And the Tiny Bubbles Burst

The Housewife Queen

Maybe they didn't break, they just kept ascending into the heavens where they turned into puffy clouds too small to hide the sun. I'm in the aftermath of the Jell-O Art Show, so ephemeral and so special, so gratifying and humbling and as I said yesterday, a brief respite from care.

My creative process always includes a rejection period and that's today, but it is mild since I know about it and can successfully refocus myself when I start to get crabby and want to rewrite the glittery past. Part of being a creative person seems to be a certain level of dissatisfaction, that there is never enough, that just a little more effort would have made things even more perfect. A fool's pursuit, but a natural type of self-improvement and the continuing challenge for higher goals, part of the driving force of art and life.

The Jell-O Studio Set

Serious Art Crowd

The Show went well. There was quite a bit of fun Jell-O and many new artists who were drawn in by the fabulous publicity we got this year. I made a point of trying to greet everyone as they entered and regally welcome them into the fold, asking them about their art, photographing them with it and making sure they felt seen and appreciated. I managed to not brag about my own accomplishments and my masterpiece was by the door looking quite unpretentious in a quietly spectacular way. I had my usual table of shirts which sold pretty well, and my display of fascinators next to it. Most people did not believe they were Jell-O so that was lots of fun. A few people tried them on, as I directed them to, to get that magical transformation that happens when you feel the most gorgeous you will probably ever feel, with a big exotic flower on your head in a public place. I'm still in awe that a little bit of gelatin can have that power. Several people ponied up the $25 I was charging to take some home, and all were thrilled with their purchases. I might just have that future retail career that seems so elusive and impossible and crazy to imagine. Wonders do not cease.

The crowds who gather at the beginning of the show are the people who come to see the Jell-O Art. We actually get a second crowd at the end who come to see the tomfoolery but people in the photo are a very special group. I hope you see yourself in the photo. You all get in line and look carefully and searchingly at each and every Jell-O Art piece and ask real art questions expecting real art answers. You probably have no idea how thrilling this is for the artists who took the brave step of bringing in their creations. Many were young people or families who did the projects together, and I will feature some in the Gelatinaceae blog very soon. I am so very grateful to the artists and the art appreciators who come to the gallery, some every year, and really get the inspiration and power of the show. I can not stop grinning when I see what happens right at 5:00 on the dot, as they pour in. It's amazing. It's just an ordinary art opening in a regular art gallery, but it still astonishes me every single time.

I did mangle the poor Slug Queen's name, but he was forgiving and gave a terrific benediction, one of the best ever and a big thanks to him. The crowd was happy to do their part and we got a few photos taken with our mutual fans. I was able to manage a quick off-the-cuff speech at the beginning, focusing on the art, and at the end made a fairly gracious thank-you speech. I did unfortunately call the MKAC staff "workers" but I don't think they cared too much. They know who is in charge around there (and it is definitely not me.)


I'm feeling pretty guilty about not making my usual five plates of Jell-O candies or whatever silly idea I get for the Tacky Food. The table was a bit sparse, and many little kids did not get to have their usual sugar fits but a good number of adults tried Holly's Candied Chicken Gizzards (they were tasty) and David's Jell-O Krispies. Sorry, David, I could not manage to try one, plus I thought I had better let the big crowds have their chance. I would have eaten one if there had been any leftovers but by the end there was nary a crumb of anything. I promise next year to re-prioritize Tacky Food because it alone can be worth the price of admission to some people, and the four boxes of orange Jell-O I bought will still be good a year from now. I was thinking to try Orange Espresso Cubes and hope I remember to do that. A lot of people would have eaten them and although we didn't really need anymore frenetics, some of us did need to be able to stay awake on stage. Just kidding, that was part of the script to fall asleep and we didn't rehearse that part, but the snoring and actions were pretty hilarious improv.

