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It was Sunday morning, and the show in Frederick, MD, was not going well. I'd had some minor sales on Saturday, but then the heat had risen to a brutal level, and the buying had slowed to an equally brutal level. 

Sunday morning dawned no better. People came to the show, but they were just looking. I found hope fighting that desultory feeling of financial doom. 

Mid-morning, I came back from a brief respite from the tent, and my young neighbor (yes! a young artist, late 20s, doing his third or fourth show, also having slooow sales) came by to alert me that a woman from the arts council was roving, asking artists to donate work for an auction to be held in the fall. 

"She's not pushy," he said. "She gets it that no one's having a very good show." He asked me if I had an opinion on what to do, and I (probably unhelpfully) said that, well, it was really a personal decision. I usually donate when people ask me, I told him, but this show is so slow... I let the sentence hang. 

An hour or so later, here she came, with her little red cart, asking for donations. As my neighbor had said, she made sure there was no pressure, she just asked, clearly prepared for "no." 

"Sure," I said, and gave her a small painting. 

Not five minutes later, a woman rushed into my tent, looked at the back wall and said, "It's still here! My husband is a pastor, and I spent his sermon praying that that painting would still be here today. I want it!"

The painting she bought was one of my bigger, more expensive ones, and her purchase put me into profit territory. 

After she left, my young neighbor came into my booth. 

"Guess donating that painting worked," he said. "Where's the lady with the cart?"