Another Week, Another Meeting or Four

I suppose it's time for an update...so much has been happening. I'm busier than I want to be, and tired, and don't know when I'll get a real day off. I take a few hours now and then, read some short stories, do housework or yardwork because that seems like fun compared to people stuff. People stuff is so hard sometimes.

Got to go to a big meeting. I had to laugh at myself because I thought it would be with some politicians, and I had to talk myself out of being intimidated. It wasn't too hard; I knew I didn't have any professional clothes but I remembered I'm an artist, so I could wear artist's clothes. I have lots of those. I know the mayor a little, and she doesn't intimidate me at all, so I thought I would just use that to act big around the guys in suits.

When we got to the meeting it was not the officials but the staff, but it was the top staff. After I got over my disappointment I realized that it was actually better to meet with these people. They are the ones who get the projects done, who work together to make successes and give the politicians what they need to make the best decisions. These people were managers, and I'm a manager, so felt right at home with them. In my thinking about these issues it has always been in front for me that everyone needs to know who we are at the Market, what kind of people artisans are and what we need and feel, so that if decisions are made that will involve us, they will be well-informed decisions that will actually work for us.

So I took copies of the Saturday Market history as written by Lotte Streisinger and I took maps of how we use the Parks, and all of our promotional materials so they could see our presentation. I took brochures of the Kareng Fund in case any of them were looking for a way to support us with their high-level salaries. Not really, I just wanted them to see that we were thoughtful enough to have started an emergency relief fund. I wanted them to see how well we help ourselves, to see our independence and our identity.

I put the materials in my little tote bags that I have made for me, the ones we sell with the Saturday Market logo and "I buy local" on them, and mine that say Eugene, Oregon and Oregon with the ferns. I wanted them to see how well we promote where we are and all that we have to offer. All of these things were wonderfully received. They were very interested in the history, as if it were a missing piece they had been looking for all along. It does say almost all that is needed to understand us, the artisan culture.

The history needs an update and I want to do that someday, but everything that we were founded upon is still very relevant and it's all there in one document. It told about how the farmers were part of us. We didn't, in the meeting, elaborate on the many ways farmers have changed their organization since leaving our midst, but we made our point that we were two separate organizations with quite different goals. I said it wasn't one of our goals to grow, for instance. We tend to grow in lean times, when the economy is bad and there aren't many jobs. In better times, the artisan life doesn't have as much appeal as a paycheck with benefits to a lot of people. Their creativity goes back into the hobby arena and they go to work in offices and stores. But that's just one of the specific ways we differ from LCFM.

So we made some points, let them see us more clearly, and I hope it gave them some guidance for the tasks they are assigned. They kind of wanted to know what might happen if the land swap didn't go through, and probably were aware of what came out in the paper today, that the Skinner descendants will contest it. It's not clear if the Skinner descendants even know the farmers want that block, though I'd guess they must. They just don't want City Hall on it, I guess, and might be fine having the County Courthouse on it, but I don't get why they wouldn't think the farmers would be the proper use of it. Maybe they are also fighting the Public Market concept, but I don't know.

I noticed in an article on Portland Food that they are building something called the James Beard Public Market in Portland, and remembering the Boston Public Market and the one down on Fifth Street, I expect this is just a trendy development concept, a way to get a mall built in a more upscale fashion, filled with trendy upscale stores selling expensive foods and gifts. It's certainly not something we need on the Park Blocks, so I can see how I will agree with their opposition if that is at the base of it, but I kind of like the idea of City Hall over there with the farmers in front in a nice plaza.

But of course we have now made it clear that Saturday Market is what it wants to be and won't be buying into any development concept. We need to be quaint and keep that link back to the commons and the market where the sheep and wool were sold and the potters came and the scribes would write a letter for you to your relatives in other countries and towns. We don't want to get modern and upscale. We want to be there for our poorer artisans just starting out or struggling to survive health crises. We want to be there for that direct connection between artist and appreciator. I think we got that message across in the meeting and I think we might be able to get that across to our city in the next weeks and months.

Because our next challenge is upon us. The Project for Public Spaces is coming to placemake our town, and lots of people are going to speak up about what they want for downtown open space. It won't be about Saturday Market or the farmers, but we are some of the experts on what is really going on in the open space downtown. I can tell you that I see things, especially on Tuesdays, that you might not want to know about down there. Some of it is a little heartwarming, as there is some community being formed in the Parks, but most of it is more on the perplexing end of things. Are the people who live in the parks really out of better choices? Some of them must be, but some of them are addicts and pleasure-seekers who just want no responsibilities and to live off what they perceive is the surplus of society. They don't seem to care if that is a result of the hard work of others, and that conversation is getting harder and harder to have somehow.

I'm hoping it will get easier to have. I'm hoping that some of the ways people are being so divisive and violent to each other will ease after the upcoming election, when the haters don't win and good hard-working people get a little boost of gratitude for each other and mutual appreciation. I do hope it works out that way.

I still am having a lot of issues with leadership and collaboration and am not quite over the difficulties it brought, but it has felt like a productive few weeks on many fronts and some things have gotten easier. I like local politics quite a bit more than national and feel that I can indeed make a contribution, and must, but it is hard to put in the time. It's a struggle to get paying work done with so much volunteering, so lots of things like dishes and cleaning are not getting done. Writing this was not happening...it's hard to form coherent paragraphs when you're sleepy and just want to watch stupid TV or doze with a book.

I sat down to type some minutes and now it's too late for tonight so it will have to go onto the next time-off interval. I figured it would be nice to get back to my readers with a reassuring message though. Making change is a hard, slow process that is really a dedication to steady effort, not a passionate flare, however empowering that may be when needed. Whatever gains I made were tempered by the pain that came along with them...and the net gain will not be recorded. It's already in the past, and was at best a slight reorientation easy to minimize at this point. People who were with me are still with me. Those who weren't still aren't. Maybe a couple of people got some points...maybe they didn't.

But anyway, we have another task force and a good and important task, so we'll just keep working. As Vi is known to say, All Will Be Well. We know that is true, mostly, and anyway, that's the direction we're going.