Otter madness

[offcntr]

After last Saturday, we thought we'd finally gotten spring proper. Sunshine! Crowds! (Dare we hope, Sales!)

This week, it was back to raining again.

Never too hard; just intermittent showers. Some fairly gusty winds in the afternoon. But it was dry and even sunny when I loaded in, and it stopped raining long enough for the boxes and booth sides to go in the van dry. The roof, though, will need airing out sometime this week, if we ever see the sun again. We came up with a new term to go with "bi-polar vortex": Weatherfluid.

So of course, the day started out terribly slow. It didn't hurt that we were up against the Prefontaine Classic over at Hayward Field. For a long time, I thought my initial $25 sale was gonna be it. At least I'd make a profit ($7.50, after Market's $15 + 10%).

But things picked up. I sold a bunch of stew mugs, some soups and painted mugs. A covered casserole, covered pitcher, a pasta bowl, and a large server. I even sold a koala tall mug as I was packing up. Fortunately, she was a repeat customer (she'd bought an owl tumbler last Saturday) and she had exact change cash, so I was willing to stop packing the last two boxes long enough to wrap it up for her. And I finally sold a sea otter dinner plate.

As always, the best part of an art show is the conversations. This week, it was all about the teens: The college girl who asked surprisingly good questions about my decorating process. When I asked her how long she'd been making pottery, she said she hadn't. She just really liked learning about other artists' processes. (I think she did oil pastels.) Also had a high-schooler who was fascinated by the process of paper-making, eventually convincing her mother to let her buy the packet of note sheets featuring a blue jeans/Braille paper/purple t-shirt pulp sheet with dry daffodil leaves. Actually sold a couple packets of paper; we'll have to make up more before next weekend. And an older man who bought a bunny mug to replace one he'd lost in the Camp Fire, took a card to get in touch for more work, to be shipped to California.

Also had a nice visit from a previous patron. Rose had ordered a big serving bowl for her mother a number of years back, featuring a bee (for her brother Billy) and rose (duh) pattern. Mom still treasures it, and Rose texted her a pic of the honeybee pattern honey jar today, bought an octopus stew mug for herself. She's in Ohio now, doing a PhD program in Gerontology. Was a delight to see her again, and I was glad to recognize her face and voice after all this time.

I had a whole bunch of college freshmen drop in, look at everything, and take cards against the time they move out of the dorms come fall. We'll see if any of them come back, but it's just nice to be appreciated by someone besides grandmothers who are downsizing their collections.

Best t-shirt of the day: Mr. Spock, with the caption "Emotionally unavailable."