Journal: Sunday, 10/05/08

Jo and I got to sleep in a little bit today. The show doesn't open until ten o'clock. I got up around 6:30. Jo was already up and proceeding with her morning routine. I followed suit.

As usual, Jo booked our room using Priceline. We are staying in a Fairfield Inn by Marriott. It's layout is typical for a hotel, meaning that one enters through the lobby. I prefer a motel arrangement where one can access one's room without undergoing scrutiny by the desk clerk. It's not that Jo and I are involved in anything elicit, but our "luggage" is a motley assortment of plastic totes, duffel bags, canvas totes and the like. And, because we very seldom eat out while on the road, a couple of ice chest are also part of our travelling paraphernalia. Our gear works well for loading into the van and doing shows, but is on the shabby side for carting through a hotel lobby.

Our daily trips to and from the show don't make better presentation. These usually include a large green tote, ice chest and plastic basket transported on a two-wheeled dolly.

Our worst situation occurred at a Hilton in Huntsville, AL. Rain fell all day on Sunday. We packed and loaded in the rain. We -- and all our belongings -- were dripping wet. The Hilton's lobby was long and narrow with the desk on one side and entrances to a fancy restaurant and bar on the other. We carted our belongings through that long lobby while looking like a couple a drowned rats and dripping water all the way.

Motels are better, but we stay wherever Priceline finds the best deal.

Breakfast: At least the Fairfield did offer a great breakfast: Bagels, donuts, waffles, fruit, cereal and sausage or bacon, cheese and egg biscuits to microwave. We ate at the hotel since the show wasn't doing a very good job with breakfast munchies.

Down to Shaw: Since no rain was in the forecast, we removed the canopy sides -- one less thing to remove, fold and pack during teardown. We moved the pottery boxes from inside the canopy where we store them overnight and stacked them behind the booth for the day. Jo restocked her shelves as we moved the boxes. (Whenever possible, keeping Jo's boxes of pottery near the booth is preferable to loading them back into the van. She has a backstock of some items and restocks during the day.)

Sales: Sales were good again, but just not quite up to this show's potential.

Tearing down and packing up: The show closed at 5 PM. Despite the fact we had only had one booth, it still took Jo and I until 7:30 to get everything packed and loaded into the van. There's just no way around the fact that we have a lot of STUFF to pack and load, and the majority of that STUFF belongs to Jo. Still, we were not the last to leave as we usually are. Several other artists were still packing up when we headed back to the hotel.

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Journal: Sunday, 10/05/08

Journal: Saturday, 10/04/08

► Up, dressed, grabbed a quick sausage biscuit from the hotel's continental breakfast and heading down to the show by 6:45 AM.
► Jo finished setting up the booth (with my help) and we were ready to go in plenty of time for the 9:00 AM "Patron Brunch". Shows often try adding special events to their schedules. They pitch these events to artists as additional opportunities for sales, but we know better. They are primarily fund-raising attempts by the organization putting on the show -- and they are virtually never well attended. Shaw's "Patron Brunch" was no exception.
► I'm glad we grabbed that sausage biscuit from the hotel. Like many shows, Shaw provides breakfast (donuts, bagels, muffins, breakfast rolls, juice, coffee, etc.) for artists. However, when I went down to get Jo and I some morning munchies, they were already out of almost everything. After 16 years of successfully providing breakfast, you'd think they'd know how much food was required.
► Artist parking for this show is at a Catholic school several blocks away. Show volunteers provide shuttles back and forth from the artist parking lot. The main idea here is keeping artists' vehicles from using the street parking near the show so that there will be plenty of customer parking nearby. Unfortunately, someone at the school forgot about the show and scheduled a home volleyball game for Saturday morning. The school parking lot was getting very full by the time I took our van down.
► The weather was great Saturday: Blue skies and sunshine with no wind. The temperature started out in the lower sixties and topped out around eighty degree.
► Sales were good -- better than we've done thus far this fall, but not quite up to years past at this show. As long as they weather cooperates, this is the best show on our schedule. It's also the hardest to get juried into. We only get accepted every three or four years. This year Jo was juried in, but my work was not.
► The show closed at 5 PM. An artists' party/awards presentation began at six o'clock. The food was good, but the jazz trio providing entertainment was too loud for the confined area (tent) where they were playing. Artists want to visit with each other and that was impossible while the trio was playing. I hope the group didn't get too badly offended when everyone picked up their tables and chairs so they could get away from the band by moving out into the street.
► Jo and I were back at the motel a little after eight o'clock, and were asleep a couple of hours later.

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Journal: Saturday, 10/04/08