An Early Christmas at Home

 I'm so relieved to be finished with retailing. Every Friday I would fight down my distress about going to Holiday Market, reminding myself how well people were wearing masks and respecting distance, and what a supportive community we live in. The shorter days of the HM were the best. It compressed the selling day into a more dense experience, so all we had to do was stay in the booth and sell things, with a little tidying up now and then. The weather was hard to believe. Over the five weeks, not one was rainy. Twice rain moved off until later in the day, and yesterday the rain did roll in at 4:00 so I got wet on the way home, but almost all of us were finished packing or could quickly wrap it up by the time the wind started gusting. No booths to blow over.

I moved to the front row spot so I could more easily use the pop-up but didn't bring it once...with the weights and all, I have to leave products home to accommodate the weight, so I gambled on the forecasts and that worked out for me. The masks were a huge hit. I felt good that they were different from what the other mask-sellers were offering, as I know I cut into their sales, but mine were late to the scene so I couldn't feel too guilty. Also no one else was offering dyed jersey with head straps, except tie-dye, and once people tried the head straps, they mostly liked them a lot better. The nose strips are also really sturdy on mine, which keeps them in place nicely. The only thing I don't like about them is that they do collect moisture so I had to change mine about every hour on the colder days, but I had plenty, so no problem for me.

I did notice the main drawback of the shorter day...what we lost were the slower hours at the end when we did all of our own shopping and our visiting. I ran off a few times but hardly had time for the farmers or anyone else, just essential errands and those quickly done. I was also exhausted the whole time and unable to properly respond to the many kind friends who brought me cookies and greetings and wanted to visit...it just wasn't possible. But of course that is always true at HM indoors too...it is rare to have the time for a satisfying visit. I'm considering sending some letters and cards once I catch up on reading and housework.

I'll have to go out briefly to pick up library books and deliver merch but aside from that, I plan to stay home hard. My stress level from putting myself at risk was constant, and even though it was low risk, and I had other motivations besides just selling my still vast inventory of crafts, it was still risk I would rather not take. I found myself assuming at times that I would get sick, and making contingency plans. I want to stay in the zone of having those plans in place but not using them. I do not want this disease. 

Though I am only 70 and have a great immune system, there's just too much still to do to even spend weeks feeling ill. I would rather stay home and gain 20 pounds. Which is possible...I really stocked up on tasty foods in the last few weeks. I have stacks of books. I want to organize and archive 2020 while it is still fresh...I doubt I saved enough of the news stories and relevant info to make a coherent narrative for anyone who didn't know what we were going through with the Market. And of course it is not over yet and we might want to look back at our early decisions and remember some of the reasons we stayed closed for ten weeks in what now doesn't look like such a risky period. I'm so glad we could end it and not have to push ourselves any farther. And I don't really know how to deal with archiving in the era of email...almost all of our Market interactions were electronically. I did print out and save some emails, but there's no way to capture all the social media posts and those were really the essence of our progress. Bless Vanessa's heart, she created a group photo from our individual photos (not all of us of course, but not everyone got into the HM family photo either) so we didn't lose that warm tradition. Plus we had a poster! A great effort by Daniel Conan Young to keep our art level high. We didn't lose a lot if you look at what we kept. We might have lost members...we'll find out in March.

So all is well, we made it through, and Market will revive in the spring sometime and might someday reach its former size and form. It will be interesting to see how things change permanently...it looks like shorter days have found approval finally. Some people have wanted to close at four for years, and some of the arguments against that aren't as powerful. One of them of course was me saying that those slower hours were our shopping and visiting times...but as we were physically more distanced, we may have emotionally distanced a bit as well. Those tight neighbor relationships are a little harder, and many of the neighbors didn't sell this season. Some who strengthened their online offerings won't feel the need to come back to the in-person sales. Some will retire and do other things. Some aspects of the gathering got a little random.

The loud amplified music on the corners will be hard to dislodge, even when we have our stage operating again. I suppose we can ask for enforcement of the noise ordinances but it won't be easy. Some of the music was great, and I was grateful, but yesterday it was super chaotic and I could barely tolerate it. Maybe we can turn the fountain back on so we can have that muffling influence. I know the perimeters have been problematic for years, not just this season. The farmers' project will be some construction noise and disruption, with some kind of move for the farmers, unknown yet as to when and where. I'll try not to worry about it. Maybe I'll have to go back to shopping at Tuesday Market.

