a bust.   There was a $50 table fee and I made 6.00 over that before taxes, so I came out 2.50 ahead.  But I also lost 40.00 worth of product to wind induced gravity, so really, it was a bad day for sales.   There were a lot of people, and a lot of people interested in the product, but not a lot of buyers.  I’m not really sure what if anything would have really helped matters along.   I didn’t put prices on most things, so maybe folks didn’t want to ask, but my pendants, aside from one, were all a perfectly reasonable $20.  Glass pens (inserted ones, not glass nibs) were 10 a piece, bottles $10.00, etc.  Fairly low really, but most folks didn’t even ask.   In case you’re wondering, most of my items were “de-tagged” for a home show I did and I didn’t bother to put them back on.

Greetings Professor Falken, would you like to play a game?

There was plenty of interest on my chess sets too.  Interestingly, a lot of the folks interested were younger, 20′s and the like.   It was nice to see.   Unfortunately the sets were priced at $200, and $150.   I didn’t honestly expect them to sell today and I brought them as showcase pieces, but still, it was nice to see folks liked them.

So all that’s the bad news.   There is good news though.

Back in the second half of last year, a customer bought 2 of my drawer pulls from me at a show.  I had them mostly as a sample for custom work, but it was a slow show, so I sold them.

Drawer pulls on display

She expressed an interest in maybe wanting more for her kitchen cabinets, but I figured I’d never hear from her again.

Today she turned up.

And she’s still interested.  She’s so interested in fact that she took one of the pulls to another glass artist asking if they could do them, but she said she was swamped at the moment.  The customer wants 26 drawer pulls AND her downstairs neighbor is interested in some too.   So she’s got my card and she’s going to get in touch with me about sizes, design, etc.  While I didn’t earn much today, there’s a pretty good order coming on the off season.

One of the most fondled items today was my drawer pulls, and this generated a lot of business cards heading out into the public meaning there’s the potential for more orders to come.

Also, I met a very nice woman who has recently opened an artisan consignment store in one of the nearby towns and was interested in having some of my glass in her boutique.  While I’ve heard some nightmares about consignment situations, this actually has a pretty good feel about it.  She’s going to send me some information on her shop.

And….I met another woman who’s organizing a jazz festival in a couple of months out in Springfield, MA and was looking for some unique artists to sell at the show.   She’s going to be in touch with me as well.

So financially, the day was a bust.  But I reconnected with a former customer who’s was tickled pink to find me at the show, and I got some good networking connections.  Sometimes those can be the best kind of shows.

I could have done without the sunburn though.  I guess sun screen and a floppy “emergency” hat are going on my gear list.

More pics below:

The big table

Marbles, marbles, everywhere

Wine stoppers, bottles, buttons, and pens

Layout by Gillian, later destroyed by Mother Nature

Only the iced one is mine, honest

Oooooooh, pretty! Yeah, I made that.