Slightly Off Center

Saturday after Saturday have been grey and rainy; now, abruptly, we're in full summer. I was down in Roseburg this last weekend for the UVA Summer Arts Festival, and it was full sun ahead!

Set up Friday morning, the temps rapidly climbed from 50s to 70s, where they stayed the rest of the day. Fairly good turnout when we opened at noon, and a nice level of sales in general. Saturday is hotter, breaking 90°, but still very busy, nearly double the sales of Friday. Sunday continues hot, slower, but with a bunch of last minute (and after last-minute) sales. In all, another record year, up over $800 from 2021.

I came prepared for heat: reflective blanket on the south-facing back of my booth, salt tablets, and a big contractor's cooler full of ice that I replenish over the weekend. The organizers, keeping in mind last year's horrific weather, were very much on top of the heat, providing cold water, booth sitters when folks needed to go into the AC, and permission for vendors to pack out early Sunday if the heat was too much for them. I stayed until the finish, but a half dozen of my neighbors left early.

Just for fun, I put all river-related plates on the grid panel: river otter, kingfisher, heron, dragonfly. As things sell, I bring more: Canada geese, frog, beaver. The sale ends before I get to the duck.

Things I noticed: Goth has come back in style in Roseburg. Friday and Saturday, I see lots of teens of all genders in black and lace, including a young girl in the full uniform: minnie-mouse hair buns, black lace top, plaid skirt, black knee highs. And some really impressive black and plum boots, with thick, flaring platform soles. I tell her, Those are really brilliant stompy boots, and she giggles and thanks me.

Sunday we somewhat the reverse, some lacy fairyworlds attire, an surprising number of bags and boots featuring hair-on cowhide. Mostly Holstein patterned, but I did see one that could have been Hereford.

I have a lot of familiar neighbors, some down from the Eugene Saturday Market, others who've been at the Festival almost as long as I have. Jerrie the dog-biscuit baker has switched corners with Mary of the hats (sounds like an obscure saint, patron of haberdashers), so is right across from me in her full chef's whites. Looking at her booth, I'm struck by a really awful pun, which I share with her: If your dog jumps up on your La-Z-Boy, is it now a Barcalounger?

A woman stops in to visit, says she's seen my brushmaking demos at Clay Fest multiple times, and has made four or five brushes on her own. She's working on her pottery, and having fun decorating with her new tools.

A twelvish-year old boy comes into the booth, smiling like the Mona Lisa at the banks shelf. I ask which one caught his eye, and he says, Really, all of them. We talk about my process a bit, both the banks and the painted pots, and he talks quietly with his mom. Are you sure? she asks, and he nods, still smiling, and walks out of the booth with my miniature cat-and-dog salt and pepper set.

A similar conversation Sunday, with a boy who asked if I had anything with penguins on it. I only had a dinner plate, with two emperors and their chick. Are you sure? and he took his new favorite plate home.

I have a lot of fun interacting with the kids, and sometimes learn something new. Did you know that if you say "Hello" into a cookie jar, it echos? You do now.

Lots of repeat customers, adding to their collections. Marla picks up her two dinner sets and a couple of serving bowls, wearing a delightful Bat and robin t-shirt. Betsy wheels in on her scooter for a frog bank and another cat food dish. Lots of other folks, whose names I don't remember and can't catch from their credit cards, because the new chip reader is so darn fast. But I've got a lot of collectors, it seems.

The assistant director of the Art Center flies in right at closing Saturday to get an elephant bank for their mother; their partner pops in to get a stegosaur for her mother on Sunday. A watercolorist I've been on nod-and-howdy terms for years gets a plate, bowl and mug; another vendor stops by during a slow stretch to look at the pots, dashes back at 4 pm Sunday to pick out a rooster pilsner glass. And Bruce Finch, a potter I've know for decades, stops in with a lovely bowl he'd like to trade. He's realize for all the time we've known each other, he hasn't anything of mine. He wants me to pick out something representative of me and my work, and after going through the plates, I settle on the heron plate from the grid (see above). It's got really lovely lines, and I'm very proud of it.