Anacortes, in brief

I'm back home from Anacortes. I've watered the garden, sorted the mail, transcribed the phone messages, triaged the email. Petted the cats. Been roundly snubbed by the cats. Rinse, repeat. And I finally have a little time and brain cells to think back on the weekend.

In a way, it was very similar to past years. We were back in the same spot, literally the first booth you see as you come into the show. This has advantages--we're always easy to find--and drawbacks. Nobody wants to buy from the first booth they go into, until they've seen everything else on offer. Surprisingly, many of them actually do come back, more, I think, for this show than many others. We also make it easier if they do buy, by holding their bags for them until they return. I think we had as many as six laid out in back at one point.

It's also a super easy space for load in and load out, as very few of our neighbors compete for van space, and there's alley access right next to us. On the other hand, we're awfully exposed to wind an weather, no shelter from any direction.

We had weather issues again this year, though not during the show, which was gorgeous. Thursday night, however, between set-up and opening, a storm blew through, wind and rain. We were anticipating it, didn't put anything on the high shelves on either side of the booth, but still found two dessert plates and a creamer broken Friday morning when we opened up. (I say opened; as with our last Anacortes storm, show volunteers opened up the front, back and sided of our booth, to keep it from flapping like a sail.) We wound up taking all the mugs and soup bowls down and boxing them Friday and Saturday night, in case of a recurrence. Still, it could have been way worse.

We saw a lot of familiar faces again: Katie, who's been assembling a dinner service of octopus ware for several years, and is just about ready for that big dinner party. She's promised me pictures; hope she follows through. Her aunt and parents also came through. Nice to be the family potter.

Pat stopped in and cleaned me out of about half my crow pots. Would've gotten more, but someone else came in first and bought two. It's a competitive market for the collector. Goldie returned to buy another half table service worth of plates and bowls. She discovered us last year, took home two bags of pottery. This year, three.

An unexpected drop-in was Robin, from Eugene. Her brother's late mother-in-law, Mildred, was a delightful retired nurse and self-taught potter I knew from my years at the Craft Center (and actually, before; she used to take in international student boarders, one of whom was my friend in grad school). Mildred used to stop by my booth at Holiday Market to pick up the odd small robin pot, just for Robin. Turns out said brother lives on Lopez Island, and Robin was up for a visit, fortuitously the weekend of the Arts Festival.

Didn't see Arden, our 14-year-old collector. Shelly says she was at Edmonds, and has taken up photography. Should have hired her as an apprentice when I had the chance.

I also missed Bear, a long-time friend and customer. We first met him and partner Lauren back when we were still doing Best of the Northwest in Seattle, and later would see them at Fremont, Edmonds, Anacortes. Never knew if he'd be full-bearded or close-cropped and shaven; sometimes his MS would be acting up and he'd be in a chair, sometimes on foot, always I'd see the bear-paw tattoos on his hands first, look up and say "Bear!" He died unexpectedly last year, so I was glad to see that Lauren came out, so we could share hugs and memories.

Talked to a lot of potters; former potters, mostly. Talked shop, gave out my card, told them about the blog. I also met a promising young potter. His father game in first, talked about the classes they'd been taking together at the local community college and how much promise son Andre was showing as a potter. Later came back with Andre, and we talked a good while about my process and about being a working potter. He promised me pictures of his work too. Watch this space.

Things I don't need to hear

You're so lucky! You get to be right by the music all weekend!

...what? 

You get to be right by the music!

...what?

(So the Jazz Stage actually has some pretty good music. Pearl Django is always fun, Nearly Dan does really good Steely Dan covers, and some of the female vocalists on Sunday were fabulous. That said, the sound guy really could have dialed it back a notch or two, particularly on the synth and electric piano-led ensembles. I think the direct input slider was set a little high.)

Adventures in wifi

Because my phone is only smart-ish, I can't really run my credit sales over it. Virgin Mobile's coverage is spotty, and Square's card slider doesn't work on my Kyocera's phone jack. I get around this by using my much smarter, somewhat spendier Samsung tablet, connected to wifi.

Some art fairs provide wifi coverage for all their vendors; sometimes it even works. Most times, not so much. It's theoretically possible to configure my cell phone into a hotspot, but again, smart-ish; I've never managed to make it work. So for several years, I've been using a mobile hotspot and cheap data plan (five to seven bucks a month for a gig of data, unused amount to carry over to the next month) from FreedomPop.

