The wisdom of age and experience

Not my first booth, but close. 1977?

  I used to spend a lot of Sunday mornings reflecting on the lessons learned on Saturdays at Market...it seems that every week I learn something new or am reminded of something important about our community. For the most part, I have not felt connected as an experienced elder in more recent years, not quite as wise and esteemed as I expected. Rather, I feel more poignantly human and fallible. While I feel my creations are appreciated and still relevant, and I'm connected to my customers, I don't feel as much a part of an artisan community as I used to. 

 

Artisans have changed, with the internet I expect, but with the changes in the farmers' market and the rise of Whiteaker popup markets and the FSP, all sort of defining our market as kind of an artifact, kind of the establishment instead of the ground-breaking innovators we were and prided ourselves as being. Creative solutions to problems were always our strength. We were grounded in values such as authenticity, honesty, mutual respect, non-competitiveness, mutual support, and a rather conservative approach to change. We were careful about breaking something that was working so well for so many. We protected the common good.

That's still there, but the common use of employees at farmers and the idea of selling year-round, with commercial businesses alongside small owners, has set a different expectation. People can sell online and at Whiteaker without really being handmade, or in person...the boundaries are not as strict, and although we have tightened ours, we see more people trying to sell imports or manufactured items, thinking no one will notice. We still notice everyone and what they do. "We," meaning longterm members and your booth neighbors, see you when you pack up early, try to outsell your neighbor with attractive gimmicks like raffled items, think about getting your own needs met over those of the whole membership, and in general, erode the feeling of all of us "being in the basket" together. That kind of left with Beth, sadly. Her newsletter columns had an inspiring quality I dearly miss, and her ethics and sense of fairness and right action were unmatched and a real treasure for us. For the next few hires after her, we searched for "the heart of Beth" and a visionary leader. That faded away, and that's all I'll say about our community's search for great management. We are a hard community to manage, and a membership organization is a very hard entity to even understand. Even when you are a part of it.

Hard work isn't enough, although we certainly value it. There are some subtle undercurrents that are easy to miss or misunderstand, and hard to track. Certain events and changes trigger my senses of those, but I often don't know how to communicate them and I don't find a lot of welcoming of historical knowledge, more of an attitude of well, that was then. The 70s in Eugene was different from the rest of the world. It wasn't disco here, it was hippies. It was the heyday of the alternative society, the culture of DIY before the internet, building consensus and community and back-to-the-land, political awareness and protest, and trying to create a better world. Not the disconnect and escapism of disco...not generally pleasure-seeking...here that was the 80s. At Market, we always worked hard and prioritized political awareness and making a more fair economy and social world. I do not think that was just me.

I am not nostalgic for the 70s. It was painful and hard for me...1970 in particular, when I was 20. I am astonished when I look back at all that happened at once. I was a radical student in DC, getting teargassed and terrified, fighting to end the war in Vietnam. My family and personal life were crushed, though that was mostly tangential, but related. I met Black Panthers though my roommate, whose family was involved in the legal defense of the Chicago Eight. I saw through the artifice of capitalism and government. I never went back to accepting the status quo or not fighting for my rights to make better choices than what was offered to young women at the time. I wasn't really aware of disco...for me it was soul and Motown, as I grew up in Delaware with a lot of Philadelphia cultural influence. I went to the woods to heal in the mid-Seventies, and made my way out here as a traveling signpainter, inspired by Woody Guthrie and Joan Baez, and of course, Joni Mitchell. Romantic, but not accepting lies and manipulation. Looking for love, but not exactly recognizing it. I actually learned about love wandering the dark paths of Country Fair, where I realized that the love of a man was not what I either wanted or was going to find. There were so many other kinds of love, and most of them, I already had, or did find. I found safety in my community and built myself what I needed. I'm not nostalgic for that. It was hard work.

It was all of the liberation movements, mostly for me, feminism and anti-racism, and finding a way to do work that didn't require compromising my ideals. Being an artisan checked the boxes, and when I got here in 1976 and discovered Saturday Market, I found my spiritual and physical home. I thrived in the Eighties through what I learned from my membership organizations and community activism. I figured out my PTSD in the 90s as I figured out motherhood, and shifted my work to building safety and love for me and my son, but Market was always a thread that held my life together and gave me the means to learn and explore. I always recognized the treasure of it, but I remember looking around one day there and feeling like it was not working for me. My income had fallen from an average day of $350 to $200 to $30. I quit Saturdays and built a house, but I stayed a member and in HM, and when I started to lose my BHOR status and my ability to keep the same booth for the duration, Vi pointed out that if I just came to Market a little, I would have the points to keep BHOR status. Vi was wonderful at knowing each member and caring about their needs. Talk about a treasure.

So I came back. I strolled for one day (aargh,) then took 4x4s to build back my points. I got space 120 next to Raven, and through his wisdom and counseling I reconnected with my roots and the meaningful aspects of selling to the public in the center of downtown. That was 2006 or so, not sure, but since then I have come every single week that was possible. It's part of my identity.

What I wanted to write about today, though, is the nuances of how we work out our process of decision-making and consensus-building. I feel that is central to the satisfaction our members expect to experience in our marketplace. We know authenticity when we see and hear it...that is a big part of why people choose to make a living creating things. We do not respond well to manipulation, or even cheerleading...it causes mistrust. In my dealings with the City trying to help manage the redesign of the Park Blocks, I tried hard to convey that honesty was far more important than most things in the process. We could tell when we were being pushed to an outcome, and I created the Downtown Developments Task Force to keep members informed on the real process and help us create responses that would keep our needs in the forefront. The City got me...they now have said that whatever happens going forward, they want to follow our lead. They don't want to do anything to us that we don't actively support. They are used to public resistance and worse, and they want to be careful not to stir that up in us. They actually do value our organization and event, and they do try hard to support us and help us thrive. I have changed from mistrust to figuring out how to be a good partner, without compromising. I used to say we said no without saying no. Now I want to say yes, but...we lead. We know what we want.

