Among the many awkwardnesses of making one-of-a-kind work is the need to seal my website shut while I am at a show in real life, as I'm doing today. It violates every fear-based business rule in the book. It goes against our instant access why-didn't-someone-return-my-email-in-three-minutes modern reality.
There is so much fear lurking under the perceived need to have people's attention constantly, to have what they need at the exact moment they need it. And there is so much false scarcity built into our consumerism - so much that sometimes it's hard for me to feel sincere talking about the real scarcity that naturally rises out of my slow, deliberate, artisan building of things one at a time. Just finding a website that will work with unique pieces was a challenge
- I have to do a stupid amount of tweaking that someone who sells
crates of generic widgets never has to think about.
But honestly I love the way my work creates some strain with that other sleek unforgiving world. It's good to not fit in, even though there's some resulting awkwardness. It's good tension. Now that I've done this whole weird making-dog-and-pony-show-life for as long as I have it's harder to scare me. I've looked into the pit of fear, the pit of not-enough, the pit of I-will-lose-them, and learned that the lesson is: don't look into that pit.
So I'll be off this weekend chatting with people about my clothes, right in real life, in a crammed craftshow booth with a tiny dressing room stuffed in the corner. They will try some things on, we'll hoot and laugh and have fun and if all goes well I'll send them on their way with a bag full of Secret Lentil. Then I'll come back here, open back up and carry on. The world won't end. Ebb and flow, people, ebb and flow.