We have a dvd this year! We got to watch it last night at a little gathering to decompress and it was fun to get that audience view. I won't go into all of my self-crit but I will say that there was a lot of glamour on that stage and it wasn't from the Queen. I will have to speak to my old-lady self and see if she can manage to at least wear some Jell-O on her head next year. Truly I was too ambitious with my costume changes and barely kept up so I will have to learn to dial that back and simplify. Every year is a new year and we actually made a little plan last night for a possible scenario that I am really looking forward to. It might not be glamorous! It might be really fun to try to make some of those Angels dress down. Of course there are a lot of brainstorms between now and then but I'm enjoying my deviant plans. Looking forward to something has always been my best remedy for the blues, and there's nothing better than a long-term plan that actually requires no actions whatsoever. Because I am tired, and my foot hurts, and I really need a day when I don't do much.

Something I did not expect to see!

So I'll just make a little path from my armchair to the TV and put a lawn chair on the deck and try to read at least the front page of the paper before I drift off to sleep. No Tacky Food does translate to no dishes, so there's that. I uploaded the photos and I can put off the real Jell-O blog until tomorrow. Have to enjoy this sunny day while it lasts. You never know when the rains will come again. Let's just hope they don't come next Saturday, because it's Opening Day of the Saturday Market season, and that is another ephemeral thing that needs all of us to participate, with more joy, more laughter. See you there!

Time!

2012, when I made this, was a Big Year

There's really nothing left to do to get ready for the Jell-O Art Show but get dressed in one of my several costumes and get in the car. I go early to help get things set up...last year I swept the gallery floor. Even as a Queen I am always about pitching in. I thank Mom for that, for giving me three sisters and a brother so there was always lots of work to do, and people to harmonize with while we did it. I know Saturday was always cleaning day as in so many traditional familes, but that is a tradition I dropped like a hot potato. I don't even always do it on Sunday, since I try to have a day off after Saturday Markets and certainly will need one after the Jell-O Art Show. I suppose I should have trained my kid better though. I hope he does housework.

I dreamt last night I had a pet baby tiger with a broken tooth that I had neglected to get fixed. I was feeling awfully guilty for having such a big pet and then not being a responsible pet owner, and my son was standing there judging me (not something he really does much). That was coming from his wife, (who also does not judge, though she is a pet rescuer,) but anyway, I knew full well the time had come to sell the tiger despite how much it purred when I petted it. I was (and always am) much harsher on myself than any judge could be. This dream probably came from a little pep talk I gave a new Radar Angel in the parking lot last night after our dress rehearsal.

She just joined us, bringing lots of skills at stage management, choreography, and a general enthusiasm that is priceless, not that any of us lack that. She was so upset she had come late to practice and felt unprepared. We sometimes forget to explain our habits, so well-worn after so many years of this, but we always have our last rehearsal the night before. I was the only one who brought snacks last night, mostly because Indi is gone for the weekend and won't be doing the show. It's a real tragedy for our continuity and I know both she and I and several others will be feeling actual heartbreak tonight, but the show goes on and there will be a next year. So there's that, and these new people who haven't ever made Jell-O Art and have not even been to a Jell-O Show before. Fortunately most of us are more-or-less seasoned at most of our roles, but we forget to say some of the things. Indi never forgets.

I'm still new at a few things, being the Queen for one. It's only year three for me to be her and be in the show and give a benediction and multitask like mad, though I have brought Jell-O for all twenty-seven and made t-shirts for it since 1994. I took my carful of props over and today in a bit I will take my carful of Jell-O and ruffles and do what needs to be done. I can't do what Indi does but some of it comes fairly naturally. I can talk about Jell-O Art without a thought. I could tell our new young Angel that although we work hard to make the show clever and polished and remember most of our lines more-or-less accurately, it's Jell-O.

The whole point of choosing Jell-O, in my opinion, is that it is beautiful, ubiquitous, and accessible. Everybody can find the Jell-O aisle and buy it, make it, love it or hate it, and make it into art. Everybody. It takes no special talent at all, or even skills. You just open the box and mix it with water. All the rest comes from within, and it is limitless and laughable. There is no good or bad Jell-O Art! There is not evaluation on your piece or your participation or your singing or your dancing or even your ability to show up on time.

