We are the optimists.
Each show, we think - this will be the one. This will be the one where I sell everything. This will be the one that breaks all the records. This one is going to be great.
Then the show starts, but the crowds don't come.
Well, it's OK. They will be here this afternoon, or in an hour, or tomorrow. The weather is too hot, or too cold, and tomorrow will be cooler, or warmer, or less windy. The rain will stop.
So it will happen tomorrow. Sundays are always better. Sundays are the day that 2-D art sells, that 3-D art sells. Sundays are the days when the real buyers show up to buy instead of look. It's the day when people make up their minds, when they've measured their walls and looked at their furniture and they will come back, and they will buy. We know it.
Well, the buyers are in church. They'll be here after church. Or after the church luncheon that follows the service.
They'll come when the rain stops.
They'll come at the end of the day.
They'll be here the last hour, or during breakdown, because that's when they come, looking for bargains. That's it.
But we all know the real truth, don't we? We know when they will be here, ready and willing to buy everything, clear out the tent. We know when, right?
The next show! I know it!
Replies
You're right, Carrie and Chris! It may be the next one. And the artist who doesn't believe that is the one you don't want to be your neighbor because they are just dragging themselves from show to show.
My desk is littered with sayings, both facile and inspiring and here is one of them: There is one thing that gives radiance to everything. It is the idea of something around the corner. G. K. Chesterton
When I was at the Lakefront show recently an artist said she was just finishing out the season and was leaving the business. She'd worked hard and really was a creative person who just couldn't find her audience at the shows after many years. So I said, "I don't know whether to wish you a bad show here so you will stick with this decision or to wish you a good show to remember the good times but not to be tempted to try again."
"Intermittent reinforcement" - was that B.F. Skinner?
One thing about our business. If you're not optimistic, you have no business being here.
We're a special breed. We don't go to our 'real job' and put in 40 hours and get the same pay every week. No, we're adventurous. We know we have to pay the mortgage every month, and that one show is all we need to have enough to pay the mortgage for 6 months. But that show is in October!
Some of us travel all over the country in a van with 150,000 miles on it, believing it'll get us wherever we need to go. Others will stay within a certain radius of home.
We endure rain, snow, wind, hail, mud, etc and always come back for more.
Many of us have a close knit group of friends whom we can depend on in an emergency.
No, we don't go to work at the same place every day, but our job is just as 'real' as anybody else's.
We do this because we love what we do. And we know the next show is gonna be "the one".