Our community will likely not forget about buying locally, although the coming recession will hit harder and harder and some types of crafts won't sell well. It will be about values and relationships and the lessons we all learned this year: supporting the things you want to retain and the people you care about. Recessions and job loss often swell our membership and that might test us, particularly in the transition back to more crowded spaces, if that happens. So many unknowns about the pandemics...we could be finding way more illness in our collective future. And more climate-related problems, too...weather patterns, and fires. More things to put on the worry list and try not to think much about.

I'll need to find energy and passion. I had a sweet reminder of the passion last night as I sat down finally and Craft in America was on TV. I have been enthralled with watching these artisan profiles, with all that joy of being in the studio, making discoveries and working quietly with hands and heart to create beauty out of raw materials. I have a lot of art to explore still, something that I can really only do when the retailing doesn't dominate. I have a lot of writing to do too. 

Hooray, it is the off-season! May we all thrive in our splendid isolation and return from it healthy and peaceful. May we find warmth and the ability to help others, maybe even happiness in our abundance and the ability to share it. 

Thank you immensely to all of you who supported me, appreciated me, and loved me as I worked to shore up Lotte's legacy. We are so lucky to have the Market, and so much more resilient than we knew. A whole village. A healthy village full of peace and love and light. Returning light.

Sunday at Noon

 Well, we put the ending at 5:00 markets behind us for the season, to my relief. Yesterday was super wet once the rain started though it mostly held off until mid-afternoon. Market was lightly attended but there were so many thoughtful people who came down to support us by buying what we brought. I had some lovely conversations, which is always one of the upsides of slow sales days. For me, those were pretty good sales and my efforts to better display the masks paid off. I now individually cellophane bag them so they are safe and brought some baskets and racks so I can get them to be more visible. Still need to do more. I just love the groups of young people who love my hats...they sometimes each buy one, carefull picking out their top choices, and they are not always what you might predict. Guys like flowers and birds too.

One wonderful young woman got excited and inpired by my style and the fact that I bike,and told me she wants to do it that way too. She told me all of her family was anti-progressive and bought into the "radical left" propaganda and that is still my operating theory, that people were fed some really polished propaganda in their bubbles and we were all so exhausted it wasn't possible to question all of it. I have not figured out what of what was fed to me was false...that is the problem with bubbles. Unless you venture outside you can't do enough real research to figure out what you might be intentionally confused about.

We all think we aren't confused, that we know the truth and our theories hold it. We can overlook things...we feel we must. Biden wasn't our choice, though we are happy with some aspects of what he is doing, but nothing that happened was radical. It was very mainstream. It's historically wonderful that Harris is VP, and I think diversity will take a leap again, though pessimistically I expect more backlash.

It is of course shocking how comfortable people seem to be with racism and anti-intellectualism. Again, the result of propaganda in bubbles and of the fear-mongering. I suppose that is one thing we could have been snowed about to a degree...the fascism. I could see it, and don't deny it was a tendency, but I don't think it was nearly as widespread or popular as it was made out to be. I think it has much less support than is being reported, but of course it shouldn't have any support at all. But when people aren't educated, they don't get the connections. Law and order all sounds good on the surface. The scary other has to be someone, and it isn't usually someone like you. I cannot wait until more people denounce the fallen pretend leader but it is looking like it might be a long wait. The court cases should help.

That such a high percentage of white women voted Republican does bother me. I am certain some of it is the stock market...the bias is that Repubs are better at making money. The lack of connection of the absence of any substantial efforts to control the pandemic to the coming (and partially present) economic collapse is troubling. It helped ramp up the fear. If all of your investment accounts are going to tank, that's scary to women who have no independent financial security as they age, and want their kids to go to college and have kids and houses, and believe if you have money you can forestall suffering and death. We remember that collapse happening in 2008, though people may not remember why it happened...because of the lack of oversight and downright greed of conservatives. The Repubs looted and pillaged as they left office, too. So we kind of expect that again, and we will probably get it...I would argue we are getting it with the pandemic response and thr continued grift.

All of these systemic issues tied to racism are so evident in how the plague is playing out. The sacrifice of those without resources is undeniable and the way 45 "had" it was emblematic. He got the best treatments for free...not what would happen to me or to anyone I know. The callous disregard for those of color and the poor and elderly is shocking and seems intentional. That alone would seem to be enough for anyone to reject the current administration...unless they don't see it and feel like they will be exempt. I certainly don't fault the medical workers, who would try their best for me, but it isn't always up to them when the resources have been withheld.

There is a fact about predator-prey relationships that tells prey to get up close to the predator in the hope that it will be spared by loyalty and adoration, that some other victims will be chosen. It even goes as far as enabling and joining in the predation. You can of course see that in politics to a ridiculous degreee. You wouldn't think that would play out in mainstream society where people are fairly safe from 45 in person, but I think it is a factor because of the increasingly problematic personal relationships we are experiencing with the spread of hatefulness. People want so much to be part of what the people around them are doing and thinking.