We are the most forgiving and supportive kind of organization ever. Okay, not always, as we are humans and we complain and say nasty things from time to time when we are not thinking as clear as Jell-O. Life gets murky like what happens when you mix chocolate milk into the green gelatin thinking it will look prettier. But when you get up on the stage with the Radar Angels, particularly at the Jell-O Show, all you feel is love. Everybody in the room is looking to you for a laugh, a tear, an entry into a private joke, a chance to sing along, or just a tenuous smile within their particular grief. It is so very simple to express yourself through Jell-O.

They surprised me with a Title

This is what I always say and what I will say in my off-the-cuff speech I decided not to prepare much for. The Jell-O Art Show is in the moment, the moment you bring to it. When you bring your joy, it adds to all the other joys of Jell-O and there we are in the happiest mix. I think that is why it only goes for three hours. No one wants to watch it all melt and get moldy and be like a repeat of some bad TV and not be the peak experience it is. Everyone wants a brief respite from all care, a celebration of spring, a romp in the new grass and a bite of beauty and delight. Even the chocolate-covered Brussels Sprouts taste good.

If all the Jell-O jokes have been told, so what? It's Jell-O. If someone falls down on stage and misses their cue, so what? It's Jell-O. I told her to laugh and keep going, whatever happens. I told her although it matters so very much, it also does not matter at all. It really doesn't. All the Jell-O is never all the Jell-O. There is always something that will amaze even me, veteran of all the Jell-O Art Shows and taster of all the Tacky Foods. I always have a huge grin the whole time, and if I don't, it's just because I took off my glasses and forgot I can't see very well without them. If I don't recognize you, just come over and fake-insult me and I will pretend to cry. I tend to get pretty over-excited and up in the air about three feet above the crowd, but do know that I return all the love over the next few days and you can always come and collect if you didn't get enough.

It's Jell-O Day. It's way better than my birthday. Maybe it is my birthday. I think I am turning one. It's too much trouble to make a cake, let's just make some Jell-O. Then, let's put it up on a pedestal and take it really, really seriously. After that, let's throw it out in the yard for the slugs. Want to?

Chasing Down the Pages

A second intense, long day of classes and chatting with writers at the Wordcrafters conference and I feel like I could sit down and write my whole book tonight and never stop. I worried that at a fiction conference I wouldn't get enough to help me with my narrative nonfiction, but I was dead wrong. I already knew I wanted to use fictional techniques, and my writing group has always worked on my pieces just like fiction for that reason, and that carried through the workshops too. Nobody glazed over and said, "oh, you mean memoir," as if that were the thing old ladies do when they have nothing new to say. No one even seemed to see me as an old lady!

Every topic, discussion and lesson translated directly to my work, and since I am only comfortable listening with notebook in hand I right away started to jot things down. Quickly I formed the habit of putting the general tips on the left side of each page and my specific ideas for my project on the right. As I went from room to room the pages filled and now I have 24 pages of very specific plans for each and every part of the book I will write. Furthermore, now I know that I will certainly write it.

Going into the first day, which was Thursday evening, I was saying to myself (in my habitual conversations while walking or working) that I wasn't focusing on publishing, that I loved the research, that I was only writing the book for myself anyway....These are all the usual excuses we make when we are afraid we would rather fail from inaction than from hubris. I knew that, so I didn't say them out loud once I got there. All of these people were publishing, or published, and they weren't all that different from me. They were creative people, I am creative, and I feel that I am a good writer, especially when I bother to edit and remember to use what I have learned. So I just pretended to be a real writer for the first night. These big shots with lots of books that are bestsellers did things like accidentally drink my wine, touch my Jell-O, laugh at my clever repartee. They were friendly even though they were surrounded by their real friends. Some even told me intimate things about their real lives, and we connected like people do. Ones I knew liked me more, and I liked them more. We had a community. And we have books.

Magic happened. Maybe it was in the first few hours, and I couldn't tell you what started it, but now when I look at my notes I have it all there. I have the structure, I have the beginning, the end, the scenes, the characters, the vision. I already had the passion and the material, but now I am sure that I have a book. It's not just a thing I'm working on, it's not a memoir, it's not an essay here or there, it is a fully-feathered story with a narrative arc and all of the elements that make a compelling tale. It has suspense, it has depth, it has real marketability, and it is mine to make happen using all of the magical techniques that are there to use.

