Counting down

Yesterday started with me dropping off the van at my mechanic. I've been smelling burning oil, noticed it was a quart low, and wanted it looked at before we took it up to Washington. Then we went down to Club Mud, priced and boxed all the pots from last week's firing--had inventoried as they came out of the kiln--and brought them home. Treated ourselves to fast-food takeout for lunch, by which time the van was ready. Not too spendy, a leaky hose/o-ring, about a hundred bucks. But the tires were seriously worn, still tread in the center, but chewed up on the edges, so Ron really recommended a new set before we drove it hundreds on miles on hot pavement. He offered to connect me with a discount tire source, but Les Schwab has fixed several flats, free of charge, over the years, so I figured I owed them.

The nearest Schwab is just down to Santa Clara Square, so I dropped off the van on the way home. The mid-range tires I'd had before were only eight bucks less than a set rated 20K miles more, so I upgraded. With an estimated two-hour wait, I took my book and walked home.

Spent a few hours cooling off, reading. When I called to check progress at 4 pm, there were still two cars ahead of me, so I went out to the shed and started restocking from Market, and deciding what extra stock we'd need for a three-day fair. Another box of plates, of bowls, tall mugs. Serving bowls, bakers, casseroles and batter bowls. It wasn't bad in our open car port, but the pottery shed was brutally hot, so I was ready to quit when Denise came out, seven minutes before closing, to tell me the van was ready.

This morning, I finished the last two boxes of pots, figured out how to fit them all in. Swapped out some display hardware for the larger booth, bungeed more to the roof rack. Took down the 10-foot canopy Denise had been using for paper-making in the back yard, and loaded it up.

Since lunch, I've been printing out travel and load-in info, to go into my show book. Found the duplex sales books I haven't needed in two years. Looked up the sales tax rate, and programmed it into my Square. With Denise's help, consolidated inventory notes down to two tallies, one of the van, the other what stock is in the shed. The cat-sitter called to check in, and I've printed out instructions for her. We've a new feral kitty since she's been here last, with a feeding station in the car port.

I'm slowly ticking off items on my Road Shows Checklist. Tonight we pack clothes, restock our meds strips, bake show cookies. Tomorrow we pack food, gas up the van, kiss the kitties goodbye.

This will be our first road show together since 2019--Denise stayed home for Roseburg. I'm equal parts excited and terrified.

Anacortes, here we come!

A tale of two emails

Two new emails in the inbox this morning, both business-related. The first was from someone offering me a 5000-name contact list, purporting to be everyone planning to attend (or registered to attend? Wasn't clear.) the Anacortes Arts Festival this weekend. Suitable for pre-show publicity or post-show follow-up.

It's a scam, of course. They scrape the internet for names, phone numbers and email addresses of anyone who lives within a reasonable drive of the event, package them into a nice Excel file, then download the artists' contact info from the show's website, and try to sell it to them. I first experienced this with Ceramic Showcase in, oh, 2018, so did a little research. Apparently, trade shows were the first to be targeted--an online article talked about a medical exposition where the list offered was indeed doctors and nurses, harvested from various hospital directories in the tri-state area. None of them were actually known to be attending the event.

Well, now it's spread to art fairs. OPA dealt with it by taking their membership list off of the publicly accessible part of their website. Anacortes can't really do that, as we need our artist contact information available for legitimate customer inquiries. I suggested they at least send out a message warning of the scam. It'd be a shame if less experienced artists got taken in.

The other email was not a scam; I just don't think I'll be doing it. A potter and gallery owner in Coupeville asked it he could drop by my booth at the end of the show to purchase some work, wholesale, to sell in his gallery. He has a small but quality list of regional artists, including three I'm familiar with, two fairly famous, the third a newcomer I'd met (and bought a mug from) at Edmonds.

I've done this before, actually--the first or second year I'd done the show, a local gift shop came by and bought about $500 worth of work--cash--turning a pretty good show into an excellent one. Steve offered to pay cash as well, so I wouldn't be taking a potentially suspect check home with me. I thought hard about it, called him this morning to talk it through. It turns out the two famous potters are both in the process of retiring, so his shelves are getting kinda bare. He's very impressed with my work, knows he could sell it, and would like to have it on a ongoing basis.

Why didn't I get opportunities like this when I was young and hungry?

The thing is... I don't need another account. I'd already been turning down consignment offers before the pandemic. Wholesale is better--they're buying it outright, not paying only when it sells--but it's so far away. Right now I have a wholesale gallery in Olympia, that makes a couple of orders a year, big enough to make it worth my while to drive up with pots. Coupeville is several hours, and a ferry ride, further north. I could pack pots and ship them, but I don't generally do that in quantity. Oh sure, I ship special orders all the time, but it's three or four pieces, maybe ten pounds. I don't really have the skills to pack forty pounds of pottery and safely ship them away.

And ultimately, I don't want to. I'm doing more than fine with my current mix of shows, stores, galleries and Market. I've even got money put away for retirement. I'd kinda like to slow down a little, not ramp things up.

We're going to meet in Anacortes, just to socialize. But I'm not going to wholesale to him, even on a one-time basis. I've got a show in Silverton later this month, and Market in between. I need the inventory.