For instance, if you want peace at home and your husband is into Fox "News", you might have to curtail your own independent viewpoint, and may be doing it by habit by now. And if you are "Christian" or in that part of the mainstream (and to an atheist like me, hard to understand except from a viewpoint of fantasy security) you may subscribe to letting your husband lead, and may have found that life seems easier that way. It's challenging to be a strong woman creating your own life. Challenge isn't our favorite thing right now.

Or if your neighborhood group all says things are one way, you might believe those people you have learned to trust. My Mom tells me people in her care center don't bring up politics...they need to feel the approval of the people they (used to) eat dinner with. And then we assume...people assume all of us at SM are old hippies and trend left, but we most certainly do not. We also tend to not confront issues that aren't directly connected with our Saturday activities. It's a tenuous security but we don't want to fight.

I've entertained the thought that the administration took the opportunity of the plague to reduce the population of the weak...it's believable that they think like that about us, the others, and it isn't much of a leap from there to other conspiracy thinking. I'm comforted by the reports that there was no fraud in the election and I believe that election workers, like postal workers, took their jobs seriously and were extra diligent, but like everyone else now, my trust for media reports is lower. 

My USA-Today-owned newspaper and my Sinclair-owned TV channels don't help me feel more secure in finding the truth. I'm trying to get less of my news from them and look farther by reading magazines and books, and like many of my family and friends, trying to learn to do without Facebook to a degree. My bubble on FB isn't all that interesting anymore as I'm more easily irritated in my hermit life and I just stop reading the people who annoy me. I don't want to post things much and don't want to start up on another platform either, since they all seem flawed. Maybe in the offseason when I am encountering even fewer people IRL I might try out something new online. 

I'm reading more books, currently just finished Just Mercy and White Supremacy and Me, and am in the middle of Recollections of My Nonexistence by Rebecca Solnit and The Known World by Edward P. Jones, and The Watchman by Louise Erdrich. The Solnit book is reminding me how it was to claim my life as a young woman, a process that is still evolving every day. The Saad book was extremely important and is still rolling through my subconscious and making me think. I am much less afraid to use the words White Supremacy and especially passionate about reading more truths about the genocide of the Native peoples. There needs to be more written about that in Oregon, I think. Maybe I can find more. The families I was researching might have said more about it than I caught in my first bout of research. They were among the first here, and some of them were Quakers. I'd love to get back into that research.

Have quite a long list of requests at the library, and a pile of old New Yorkers and Funny Times. I'm looking to reading a lot as the leaf-collection is almost finished and I don't have all that much printing work to do right now. Those archives loom...I am about to cover them with the Xmas decorations just to balance the low light conditions. I guess I have plenty to do. 

Still a full slate of meetings and minutes I am behind on. I'm not keeping up with the City Council that much. The news that the Park Blocks remodel is put off for 5-7 years is bothering me, since in 5-7 years I will be in my mid-late 70s and probably not a leader in the Market anymore, if I am still able to sell. Nothing is for certain at my age, with this plague a factor and the knowledge that other health challenges may follow. I think I'll still be willing to serve, but I hope that younger leaders will pick up the work and make decisions for the world they will inhabit. I don't necessarily think I should be in charge of things like what happens in the Park Blocks. Maybe in 5-7 years my archiving will all be organized and I can just color-code the things they might find still important as they navigate what we had to work through as it begins again for like the 5th time. I do kind of miss it as an intellectual and emotional exercise of figuring out what is important. My appreciation for our organization and for the City deepened as I learned about the process and met with the people doing it. Some of it was even fun.

Time to call my Mom and then since it isn't raining I guess I should get out and sweep up some leaves. I'm loving the quiet day with the hungry birds at the feeders and the kitty napping on the windowsill above the heater. Sundays are the best. I heard on the news it is National Clean Out Your Refrigerator Day. That is a trend I should get behind. Or not. No Thanksgiving to make room for. Maybe up into the attic to check the mouse traps and get the decorations down. Even though there's no Xmas, I am still going to enjoy my personal rituals. 

Hope to see you at the Holiday Market, briefly and with space. It's not the community gathering we want but it's the community gathering we have. Hope it isn't too cold and wet, but if it is, we close at 3:00. That is going to be some fun.

Gear Up, Moms.