Three days before I leave for Anacortes, I get an email telling me that FreedomPop is no longer associated with Sprint, and my account was going away unless I migrated it over to Ting. Their website is surprisingly easy to follow, terms and conditions actually in plain English, and it's not like I have a choice, so I kiss my accumulated 7 gigs of data goodbye (I only use the hotspot during the show season), and start the process.

I'm hampered a bit by the fact that my hotspot doesn't seem to have a phone number, nor any kind of identifying number on the case or in the interface, but fortunately, our pack-rat tendencies pay off, as I find the original box buried on the kitchen table and am able to use the MEID number to transfer my account. Once Ting confirms that I am, in fact, a Very Good Boy, I test the device. It first tells me I have the wrong SIM card, but after I press OKAY, it still finds a cell signal and lets me connect my tablet. Whew! I have coverage! With a day-and-a-half to spare.

Things go fine in Anacortes until late morning. Then the signal drops, and wouldn't reconnect no matter what I tried. Fortunately, Square will continue to take transactions offline, swiping the magstripe and storing them locally until I have internet again. Except.

The offline transaction limit seems to be $100. This isn't usually a problem for me, but I get a couple of sales where the tax bumps us over the limit, and I have to run them slowly through my phone, typing in the card number, expiration, CVV and billing zip code. 

Around 3 pm the wifi comes back, and all twenty-some transactions upload. We finish the day fully connected, and it isn't until I'm tallying up sales that night in the motel room that I discover that one of the transactions was declined. It's also one of two transactions with the same amount, so I need to figure out who, and whether there's anything I can do about it. 

Fortunately for me, I've set up my check-out with buttons for all my items: soup bowls, tall mugs, casseroles, whatever. This makes check-out easier, as I can just select the pot and let the program plug in the numbers. This also means people who want an email/text receipt get it itemized. And it means that I can tell which $47.83 transaction bounced, and zero in on the sales slip. Where by a staggering bit of good luck, I have recorded the email address. 

So I send them an email, ask them to call me on my cell, and about 20 minutes later, they do. Their credit card company, in a fit of protective frenzy, was happy to let them purchase airline tickets two states away from home, but apparently a $44 casserole at an art fair was beyond the pale. They reauthorized the transaction, but Square won't re-send it. 

Saturday morning, it happens again. Wifi until the day heats up, then gone again. I'm beginning to think it may be the local cellular signal, as one of my customers reports the same spotty coverage in their boat. I wind up asking a very nice young couple if we can split their order in two to keep under the $100 limit, and everything else is fine. Once again, around 4 this time, the signal returns and this time, everybody clears.

And Saturday night, searching for a way to re-submit the rejected charge (Square doesn't seem to keep info from declined cards taken offline, so I guess I'll be getting a check in the mail when they get home) I discover that the $100 limit is a manufacturer's default value. I can set it wherever I want, so I bump it up to $200.

Sunday, the signal goes down again. And the customer in my booth has just hit $198 in pots, before taxes. I start to explain about how I'll have to take her transaction in two payments, because Square-wifi-evil spirits-yadda yadda.

Don't worry, she says, I'll be paying cash. And proceeds to pick out another $100 worth of bowls.

Things I don't need to hear, part two

What do you mean, you're charging me tax? Other vendors don't charge tax on cash sales.

Yeah, I still have to pay sales tax on this, so you do too.

Courtesy

On a recent visit to the Twin Cities, I gave my Japanophile friend lydamorehouse a business card ( I was showing off the new color pic) and she shared a little about the way Japanese businessmen exchange cards.

So a very nice Japanese couple stopped in my booth Saturday, and after I explained in mime what a batter bowl is and how one uses it (while they discussed it in Japanese), I reached the part of the visit where I ask if I can give them a business card.

This time, I held out the card in both hands, face up, bowing to her. She bowed back, said "Sank-you," showed it to her husband, pointing out the colorful rooster pitcher.

Lyda would be so proud.

Trawling

Once again, walking through an art show, carrying my fox mug full of water, and a young woman asks, Did you buy that here? 

Actually, I made it, I reply, I have one just like it for sale in my booth. And I walk with her two blocks back to my booth, where she picks out and buys her own fox mug.