With what I gleaned from the minds of these experienced and hard-working writers, I have something real, compared to the maybe-fantasy-dream-someday pile of papers I had before. Someone I respected even said words like "fine" and "good." Those are the pats on the head I so needed, the taking me seriously that I have only had in my intimate group of four with whom I have been meeting for decades now.

Sure, I get compliments on my meeting minutes, and I am a great speller and can put together an articulate opinion, but my creative writing rarely gets read. I have these blogs, these unedited ramblings of mind that I toss out effortlessly to promote this or discuss that.  I have folders and files of pieces I've written for myself, all in preparation for a next step I have been unwilling and unable to take. But these writers shared themselves with me. They told me all the things they learned that helped them, and they helped me and the others in the room. They said so many useful things! I also have piles of papers and books and materials to study, all given generously by those who created them and lived by them. I am the luckiest person right now.

I'm not holding the manuscript; it's still in my head and in my notes, and it will be many long months before I do hold it up ready to take the next step. I don't know what that will be. I do know that I have had a wonderful time being me, in the midst of what might have been some terribly intimidating people, but now they aren't so scary. I showed myself and they received me kindly, even enthusiastically. They liked what I do, and they liked what I say, and some of them even accepted my friend requests. I wore Jell-O and shared it, and some of them were properly amazed and delighted. And the Jell-O was just a sideline. They liked the inside of my mind.

It feels like there is nothing so wonderful as that. I will go to sleep a happy, lighter woman. I will rise up early and go catch one more class at 8:00 am. I am the richest woman in the world at this moment. I hope I remember this feeling when the drudgery sets in and I don't have time to write and the writing is crap. I hope I remember how naive and untrained I can sound on the page and how hard it is to pound it into shape. I hope I can be humbled and still keep in mind the euphoria. I hope when I stand at a podium and talk about my writing, I can be of this much help to someone else. What a world we imagine, what a story we tell!

Put Your Write Arm In

I'm overexcited this morning. So much is happening, and strangely enough I'm not longing for those January days when pretty much nothing was. I miss having time for my research, but I just signed up for the Wordcrafters writing conference http://wordcraftersineugene.org/  next weekend, so I know my passion for it will stay charged up until I can get back to it. Except that it might be August when that happens, as the retail season is ramping up.

I was just lamenting yesterday how much of my writing energy is put into typing minutes and letters for my groups. I love volunteering, and see the contributions I can make, but I can also see how limited my time could be (65, that's a big birthday coming up) and how sad it would be if my legacy was a bunch of meeting minutes which very few people would read. They'd pass from notice as soon as I stopped doing them.

But my book, or the compilation of my research, articles, corrections to the historic record of Eugene, all of that would have a teense more lasting power and a wider readership. That isn't so much my goal, but it seems that to finish it in some tangible form would be like gluing a jigsaw puzzle to plywood and hanging it on the wall. In a public place. Some people would love it, and actually since it would be original work it would be way cooler than a puzzle picture of Sahalie Falls or a landscape in a thousand shades of green and blue.

One of the options at the conference is a little appointment to talk about my writing with someone...though my genre, creative nonfiction, isn't really a focus this year. Still, I'm guessing that one of the consultants has an interest in it. Historical fiction comes close, and literary fiction comes close, and I could write a piece for those if I had the time, but that would be a dream. I have minutes to type today...oh that circular thing. Well, it is pi day. Maybe I forget the circumference and go right for the radius and that focal point.

The Jell-O Art Show performance practice last night was as good as it gets. The group was a little smaller, we all had our scripts and even a few costumes and props, and we were all primed to run through it and time it and see if we can fit into our 20-minute limit. It did fit! We had such a blast, as it all worked somewhat smoothly and we sang harmony and as Larry said, we were a little bit loose and a little bit tight. I am still excited over that, and tonight am actually going to a party. If you know me you know I almost never do that. My excuse is always Saturday Market, how I have to go to bed early on Friday night and am too exhausted by Saturday night. But this weekend and next weekend, and the one after that, no Saturday Market.