Full of discomfort and anxiety...getting in touch with my fragility. I feel the compulsion to work through it or I wont be able to sustain the work that is before me. Right now I can't even finish up Facebook and get to printing the big pile of shirts I set out for today.

While I work I think, sometimes obsessively, about the things I would say or do if I weren't working, writing blog posts and having conversations in my mind while my hands are too busy to do anything else. I spent Sunday immersed in catching up on OCF volunteer work, typing minutes and letters and thinking hard about the conversations we've been having.

And in the evening I watch livestreams of Portland, emotionally joining the Wall of Moms to protect my kid and the kids of all of us, who are now on the line as we were in the 70s. My PTSD is running high, and I want to be of use, but my emotions are all over the place and my impulse is to hide and be quiet.

Saturday at Market there were too many people for me. I'm not ready to resume the normal flow of commerce and community. I did okay as the day progressed to the quiet that comes at three...it slows down then and I welcome that. But I heard some drums from the west and up 8th the traffic was stopped and a protest came through. This one was "Speak Up and Dribble" (the reference to a pro basketball player being told not to speak out months ago) and featured kids and adults dribbling basketballs down the street.

The structure of these protests now is cars in front, cars behind, and people on bikes and walking keeping the perimeter safe. There were yellow t-shirts identifying the particular mini-movement of the moment. I grabbed my sign and stood on the curb and joined the chanting. I started to tear up right away. I held my sign higher and yelled louder, grateful to hide my trembling chin behind my mask.

Everyone stopped at the center of 8th and Oak and they dribbled for 8 minutes and 45 seconds while we held up our arms. I can't actually do that with my left arm but I gripped my sign and did my best. It was a very, very long time. I had moved to the corner with a small cohort of my fellows and saw others of us in the street, and I assume the Market stopped, as I left my booth completely and didn't even think about it. The immersion into the long moment was compelling.

This was really my first in-person chance to worship the 8:45 as it deserves to be observed. I wept the whole damn time. At the end we took a knee. There was an ebullience, but I was full-on triggered and after it ended I waded right into the crowd to give a donation. I didn't even think about how close to everyone I was until the person I found to donate to hugged me...one of the maybe three times I have been touched in over six months. The first intentional touch. It didn't fully scare me until later that night, but it scared me good. A hug of gratitude.

As I returned to my corner I noticed things...a man in the protectors had a sidearm. He emanated safety and peace, though. A drunk person approached me, too close, to ask about my sign, did I really believe there was white supremacy in the US? At least I had no trouble answering him. I said yes, absolutely, that the country was founded on it, and if he didn't think so, he needed to read some history. He was slow but I felt that he wanted to argue, but was a little cowed by me. I decided to go back to my booth, so stepped back, and then I noticed that on my left was one of the guys who had been biking the perimeter. He had been watching that drunk guy, and was there to be my back-up if I needed one. Again, I sensed his presence as calm, safe, deliberately watchful and protective. This touched me in a new way.

I cry now to realize how hard everyone works at these protests to stay safe. The masks, the cars, the people in black or in shirts, all are there to keep us safe to speak (and dribble.) It helped me stop crying and finish the day. Typically my triggered episodes last a few days, with an aftermath of shame and weakness, and this was no exception. But as usual I try to keep operating and thus instead of a real rest day that I needed, I spent 8 or 9 hours immersed in OCF. At least I got caught up. I had to defend myself against my bully, but she really has no power over me now. She is so clearly against the flow of history and the moment that she has no real power over anyone.

Then Monday, instead of watching the City Council public forum on the Park Blocks, I virtually went to the Diversity Work Assembly. This was after printing about 250 shirts and folding them, which took all day in the heat. I got a notepad and started jotting down my emotions in a running stream on the right as I took notes on things I might want to remember to report on to my fellow crafters. I didn't identify any boothpeople in the assembly except two Board members but I may have not known them, and there were people from booths that aren't craft booths, such as White Bird. But I felt like I was out there representing and that scared me. I didn't want to be wrong and I didn't want to be right.

One thing I have learned about identifying racism is that once I see something as racist, I don't really go back to thinking it is okay. I want justice. I have a lot of work to do that BIPOC people have learned all too well, about patience and breaking big things into smaller pieces, about bringing people along and meeting them where they are, about making the changes workable by addressing what is possible now, what the goal is, and how to take it in steps so it will stick.


Because the big thing, that we have to address in my world, is that the Booth Rep System is exclusive. Call it racist if that doesn't confuse the issue, but the word "succession", when people use it, gets a visceral reaction. Giving property to your kids is elitist. Not everyone has the privilege we old members have created for ourselves within the structure of Fair Family. It is ringing hollow for me right now and I know I have to dial it back and work through it to some practical path that will work for the thousands of people who will be shocked and appalled and fight like hell to keep what they have.

