Friday: On Friday morning I experienced my first bit of anxiety since I was pregnant. I popped a (probably expired) anxiety pill and pressed on. Set up started at noon so the plan was to get to the park and then head somewhere for lunch. Instead, once I got there my anxiety went away and was replaced with adrenaline. We had the tent up and ready in an hour and a half. 50% less time than the trail run on Thursday. After lunch, where I discovered that anxiety is fabulous for my diet-I barely ate anything-we set up the walls, the process expedited greatly by my friends husband, another art fair pro. Lastly the work and signing was hung. All in all it took about 6 hours to do everything.
all set up and ready to go!
Saturday: Woke up feeling anxious again but found that getting to the fairgrounds and making sure that absolutely everything was ready to go made me feel a lot better. I grabbed some breakfast that was provided, chatted with a few people, and looked at other people's work as I passed by back to my tent. People started trickling in just before ten and there wasn't a break all day. There were SO many people! I made my first sale at around 11:30. People continued to come in droves, asking about my work, telling my how cool, unique, different that it was. I heard a lot of "I would have to buy the whole wall!" Saw lots of friends, college classmates, Target co-workers, Facebook friends I'd never met, and cool people in general. I'd been on my feet all day, hadn't been to the bathroom all day (which is pretty much unheard of for me), and barely ate anything but that didn't bother me until the moment my ass hit the seat in the car on the way home. All at once my feet were throbbing, I was exhausted, starving, and really needed a restroom. After grabbing dinner my aunt and I went home and watched Game of Thrones.
speaking with a juror
Sunday: Not all anxious that morning. Was ready to go to the fair early for the artist award breakfast. I joked that I was glad I didn't win an award because the angle in which they were taking the photos was from below (horribly unflattering), and would have added about 8 chins, hahaha. The weather forecast was all over the place with early predictions of rain about halfway through the day. It got cloudy at one point but never actually rained, but I was told that just a few miles away it poured. We got lucky! Traffic though my tent was again awesome and I made a large sale that totally flattered and amazed me. More friends came through to show support and I actually had a bit of time to inhale a delicious gyro for lunch. Once 5pm rolled around we started taking down everything. The whole process was fast because I was lucky to have several people helping me. Heath even rolled in from Indianapolis just in time to take the tent down. I was at home, van unloaded, sitting on my butt, starving, with a headache (probably should have drank more water) by 7:30pm.
Needless to say it was a great weekend. The weather could not have been better, my spot was perfection, and it was just awesome. I will definitely be applying to fairs for next year! Thank you to everyone who came out, shared photos and posts on Facebook, took cells off to a new home, and helped me during set-up and takedown. I appreciate you all!