I'm a little in disbelief that this is my last Saturday off, with the conference next weekend and the Jell-O Show the following one. I mourn the loss of what seems so ordinary but I only get this particular leisure time for three months out of the year. I like those PBS shows, the Woodwright, and the other building shows, and I love knowing that lots of people are home enjoying their homes. Of course I love working at the Market too, but there is a special joy in staying home. Most particularly it is a good feeling today as it rains out there.

Rain makes for such a difficult outdoor day at the Market, but as a dedicated member I always go. I complained about the weights issue on my other blog, http://gelatinaceae.blogspot.com/2015/03/too-many-projects.html so I won't get into it again, but it's really only the rainy or iffy days when I bring the pop-up and need the weights. I might need one for the umbrella, to make the 30# requirement, but it could rain every Saturday. It has happened that we get into a pattern when it is nice all week and rains every weekend. It even snowed on April 21 one year. Just because spring is a month early around here doesn't mean the weather is predictable, or favorable. It's a challenge, and adds to the many challenges which kind of swim around in my outer awareness. I'm trying to train myself not to actually worry about things, that is, obsess over them and chew on them, but they do come up.

So perhaps I will write something just to distract myself. I've written the first pages of my book a dozen times or so, and it would be easy enough to take that and see what someone would say. The beginning is crucial, and I do have the tendency to make it too expository and not compelling enough. Comparing the starts over the years tells me I have learned a few things, but there is always more to learn, and I have little to lose. None of them will think it is their job to discourage writers. The whole idea of getting together is for mutual support and encouragement, but neither will they be there to give empty praise. All writing groups probably learn that simple praise wears thin and writers want actual support in the way of helpful suggestions we might not have considered. We want to be (gently) pushed to write it a little better, to make one more thoughtful edit. We use what we know to provide a slightly different view to the writer, just point something out in a useful way. The ego needs a little praise, of course, and writing does involve ego.

That's a tough one to overcome, that investment of the self that needs a pat on the head. I suppose the fear of that is why I don't try harder to exhibit my art, or go to the Art Walks more often. I stopped in to see the New Zone show and there were several astounding pieces from friends I would not want to have missed. Patricia Donohue's fairy dress just stopped me in my tracks, and I had already been grabbed from browsing by my friend Indra Stern's sculpture of rusty assemblage. There were some thread paintings that were thrilling. There wasn't any Jell-O Art. Why didn't I push a little harder and take something in? It would have been so easy.

Unanswerable questions. I guess I was busy not making that my priority. I had an intense focus on the Jell-O Art Show and couldn't take on anything else. Until my thoughts about the place of my volunteering in my life, I had let it erode my priorities and take over my time. Something like the OCF is so big it will suck you dry if you don't set some inner limits on what you can give and what you must keep. This is a part of being a human, especially a nurturing and supportive human. Once in awhile we have to get shocked out of our groove and take a bit of a turn to the sun and reorient our directional focus. We can give it all away.

So okay, I have talked myself into writing something. Maybe even today, instead of cleaning the house, which as all artists know is just a futile attempt at control. The house will always need to be cleaned. I do have to find and get rid of that sauerkraut odor, but I do not really have to vacuum the living room. The bathroom is okay for today. That party isn't at my house.

We have practice tomorrow too. I have kind of a tight rule about keeping Sunday for solitude and sustenance but I am going to break it for the next two weeks. I'm going to extend myself, just a bit. I'm convinced it will reward me. You never know. Somewhere between the Introvert's Ball and the Queen of Jell-O Art, there is a little girl wanting a really satisfying pat on the head. Just ask me to remove my crown for a minute and lean on in, if you are one of my tiny dedicated group of readers. Or allow me to poke you in the eye with a Jell-O orchid, your choice. It's Hokey Pokey time! You put your whole self in, and you shake it all about...