We will say we have earned it. We will defend the hippie credo and how inclusive it has always been and how hard we have worked and how much we have spent. We will identify our ownership but not how that prevents the ownership of someone else. It will take some people the rest of their lives to deal with the emotions that are coming to be processed due to the moment we are in. I'm no exception. I don't want to do the things I know I should.

When I put myself out front, just twice, I didn't say everything, though I felt I said too much. We old lady crafters have a way of making things about us, centering ourselves, and I did that, to my embarassment. I did some other subtly racist things, like wanting to please people and wanting to seem like one of the good ones. I saw myself looking toward some of the BIPOC people I know or am acquainted with, for approval or help. I forgot to write my emotions down on the right side of my paper and was soon trembling and re-traumatized and so I'm doing this today instead of using the cooler hours for work. This is work. This is compelling work. There will always be shirts to print. (Maybe...)

We will have a lot to do. I am feeling my fragility and need to be building my strength. My bully is at it again, trying to oppose progress and paint things in the worst light imaginable, and fighting her has gotten so old, so tiring. I'm grateful for the physical space and isolation to feel safe, but my fucking neighbors who are hoaxers keep invading my space, using my driveway, walking on my sidewalk, making me fear my own front yard. I need something, some counseling, some real rest, some real space, and should probably go out in nature and sit. I should probably not force myself to work.

Dear world, I knew it would get harder to survive as we near the brink, of climate disaster, of constitutional ruin, of the apocalype that some are trying to create. My eternal optimism isn't going to be enough to get me through this. My previous ability to escape isn't working any more. I just find more to be accountable for, more people to reassure, more reasons to fight and reasons to be afraid. I dont know how to feel safe, don't know how I ever did.

This weekend I admitted that what happens to the Park Blocks is peripheral to me now. Something I put countless hours into over the last two years is something I don't even care about now. I watched the City Council after the 3 1/2 hour workshop. It was another hour and a half. It was inconclusive, and no one spoke for Market. I wanted to and heard my absence, but I have nothing to say. Fix the concrete. Help the farmers or don't. Take away all the parking and add some bike lanes, whatever. I have lost my drive to make it work for me or anyone else. I don't feel involved.

After saying we could not miss a single selling day or lose a single member, we missed ten weeks and have lost dozens of members. Now people are starting to die in our circle. Now things are getting critical in a life changing way. Now I face real loss. What I have built could die too.

Now is when I find there is no reassurance, no support that will help, really. This will all take the strength of legions, all working singly from home to make something completely ephemeral, real. It has always been that way, of course, when creating the future. We have never had certainty and we never will. We were always completely at risk and at risk of losing the glamour we spun over it all.

That veil is off. The shit is real. But the Moms arrived. We have, and are, the Moms. Gear up!

Taking a Moment

Spent this lovely day on the deck in the breeze drawing flowers for a design I'm doing for the Saturday Market staff who will have a booth at Fair this year. It's exciting to have a bigger presence at Fair, especially now, in the time when Fair is large in the world. I love the design but now that it's almost finished and I spent my day off on it, I feel trepidation.

It's probably not good enough. Nothing that I envision comes out as well as I imagine it, never has. I tell myself if I had ever overcome my beginnings and learned how to accept instruction and formal training, I'd be so much more skilled. Never studying art except by the doing of it, I can always see my awkwardness in my style. I'm not the type who would go to college now though; it isn't really even possible. I have to keep working as much as I can just to provide some kind of minimal security for when I can't work. No matter what I do I won't have enough resources, and it isn't like some credentials would allow me to charge twice as much for my work or anything. Someday I will take a little watercolor class when I am ninety if my hands still work.

Yesterday was a rough day, even as lovely as it was with so much packed into it. I've discovered that Sharpies aren't permanent and have had several people point out that my hats aren't weatherproof, particularly the logo ones that take so long to hand-color. I don't know what to do about it really, except tell people not to get them wet at which time they put them back and choose something else. It feels so bad to have an inadequate product. I will definitely replace any hat that has run, just bring it back. I'll figure out a solution for the problem too.


I know people didn't get what I was saying on my post about this new design. Very few thought it through to see the upside-down logo which is an artistic statement carried through 30 years from a joke for the OCF 20th. The peach upside down does look like a butt with a stick in it. It just does, so Mike and Ed made a kind of mean shirt for the 20th. It was hugely popular because people are always ready to criticize and there is always shit to sort through. For the 30th I made it into "Turning the Sacred Upside Down" which was my way of being philosophical about how we can integrate our darkside, and I still like that one. The 40th was a failure ("Still Seductive") and I had to give them away but this one for the 50th is rather beautiful and has the sincere message to Stay Grounded. Lovely leaves and flowers emerge from the peach when it lies on the ground and regenerates itself.

