11.18.08
Play It Again, Sam
Sharon and I, with layers of sweaters, in our booth at The Autumn Drive Festival.
As I said last month, it’s festival season. In mid-October, I traveled to northern Illinois, just south of the Wisconsin border, for a big festival, a new one for me, called The Autumn Drive Festival. It’s north and west of Chicago, and my friends, Sharon and Steve, moved there last year. Sharon is an amazing artist…one of those people who can do just about anything, and right now her passion is carving and decorating gourds with lovely, intricate natural scenes. She has one “Fairy Garden” gourd that draws you in and has you searching for the tiny people and all their garden friends.
Anyway, we decided to do this show together, and it turned out to be an adventure, but great fun. The Autumn Drive Festival offers a couple miles of places to stop and explore, with hundreds of vendors. One of the delightful parts of doing festivals is that you never know for sure what you’ll find when you get there…and it’s always different from what you expected.
In this case, it was 80 degrees when I left Kentucky, about 60 when I hit Chicago, and 40 with a brutal wind when I got to the festival. I had left home wearing flip-flops, throwing in pants and a heavy sweatshirt because I do know Illinois fall weather. The next morning, when the show actually began, the temps had fallen again and misty rain was in the air. I had worn every piece of clothing in my travel bag, but that was no match for northern Illinois wind chills. We were headed for three 9-to-5 days of even colder weather, falling temperatures and bitter wind sweeping down across the great plains. Sigh. The life of a crafter.
Coming to my rescue was a wonderful booth near us called “Ginger Blossom” that sold hand-knitted sweaters made by a women’s cooperative in Nepal, big fuzzy socks and hats that pull down over your ears. Before the weekend was over, I became their new best friend!
Ups and Downs
As some crafters can tell you, it’s not uncommon to find little irritations growing to big irritations in situations like these. Nobody’s comfortable…not vendors, shoppers, kids or pets. The mood of everyone becomes tinged with unease, purse strings contract and you look for the nearest hot chocolate vendor, who does really well.
I was no exception. After driving so far and standing on frigid feet for three days, I was not exactly polite to the “gentleman” who wanted to know what was in my soaps (I was HAPPY to tell him because that’s what I’m proudest of), and after hearing about all the great ingredients, turned up his nose and made a rude comment. I’m pretty sure he wasn’t a soap shopper, just someone looking for an argument.
On the other hand, the weather problems also made for lots of fun conversations with people who were able to laugh at them. And what better time to talk about a skin-saving product when you’re standing in a 20 m.p.h. wind sucking all the moisture from your body. All I had to do was mention olive oil, and customers’ eyes would light up.
Setup Thoughts
I have to thank my friend, Sharon (Northwoods Art), for organizing and sharing this weekend with me, and her husband, Steve, for helping us with construction, corn stalk-gathering, take-down (always the hardest part), and encouragement. And I’d also like to mention that sharing a booth with an artist like this has definite advantages for a soaper. Sharon had gourds of all sizes and prices, some of them show-stoppers. Her art caught the eye of many people on the tour who stopped by look at it. This brought people into the booth who might not have stopped otherwise. And likewise, there were people looking for handcrafted bodycare products who found true art in our booth. In the end, I think we both thought the arrangement worked well.
Sharon’s side of the booth, with some of her exquisite gourd art.
We decorated the tent poles with corn stalks tied with wide, country-style ribbon, and had tables along three sides. Sharon had found some pretty dark orange felted fabric which worked as table coverings and drew the table setup together. The only thing I’d change was to have more signage for Sharon’s artwork, but overall I thought the effect was pretty much what we were going for.
A little of the soap display as well.
Upcoming Festivals
So, it’s on to the Thanksgiving and Christmas festivals. I have a new one this year in Frankfort, and a couple old-friend festivals that I look forward to every year. After the holidays, the task will be to get ready for the Kentucky Crafted trade show in February, and then there is a little time left to rest up before starting over again in the spring.
So let’s lift a toast to having survived this year and to new opportunities ahead. “Play it again, Sam,” and happy holidays, everyone!