A moment in time

Wow! I just paid off my mortgage and home equity loan and am momentarily debt free! I felt the need to announce it somewhere. I was afraid if I put it on Facebook the ads and spam would start to roll in telling me the thousands of ways I could fix that un-American first-world problem.

It does seem very strange. I feel myself reaching for a credit card or wanting to go shop for something or other. I will resist and see how long I can stay here. I did commission a giant pile of locally made bags yesterday so that does constitute a debt of sorts, but it won't come due until they are cut and sewn and pressed and I go pick them up, so it just feels like a little weight. I could get used to this giddy weightless feeling if I wasn't sure that it is only a short moment in my life, a tiny step between one promenade and another waltz that is sure to sound its opening notes at any time.

Okay, to be more realistic, I will still have all of the usual bills and things that must be paid for, property taxes, health costs, dental bills, oh! It's getting heavy again. Not as heavy. It will be a little easier to face each month without that old deduction from my balance that I wrote into my check register for so many years. Decades. I won't miss it after the first month or two. I do feel like I should celebrate.

Since it's sunny I think I'll go out into the garden and cultivate something. I'll see if my asparagus is emerging yet. I'll check the fruit trees and try one more time to reach those apple branches that the pole pruner can't get to. Maybe I should buy a new pole pruner. The rope on mine finally parted so I shortened it and that is why it doesn't reach now. Not likely that I will hire someone to get those branches, though. I've been in the simplification mode for some years now and I'm getting rid of bills, not adding more.

So that's it for today! No long ruminations on the future of OCF or no typing of the many minutes on my list. I'll come back later and do some work, update the Jell-O Show script, do the dishes, work on props. Right now I owe it to myself to be happy with what I have accomplished. Tra-la!

Perspective and process

As the scribe for OCF Craft Committee, I do double duty there. I'm a witness and recorder to all that we do, and I serve as the person in place to communicate that to whomever is interested in reading the minutes or our articles and letters. It hasn't been an easy two or three years, and I'm still a newbie when it comes to being a Fair volunteer.

I've been a booth holder and crafter there for around 30 years. I spent a fair amount of that time articulating my complaints in true outsider tradition. When you don't feel seen or recognized, you tend to complain about "them" and throw ideas for improvement out there with little direction. I didn't know many of "them" but I've always liked the ones I did know, so for me there came a time when the obvious way to make progress toward a better experience was to get to know more volunteers. That has worked really well for me.

One of my regular tote bag designs

I tend to like almost all of them, at least on some levels. It's easy to admire dedication and once I started volunteering I was able to see the immense number of hours that people put in, rather unselfishly. As in all human endeavors there is self-interest, but in general the goals are shared: to keep the organization thriving to hold the annual event and to grow in ability and dependability so when people come and go, the big spinning peach doesn't wobble too much.

Last night at the Board meeting a few clues were revealed that I hadn't seen before. Any group of passionate people is going to disagree and the OCF group is so many thousands of passionate individuals that it is a wonder forward action occurs. Credit can be given to the hippie process of consensus seeking and to the transparency of the detailed minutes and now the recordings. Recordings of candidate interviews for Board positions and now the Board meetings themselves gives the observer plenty of opportunity for analysis and a more informed view of how things work or don't. At least now our complaints can be a little more informed and our solutions can be a little better directed.

My new love is the Vision Action Committee and though I don't plan on joining, I find them to be in a great place of responsiveness which isn't so easy to access through other channels. I wrote them a letter two years ago when I had a frustrating experience trying to navigate Fair structure. I tried to articulate my biggest goal: better communication: that by understanding each others experiences we will learn respect and be better able to work together. This isn't a new opinion but I found my comments printed in the FFN and listened to, carefully, by the committee. I won't be able to attend the Vision Summit on April 26, but you should if you have big ideas about what the OCF should be doing. That is a good place to work.

Calling out the Board as a whole, as the Craft Committee just did, and as I have often done with my complaining letters in the past, is just not very effective. Anytime you take individuals as a group you will risk putting some on the defensive, showing them that you didn't see the individuals who acted on your behalf, and allowing each of them to sidestep any responsibility. It would be a lot more effective to get to know each person, to speak to them about whatever issues you perceive divide you, and then work together to meet the mutually agreed-upon goals. I see the individual Board members doing this. I see people who go to a lot of meetings trying to do this. I didn't see myself doing it last night, and don't see my committee doing it, but we can start. We have to overcome feeling excluded and not wanted, but those are our feelings, not the full reality.