It's a good design but if you don't like the peach part it is apparently offensive. People also found the Sacred one offensive. As an artist I should be easier with my ability to offend but I am too much of a people pleaser and I want everyone's approval. I'll get over my disappointment. Forget posting designs on FB though. People don't know what they are saying. It's a fully finished product. I'm not going to make it bolder. I printed like 80 of them. I made it subtle on purpose. I did a complicated color blend that took forever. I wasn't asking for suggestions. But apparently I wasn't clear enough what I was asking. I was too subtle.

A lot of times when we are trying to be clever we fail. I can't be this sensitive if I am going to be powerful. This is a great time to toughen up. Leave the insecurities and triggerings behind and just forge ahead and do my work. At least the Elders shirt design is pretty good, if I don't point out all the flaws and inadequacies. It makes a lovely tote bag. I guess you shouldn't get it wet.The shirt says Elders on the bottom with the two dates, and I think they liked it. I think it's a good one, though not the best design I ever made as I wanted it to be.

Another thing that happened yesterday is that it was slow (we are suffering the loss of the many track meets and their tourism, and don't anyone forget it. They didn't care if we have a two year recession while they build that behemoth stadium which will be pie in the sky someday.) When it's slow we sometimes have some great conversations. Yesterday it was about UFOs that are real and the future that we almost can't discuss because it is way too real. It's hard to live with that terror, but I'm not moving to fucking Mars. We're going to save ourselves somehow if everyone will just get serious and stop flying and driving and ignoring the problems. Thank goodness for the young people.

So we're having a fun time chatting for the last two hours of the day and a guy comes by and asks for MAGA hats. Of course I politely say I would never make such a thing and then he lamely tries to continue, saying Andrew Jackson was a great human. By then we had all just wished him away and didn't even respond to that, but now I feel like he needed to be called on trying to bait us. Coming on our home ground, where we work, and saying racist things should be called out in some way. Ignoring was the best we could do so as not to spoil our lovely camraderie we were enjoying so much. Maybe I will think of a proper response to a racist coming into my space and deliver it the next time.

And I'm glad we didn't have a fight. Some bullies came to our meeting and it was intense but fascinating, because we didn't buy into their tactics. I feel like a year or two ago we would have been a lot more accomodating of bullying but this time we all knew what it was, exactly what it felt like and how not to feed into it. Skilled people responded appropriately and we gave some options to move forward and they slunk away without getting their way. It isn't over, but I really had to wonder if they had thought it through at all. Did they think they would bully us into their fantasy solution? They must have. I swear if some men don't evolve a bit faster we are going to start wearing our pussy hats every damn day. We did some nice healing after they left when we evaluated the meeting and left feeling clear at least. But a meeting that was going to be a good one turned ugly and that was sad.

At least we got the good news first. At least we got our work done and didn't suffer any lasting damage. At least we are clear that we support each other and our staff and we don't use unfair, unevolved tactics to work through our problems, we work in community to make decisions that will last and feel good. I'm proud of my community and what we've learned in the last 50 years, and keep learning.

I'm grateful for the good people that surround me and shaking off the residue from the bad. If I can just get a day on the deck once a week or so, with some flowers and a good book (I'm just finishing Horizon by Barry Lopez) and soon I will open Suzi's Vol. 2 and see what made it through the edits about me and some of my Fair friends and acquaintances. I'm proud of her and found the Museum exhibit spectacular and pretty comprehensive. They are lucky enough to have some big artifacts. SM doesn't really have those...not sure if any exist out in the world, but our lack of storage and our need for mobility for our event has resulted in not a lot of amazing junk like Fair has.

I was super interested to see how the framing worked since I am attempting to similarly frame Saturday Market history, and while I felt quite overwhelmed at how much I don't know about curating, I also realize that it won't be just me doing it eventually. If it gets to the stage OCF got to, there will be professionals involved. I can't imagine getting it done by next May, but you never know. I had a good start on it until I got too busy working. After Fair I can get back to it (and actually will be tabling for a day in the Historical Museum during the County Fair, on Wednesday July 24th.) Maybe I will get a chance to talk with curators and history nerds then and make some progress in how I envision it. Maybe I AM adequate to the task. Anyway I'm doing the task, so I will just have to damn the critics and keep doing the work.

