3 photos, 3 thoughts on craft shows

This is how our booth looked Saturday morning just a few minutes before we opened to the public at the North Penn show. Some of the items found their way out of the show in the hands of admiring new and old fans. People, who we had not know, and people, who I have known for years, ended up buying our fine craft. By the end of the day the vibe was good... Lots of people buying handmade for the holidays.

Our five straight weekends with shows... three remaining. Mosaic Woman has been busy maintaining our upcoming shows at her website (how things change for now she blogs more than I... I have taken on the role of tweet master)

some thoughts...

an amazing young girl at our Lancaster show who wanted everything in the booth, but her mom refused to max the credit card, was disappointed when they returned to our booth for her favorite piece was gone. At one point, she pulled out a sticky note wrote down her first name and handed it to me. "Here is my business card." So many friendly folk enter our lives by letting them enter...

much joking with Mosaic Woman with sports analogies. How does one put ones "game face" on at a craft show? I would imagine smiling helps. As things lagged into the late hours of a show, I remembered my spiritual director tell me to do many moments of breathing to center myself. Be aware of anger rising or boredom emerging. I am imaging myself being mindful and taking a breath to fill myself with the spirit so I can have my game face on all the time.

Often folk tell us of how they have worked with glass or know someone who has worked with glass. Then walk away. How cool was it on Saturday to have a friend tell of his daughter, who works with glass, and then he bought a mosaic to give her for Christmas. It was an off center log cabin design which Mosaic Woman calls asymmetric.

Johnny Cash appears hurt this time...

two blog posts back I ended with a Johnny Cash video. Johnny is a young man with a hit song and adoring fans. His body does not match up with his lyrics.

years later after June Carter Cash died, Johnny looks a bit different. This is one of the saddest videos I have ever seen. Years back I came home from seeing the movie Crash and feeling a need to release the sadness it had instilled in me, I turned to Hurt...

3 mosaic crosses

Mosaic Woman is off with a friend to see the craft show where we left the crosses last weekend. If they have not sold, they will be in Doylestown, PA till Wednesday. 25% of all sales at the Lydia Guild show will go to some wonderful charities.

If for some reason they are not bought there, then here is where we will be taking our mosaics and stained glass art in the future. can't come to a show, come to ETSY to buy our craft.

...

imagining grief, a design for my aunt, and 1958

Wednesday night brought news that an uncle of mine had died of a heart attack. Habit had him in bed earlier than my aunt and she found him in such state when she went to bed.

Thursday morning I step into my car and a jazz tune is all I need to take me into sadness. There is no baseball or Twitter or prepping for Zoology. It is me and solo piano playing of Keith Jarrett. Folk say that dying in one's sleep is peaceful, but my uncle had one foot on the floor.

It may have been easier than a painful bout with a disease, but I don't think the moment was one filled with peace and hope. At least when I imagine trying to get out of bed...

But it is my aunt's experience which strikes at my own heart. I try to imagine the horror of finding a loved one dead. I imagine her. I imagine myself in the same situation. Horror seems to be the right word. I imagine trying to revive...

So after 41 days of teaching between Labor Day and now, I finally had the day off which I had desired. I had imagined a bonus day in my studio. Instead, I went to a viewing and then a funeral. But I could not get myself to the luncheon. My studio was calling. Thursday morning while thinking of my aunt, an image came to mind, so I skipped the luncheon, which a part of me feels was a mistake. A crowded house lost out to a not so lonely studio.

In 1958 my parents got married, so when we celebrated their 50th, I put together music from that year. At the party, my aunt, the youngest of all my parents siblings, was the one who seemed to enjoy the music the most... so I played those songs as I entered my studio. The fourth design was the winner. By the time I went to bed it was complete... designed, cut, ground, foiled, soldered, cleaned, and polished. But most importantly, I held it up to the light and mosaic woman said some kind words about my talent to sit with a person in mind, and emerge with a design.

I imagine my aunt and uncle dancing to those songs that were playing in 1958. They married in January of 1960, so it is a possibility. Nearly 50 years of marriage. I imagine 50 years of marriage and music with Mosaic Woman.

The stained glass is hanging in my studio next to the cross inspired by my silent retreat. Soon it and music from 1958 will be traveling north to my aunt. I don't imagine all the songs will be the easiest things to listen to, but I can't imagine much is easy these days.