Well, we art show exhibitors quickly learn about how to deal with the vagaries of Mother Nature. Rain, cold, heat, high winds...I've seen 'em all...or so I thought. But I never expected to have to deal with swarms of "Love Bugs". And while it's important to keep things in perspective, given the ravages of tornadoes through Alabama this past week, there's no doubt that these amorous insects put the kibosh on festivities--and sales--this past weekend.
For those of you who don't live in the South, "love bugs" are medium sized insects--a little bigger than fireflies (which they sort of resemble), and 'way smaller than locusts (which also travel in hordes). What makes them unique is that...hmmm, how to put this, exactly?...once they get it on, they can't get it out. So they live the rest of their lives (up to a week or so) oddly conjoined, splattering on auto windshields and everything else in their path.
According to my Internet sources, they're attracted most by four things:
1) White surfaces
2) Asphalt
3) Heat
4) Nectar
All of which made the unfortunate artists and patrons of Howard Alan Events' Siesta Fiesta this weekend pretty much Ground Zero for the little #%*(@s. Although both days dawned with surprisingly cool temperatures and low humidity for this time of year in Florida, temperatures heated up quickly both days, and by 11 a.m. the bugs started coming in waves. Although a few of the artists I spoke with eked out a decent Saturday, most did not...and by early afternoon bugs outnumbered customers by, oh, several orders of magnitude.
At the end of a long, long day--this is perhaps the toughest setup in the HAE stable of shows, with tents back-to-back along the center of a single long, narrow street, necessitating long, repeated dollys--we scraped bug residue off our vehicles and headed wearily to our hotel rooms, hoping that stiff breezes and clouds would miraculously save our Sunday.
Alas, Day 2 brought both more of the same (sun, bugs) and less of the same (sales). For whatever reason, the critters seemed especially dense in my area most of the day, but no one was immune. By lunchtime bugs were rampant--on jewelry, on artwork, crawling in the browse bins, and shrouding the seas of white canopies. Customers and artists valiantly tried to conduct business, but it was pretty much futile. Artists were surrendering their tents to the flying armies, and customers (if they entered the tents at all) wouldn't browse the bins. When I did make a sale, I had to sweep them off my invoice pad to write up the order. In mid-afternoon I was spotting handkerchiefs tied around faces to keep the bugs from getting swallowed.
Never was 5 PM more eagerly anticipated. Breakdown was surprisingly cheerful and efficient, given the extra work everyone had to clear the intruders off their artwork and canopies. (The bugs are acidic--so as to be distateful to birds that would otherwise munch 'em--and it's important to get that glop removed as soon as possible.)
We were about halfway through breakdown when Mother Nature had one more surprise in store--a pretty strong, but thankfully brief, dust devil that swirled up from nowhere and targeted my tent and about a half-dozen others nearby, flipping my neighbor's E-Z Up into the air and capsizing my canvases stacked on browse bins, pinwheeling my blue 10x10 tarp to parts unknown, and scattering some jewelry and artwork in at least two other tents. Folks reacted quickly to hold down what they could, and luckily, there didn't seem to be any damage. And as I finished packing, I thought about last week's Tuscaloosa twisters and decided to count my blessings.
Yes, the show was an ill-timed financial disaster, and I'll be scrambling to get the mortgage and insurance paid this week. But the tent and the vehicle will be clean again by Monday night, and I've still got a home and a livelihood. And as I drove home, I was really proud to be an outdoor artist, and prouder still of everyone else at the show, who just did what they could, and what they had to do, with a minimum of complaining and a lot of humor. (Check out the jewelry counter and the canopy behind my neighbor Brenda)
(By midday on Sunday they were all over the browse bins. If only I'd used black
mats, I might have avoided this problem!)
(I'm not sure if my neighbor Dave is ducking to get out of their way, or
attempting to clean them off the white pole)
(The final straw--they were attracted by the citrus in
my unopened bottle of Gatorade!)