A productive day, going from depressed and disappointed to strong again and ready for an intense week. Nothing that was supposed to be delivered last week arrived. I don't actually have anything to print this week, just one impossible piece of art and some things to order for art that will someday materialize. The end of June is going to be pure working hell so I will have to savor this day on the deck as I may not get another. The weeds will have their way with the garden and the lettuce will bolt before I can gather it in. I will try hard to get the garlic dug before Fair. I have found that if I don't, I can't find it after.

We shall see what the week brings. I guess I should take a minute and recognize that I made three amazing new designs and I still like them all. That's unusual. I printed a lot of shirts this week and will print a lot more, and will have some bucks at the end of it to put into my tiny savings account. Or buy wood and plumbing parts so I can forestall the sinking of my old houses into the ground they stand on. Good thing I'm so strong and youthful!

Just Write Something To Grease the Wheels

Practicing writing for the book and history displays about the Market. Obviously this would need a huge edit for a display, and maybe even more detail for a book, once I work out the structure it would take. I have a good idea for the book, something Erci Witchey told me about this other book I was writing. I plan to use it for both projects, eventually, at least in some form. It's called mirroring. I would take something from one part and compare it to another part, and make my points inside that structure. We started by framing our first history poster as Then and Now. It was mostly about our sites and an overview, and you will be able to see it this Saturday right next to my booth! Come by and tell me some stories.

I also think it would be an awesome way to feature some of our artisans. Do a profile of Gil Harrison another of our early potters, next to a profile of one of our potters today. Do the same with a jeweler, a printmaker, and so on, and in the process show how techniques, styles, technologies, and crafts have evolved through the work of the hands of these members. I love the concept but I would need to develop some interviewing skills, which I don't currently have. And it would be tough to write about people who have died...there just would probably not be enough information available to write a good profile. However, that particular book coule be kind of simple perhaps, featuring one signature piece and just enough of the artist's statements to tell the mirrored story. Anyway, it's one of my ideas.

I wrote this piece after I had just finished reading all of the newsletters and minutes from our first decade, everything I had at the time. I have since found more sources, about six more boxes of old things, and JoAnn told me she had saved every newsletter! So now I need to go back, figure out what I am missing in the newsletters, and see if she will let me borrow hers to make copies. I may develop more insights through additional materials. I'm thinking that each decade probably had a theme of sorts. Considering all that was going on in our world in the 70s, experimenting seems right. Perhaps at some point I will write more about the politics and the alternative community and how Market fit into all that. Now you can see why Suzi's book about the Fair is two volumes and she still didn't tell every story. These are big stories.

Saturday Market in the Seventies

Though based on an ancient tradition of artisans bringing goods to the commons for a market day, a weekly craft market was a novel concept in 1969 when Lotte Streisinger and her group of craftspeople and artists decided to create one. They had successfully mounted craft sales events for a decade and were part of a renaissance of handcrafting. The 1960’s cultural shift toward more authentic and natural lifestyles contrasted with what was seen to be the bland disconnecting lives of the 1950’s Americans, and Eugene became a center for seekers of healthier choices.

The founding values of having crafters sell their own goods directly to the public, on public space, outdoors and in as simple a fashion as possible proved to be popular and accessible. Though the first rainy market was small, the new gathering grew to uncomfortable size in the City-supported Downtown Mall, and some rent-paying merchants resented the group. After Christmas, the founders looked to find Lane County land, which seemed more abundant, and faced a different set of conditions.

The County Commissioners required incorporation and liability insurance as conditions for even preliminary discussion of siting. Though the group had only been charging $1 per space, they now needed to spend $500 to incorporate and $800 for insurance. They formed a Board of Directors and had the goal of being a 501(c)3 nonprofit, though subsequently finding that they could only qualify as a Mutual Benefit Corporation, which is not federally tax-exempt. They decided to structure themselves as closely to a nonprofit as possible, and set up not only the decision-making Board of five, but a Market Committee, composed of everyone who attended any particular meeting. This level of democratic management fit the community of artisans well and often Committee meetings included well over one hundred participants. When a space lottery was included, three hundred members would show up. Policy discussions were thorough and impassioned, and policies were hammered into shape, by a consensus process learned by many community groups of the era.

The County Commissioners were reluctant to support the Market but did allow them to stumble toward stability which finally came on the “Butterfly” parking lot across from the Lane County Courthouse. The first full season of May-Christmas happened there in 1972. The gathering had been embraced almost instantly in its first season by the public, and although it took a little longer for the downtown merchants to embrace the benefits of increased Saturday traffic to their businesses, several community leaders helped support the fledgling organization while it worked through its internal challenges.