The whole city, not just us as one user, deserves a better Park Blocks. To get there, we have to embrace some difficulty and make the concessions necessary. We will have to accept displacing ourselves for a long enough period to have some real construction happen. It can be one block at a time, but it will involve at least a season, maybe more, for each block. We need to discuss what we want...we need more space on both blocks. Our food booths need bigger spaces, and we need a stage that isn't completely dangerous in the rain. We need to let go of the fountain even though we love it. It's not safe, it's a maintenance nightmare, and we need to let go of just a few trees that aren't going to do well in the future. We need to partner with the city in a vision for the next 50 years. We can't stand in the way of it.

It's hard, super hard, and we can see how it worked for the farmers, which has mostly been positive. We won't move to 5th St, but there are plenty of ways we can use the surrounding streets and spaces to stay together and allow the change. We can hold onto what is important for us and reject concepts that won't improve us. Opening in March is one of those changes that I see as destructive to our fabric. You can see the farmers Winter Market and how it doesn't thrive...without the commercial businesses and employees and value-added products, it wouldn't exist. Farmers here don't have much to sell in the winter, and they also need to rest, like we do. Lotte had a great quote about the offseason which I will try to find today. March weather is terrible, much worse than November, and I can tell you from history how experiments in our model work out. Sunday Markets had a terrible cost, and it took years to recover. Our membership can be fragile in different ways, at the same time as it is strong.

One thing I know is that providing a sales opportunity isn't enough...it has to be a good sales opportunity. Tourism in March is not there, and with spring break and studying, students aren't enough either. Until April the public does not really turn out. Ask the farmers why so many of them don't do the winter market. Check out the Art Walks. Ask members who quit why...it is almost always because they do everything they are supposed to and don't make money. The market makes money, with the fees at the level they are now, but it rained every week this month and I saw the vast majority of reserved members come one time (as required.) New members filled in but they did it for the points, and when the reserved members come back, on the sunny days to come, the new ones will get shut out. In other times of high membership totals, we would turn away as many as 60 members a week. A lot of them give up, and the reputation of Market becomes "don't even bother, you can't get a space." We need more 8x8s for this growth, which is one reason I am recommending we ask the city to go forward with the remodel. We move ourselves to Broadway or Park Streets one block at a time and allow the redesign to create more space. It won't be easy and I personally don't want to suffer, but it will serve the common good, and the future. 

It won't be my future. I'm in the founding generation that is trending out. I'm physically not going to be there as the strong woman I have built myself to be, and I have this small window of opportunity still to share the lessons of history and all that I know about us and how we think and feel. Members won't tell you why they resign positions or fail to get charged up about volunteering, or even abstain from decisions at the Board meeting. I believe the HM survey process failed because people felt unheard and didn't bother to try giving feedback anymore. The decision to stay open until 6 was not what the majority wanted, so the majority stopped asking for it. The online survey was too late. The people most affected, those who have to travel for an hour after packing out, will just limit how often they do it. Big price increases drive out people who aren't making enough. They limit the number of weekends they sell...they cut their losses, and find other markets. Online is much easier and works pretty well. There are artisan markets everywhere now. We are not their only choice. We can't expect the loyalty of people who don't have a reason to extend it. 

Tightening up has a lot of risks. Redrawing the map and displacing people at the same time as increasing their costs to pay for things they may not support just makes them quit. We have always moved slowly and carefully because change needs to be balanced with sensitivity to its effects. People need to feel valued, not interchangeable. 

I want to be supportive and careful not to reject ideas that are well-meaning and hopeful, but I also have things I won't say, that would help prevent mistakes, because I do not think I am always right, and I am not in a risk-taking part of my life. I don't have time for a years-long process of making the mistake of selling in March or raising the fees so high people will just walk away. I can't be the only person at the table speaking the lessons that worked for us before. What I can do, is ask for due diligence. If we are going to grow, or extend our selling days, I need some data. I need the census back that showed us how many people sold on rainy days in the last two years, and how much they made. Not how much Market made, but what the average booth fee was, and the highs and lows. How many people went home with less than they came with? How many people lost their enthusiasm for participating when they didn't feel listened to or valued? What are the subtle ways we showed them that they actually weren't really as important to us as we said they were? 

I'm not a total curmudgeon, but dressing to celebrate disco on Founders' Day is so not who we are. I'm not sure how to gracefully say that, or that I won't share posts with grammatical errors that show we don't care enough to proofread. I want to value contributions of people who are genuinely giving them in the right spirit, and I do appreciate the enthusiasm of our staff. But that's my current struggle...how do I participate fully when I am not in support? If I do it in the traditional way, I do it privately. I just pull back. And then I leave, and I don't say goodbye. It wasn't my plan, and it isn't yet my plan, either. I'll keep trying. I don't expect perfection. 

But I do think the values set in the beginning should persist as the values today. Community gathering, easy entry, member and customer services (even if we lose a little money on them...) and equality as a goal. Honesty. You shouldn't have to talk people into participating...they should want to. If they don't, you're not doing it right. 

So many things still on my mind. Is this what wisdom looks like? I sure don't know.