Labor

[offcntr]

Got done glazing on Thursday, so I had a choice: load up the kiln Friday, take another Saturday off from Market to fire; alternatively, I could keep with my original plan to load Sunday, do Market Saturday, and take a breather on Friday, maybe catch up with office work. I opted for the latter.

I hate missing Market two weeks in a row, so even though I hadn't high expectations for the Saturday before Labor Day, I went anyway. My booth is still not-quite-a-hole in the ground (but it's next to one), so Sonia found me a space just down the block, with similar ease of load-in and space behind to stash my empty boxes.

My first surprise when I arrived was that my neighbor was the Info Booth. They'd had to move it across the street from it's usual spot, because the crosswalk was closed by the construction. Second surprise: There was now a curb ramp in front of my booth, temporary blacktop, still kinda soft and sticky. I found myself picking bits of asphalt and aggregate off of my handtruck wheels and sandals all day. The third surprise: someone was getting towed right where I needed to back my van up to unload. They'd left their car overnight, ignoring the "Market Loading Only: Tow Away Zone" signs, I guess. I parked opposite, walked my canopy over and set that up while they cleared the street.

It turned out a pretty slow day, though I did get to see Cara, of the couple who got me through pandemic reopening by buying a piece a week for the better part of two years, replacing their boring wedding china. She had a couple of friends from out of town visiting, brought them by to meet me, and after consulting the list on her phone, took a goat stew mug home with her.

Had one of those universe-alignment experiences: early in the day, I was talking with Candace, another ceramist at Market. She'd commented on my Stellar's Jay plate, so I showed her the new Jay pin that had just unlocked at Foxfeather Zenkova's Kickstarter. Denise and I have a bunch of Foxfeather pins, and are always excited to see new patterns. Then, maybe an hour later, a woman came into the booth wearing a Foxfeather Barn Owl necklace and matching kestrel earrings. Turns out she's a wildlife rehabilitator, knows Fox from the community, while her wife, like me, found her through Ursula Vernon's Twitter. They'd just shared the KIckstarter link with Kate, the jeweler down the way, so there maybe a surprising influx of interest from the Eugene Saturday Market.

Saw an esoteric tattoo on a young woman's shoulder. Excuse me, is that a quantum chromodynamics diagram? Yep, showing the creation of an electron/positron pair from energy (or their destruction--QCD is time-reversible). (No, I haven't studied quantum physics, but I have read all of Richard Feynman's memoirs.) Turned out she also had a tatt of the chemical structure of LSD on her other shoulder--an interesting change from the usual caffeine or theobromine--and the Planck equations on her back, though below the neckline, so I was spared not understanding that bit of science.

I love this town sometimes.

Learned a lot more than I wanted to about Market politics, overheard through the Info Booth window, but fortunately less of the Fundamentalists protesting on the corner of the other block. Being closer to the stage, the music mostly drowned out the bullhorn. Made just over $400, and the weather held until the last possible moment.

I'll have new work, and a bunch of special orders next week, so I guess I'll be back... somewhere?