I felt a little bullied and dismissed, though I succeeded in not taking it personally as I was there to speak for my group, and all crafters, not myself. Our report explained and clarified and asked for diligence on their parts in listening better to our expertise. I don't think we convinced anyone that we had such expertise, but that may come as we demonstrate more of it. We've been doing a lot of important work supporting Craft Inventory after it kind of fell off the rails, and we also have been working with Registration and management in pretty effective ways. But the Board doesn't necessarily know any of that. Not all of them probably read our minutes, and not everything is in the minutes, of course. The issues that seem so essential to us are not seen as essential by many. Even though nearly a thousand crafters probably agree with us that the issues we are trying to address are vital, that isn't being generally communicated, and the fast pace and business of a Board meeting is not necessarily the best place to communicate it.

But a conversation with an individual Board member might be. If I said "My survival as a craftsperson who makes screenprints depends on a level of protection against screenprints made by workers in a factory using automatic printing equipment," that might get some traction. Then we could talk about how to do that, by strengthening the jury process and giving management and crews better tools to use to exclude factory-made screenprints. Of course it is never simple, because I screenprint on things made in factories. That is within the guidelines, and some of my items are now being made in local factories of less than ten people, but still an issue with a little muddiness. So to simplify it I might go to a level of abstraction: "My survival as a person who works alone and does things by hand is put at risk by selling next to someone who actually does not use their own hands to make their items," that is a little more useful but it might not have the juice of my personal statement.

As a committee we are trying to sit right on that fine line of abstraction that will include the situations of all craftspersons while not stepping on any of us unintentionally. That I think is the key to the imports confusion: it is a bit muddy and lots of people don't see the fine distinctions we are trying to make. Yes we will still have imports, but not all kinds of imports, and we might have them there, but not over there. There isn't time in a Board meeting to articulate the fine points. The process of making policy requires that fine point work to be done in committee. That is the process.

So the Craft Committee is trying to stay within those limits. We are doing a huge amount of work to articulate those fine points, but the Board doesn't know that. We have to tell them, and in return they have to allow us the supportive and respectful atmosphere to bring our finished work to them to make it policy. That's the way the two bodies have to work together here. So we tried to make that clear, to improve that atmosphere. I don't know that we succeeded, but it was an early step in a long process.

We will be meeting this Saturday, the last one we will be able to meet before the Saturday Market season starts. The group we call the Craft Policy Working Group will meet, and continue our work to compile and clarify craft policy. If you even read the guidelines, you are well aware that they are confusing and sometimes contradictory, and that taking a section of them and simplifying it would be a good service. That is the piece of service we are trying to do. I think it deserves respect, and I think it will get respect, but I will personally have to toughen up a little, as we all will.

This is not a group of people who can be controlled, manipulated, or deceived, those of the OCF. We are aware, we're deep thinkers, and we all have a ton of ownership and devotion to our bite of the peach. We do move forward, but it isn't always smooth. I still have faith. Hard work is respected, and skills are recognized. The hours we are putting in being thoughtful and caring will have positive results, if we hang in there, keep working, keep communicating, and be patient. All of us have to do this on all of the levels.

Getting pissed and walking away is the way to waste your efforts. All change in OCF is caused by a driven individual persisting in finding consensus and having needs addressed and met. It does happen. It isn't easy. I salute the people who can go to those meetings month after month and keep their faith. I'm not tough enough yet, though I do read every word of the minutes as soon as they are posted and I do pay close attention. I have to step up the other side and lose my fear of standing up before the big boys. I'm working on that. I'm turning 65 soon, so I don't know how much braver I will get, but you never know. I felt a lot of support in the room. That matters very much to me. Change will come, one sentence, one person, at a time. I want to be there to witness it.

2014 special logo bag. I'll have an even better one this year I hope.