Festival day looms ahead of any craftsman like a dreaded job interview. Your await it anxiously and prepare the best you can and then as the day nears you become the worlds worse insomniac, thinking and rethinking all the things that could and sometimes DO go wrong. But you prepare and try not fret and torment.
You worry.
The day finally arrives...you suffer through it..and then when it's over, you may or may not have more money in your pocket than before, you may or may not have a smile on your face, you may or may not be coherent enough to care. But as you climb up into your vehicle, then and only then, can you breathe a sigh of relief. It's over.
You smile.
The whole festival process starts months before the actual event. That is to give you enough time to fully stress out and complete your nervous breakdown. Let's begin when you first get the application in the mail. Usually after we get them in the mail we put them someplace "safe", so we can fill them out later. The problem with storing something in a place that is "safe", is that the only person that it is "safe" from is you. Murphy is our God and his law says that when you do this, you will NEVER see it again, unless he thinks it'll be even a bigger laugh if he lets you find it. Which is usually the case and we find it eventually. Always remember we are put here on this earth for his enjoyment and he likes to laugh....mostly at us. So, say you actually do find that application, and that "murphy" is actually kind enough to let you locate it before the "due" date, then you will have to take the time and fill it out.
You sigh.
When you first fill out the application you are nervous wreck. Not about whether your work is good enough to get in the show or not, but because filling out all the information correctly and making sure you include all the bells and whistles they require, is enough stress to make a woolly mammoth loose his wool. Here are some examples of things that you must do properly to submit the application. First you must locate 4 or 5 of best slides that you own. Preferably your own work. Then sometimes they make you submit a booth slide also. This can be extremely daunting for a person who never steps outside the booth long enough to take a picture. But you make do. And after you get the slides together, you feel confident enough in your abilities that you believe with certainty that you can complete the rest of the requirements. Little do you know.
You hallucinate.
Label slides. This part sounds rather easy, and to most people it is. But to us few, who are blessed with totally "brain numbness" then it may be more difficult. You have to make sure the slide is on the correct side, make sure the up is up and the down is down..then you can proceed to write your name, the name of the piece, ALL your contact information, the medium you made it with, the process of how you made it, an arrow showing which way to insert it in the projector, and your first born's blood type information. All this has to be written legibly on a space no bigger than a postage stamp. Most craftsmen become very good calligraphers because of the extremely precise and small writing that has to be done on these slides. I still have NO idea how the jury actually can read this small of writing, but I do believe they make us do this for their amusement. I think they have contests on who can write the smallest. "hey Joe, come see this one, even with a magnifying glass I can't read it, they did gooood job". I think maybe this is how jury decides who gets the "Best in Show" prize.
You wish.
Then you take the slides, a SASE, the application, your bio, your artist statement, and any private information that you've kept in your safety deposit box for years and stuff it all into a small, legal sized envelope.
You astonish.
Go to the Post Office and wait the appropriate 4 to 5 hours in line and then you send it off. Two to three months later you receive in the mail, either an acceptance or a rejection. Which those two things are a "blog entry" unto themselves so we won't delve into them now. But in this case, lets say we skipped the crying, screaming and tantrums of rejection and actually got INTO the show.
You're accepted.
insert: (back ground music "flight of the bumblebee")
You're frantic. You're running around like a chicken with it's head cut off. You're working nonstop and not getting much done. You're studio looks like a tornado ripped through it. You're physical hygiene has become lax, and you're house is probably the health department's worse nightmare.
You're frantic.
The day is approaching and you're feeling less and less confidant that you'll actually have enough work to fill up your booth. You've decided that you have to approach congress to make some type of legislation that lengthens the day from 24 to 72 hours. The whole time you are working you're thinking "why do I this?" and bribing yourself with goodies like "if I finish this I will give myself a treat, I'll take a much needed nap or eat something". But after weeks of no sleep, you decide that sleep was overated to begin with.
You endure.
Tomorrow is the festival...there is nothing more you can make, nothing more you can do. This gives you a false sense of security and you decide that with all this free time, about an hour, you can sit and relax. But needless to say as soon as you sit, you remember that you didn't put something in the van, or you forgot to pack something so you immediately hop up and work some more.
You're anxious.
That night, knowing you need a good nights sleep...you don't. You're constantly worrying about "over sleeping" the alarm so you check the clock on the nightstand every 15 mins. The alarm finally goes off while you're staring at it and you get up. Usually for a person to get ready to go somewhere it takes approximately an hour. But because you're so anxious to get the booth set up that you shower, put on deodorant (this IS important at a hot festival), find your clothes, dress, put make up on, grab coffee (preferably in a cup) and run out the door in a fast 5 minutes flat.
You're efficient.
Now your there, at you're show. You've found you're spot, and you're setting up your booth. Setting up can take anywhere from an hour to all day depending on what you forgot at home, if there is any other vendors who claim that your booth number is really theirs,
and if you don't stand around and talk.You setup.
The show has started. This part is fun. I love meeting the people, talking, selling and EATING. Shows always have food. Most of the time it's greasy fried food that all taste the same, but still, it's food.
You digest.
The day goes by and hopefully you'll be selling and busy. Sometimes you are and sometimes your not. It's a gamble we all play. You get giddy with happiness if your selling and delude yourself with lies if you're not. "well, there are just no crowds here" or "it's the economy" or the famous "I really don't care if I sell anything".
You delude.
It's over. Big sigh of relief. Now it's time to pack up. Hopefully you are packing with a smile on your face and a sack of money tied around your waist. Packing is a joy unto it's self. You get the boxes, throw stuff carefully in them, rip the shelves down, collapse the tent, throw it all into your vehicle, get people to help you push the van doors closed and hope when you open the driver's door nothing falls out.
You exert.
Ahhhhh. You sit behind the wheel. You breathe, you quickly turn on the A/C, you sigh, you finally relax. It's over. You will actually be able to sleep tonight, and you vow to yourself you will NOT go into the studio tomorrow. Right then you decide that tomorrow is your day off. You start the engine and drive home, and look forward to the next show.
You survived.
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