Those were many. Volunteers governed and managed at first, and though the County required a hired manager, which soon grew to a team, salaries were very low and benefits were subjective. Winter layoffs when the Market was dormant guaranteed new managers nearly every season. Volunteers were still needed for many functions and the idealism brought passionate energy to every decision. Often the Committee would reverse Board decisions or the Board would have to survey, assess, and make decisions for the group for the common good. Every area of operations and philosophy had to be debated, and the first decade was highly experimental.

Should the Market open in April or May? Could the overflow of interested crafters be handled best with a Sunday event, a lottery system, or something new? Could food be sold, and how? Would it be a good idea to incorporate nonprofit groups for free, as a community service, or should the event try to be nonpolitical and sales-based? Decisions had to be made about fees to accommodate both the higher earners and the beginners or artists who failed to sell well regardless of their dedication to craft.

The fee structure changed often as expenses increased, as staff retention became a goal and the number of selling opportunities blossomed with the popularity of crafting. The Saturday Market intentionally mentored other markets as a way to keep the event small enough to fit in the 250 spaces

of the lot, and markets were started in Portland (1974) as well as many smaller towns. In 1975 a popular manager, Lou Elliot, used his on-the-ground training to move to manage an indoor venue that became the Fifth Street Public Market. Originally pitched as the next evolution for every crafter, that development encouraged some 85 artisans to move indoors, where the everyday gathering space also appealed to the community. The nature of the Saturday gathering changed with the need for it, and some wet weather years helped shrink the event and eliminate the viability of the Sunday markets, which ended in 1976.

Conventional advertising was discouraged but promotional events began early, such as Easter parades and Egg hunts, Tricycle and Wagon parades, and a pet parade before it became apparent that pets would be a continuing problem as the temporary restaurants increased. It became accepted by the public to bring kittens and puppies to give away on the surrounding sidewalks, and despite discouragement of the practice, it continued for the first decade until finally being controlled in the next. As a lively and unusual event, the Market attracted many types of individuals who had their own goals, whether that was to show off a costume, a performance, or a baby cougar or chimpanzee. Both animals were seen briefly in 1975 before being asked to leave, and the continual appearance of parrots, ferrets, and even a truckload of rabbits, meant to be meat, challenged the managers. A gallon of worms was permitted in the produce booth. The “No Dogs” policy had been set at the very first market in 1970, as essential as “Rain or Shine.”

At first busking was seen as panhandling, which was illegal at the time. Free entertainment was a welcome addition, however, so the musicians and mimes were asked not to appear to be begging, but to step up their professionalism. Paid entertainment developed gradually as the budget grew healthier, but soon the newsletters listed individuals and groups who are now legendary (and some still appear!)

Christmas markets were difficult in the weather and privately owned indoor markets developed, though the Saturday Market continued to be held each week. Many years there were several indoor Christmas markets to choose from, with predictable effects on the volume of crafters on the Butterfly. Still, sales potential for the season was attractive enough for the crafters to develop ways to stay warm and dry. Booth models and tarp arrangements evolved as the craft professional remained determined to adapt.

A Food Committee formed as it became apparent that regulations would bring conditions that required careful management of the risks of selling in hot weather, by inexperienced operators, and in outdoor conditions. The County Sanitation Department worked along to educate, inspect (every Market day) and secure compliance with licensing, and the Market tried covering licensing costs until the operators were doing well enough to manage their own costs.

Produce and other farm products were always considered essential to the event but farmers struggled to participate, preferring to sell from trucks. Early years included consignment produce booths managed by Market staff, and a farm or two tried having a booth. By 1978 The County had done a feasibility study for a separate Farmers’ Market and on June 23, 1979, the first Lane County Farmer’s Market was held at the Fairgrounds, attracting twelve trucks. It grew to as many as twenty-one, but the season and decade ended with a better solution still up in the air. Saturday Market continued to pay for the Farmers’ Market manager, permits, and costs, often at a loss for the budget.

Newsletters were created back in the day of the mimeograph with its purple ink. Usually 81/2” by 14”, they were given to all vendors and contained not only instructions for parking and registering properly, but minutes of meetings of both the Board and Committee, and creative stories and drawings of members and staff. Various logos and lettering styles appeared, graphically representing the evolution of the Market image, and in 1977 the basket of flowers replace a pushcart drawing. “The Basket” persisted as the iconic logo to the present day, although it was redrawn for special occasions to include holly or hearts, and for the 50^th season in 2019 it appeared as a more realistic, antiqued treatment of flowers, signaling a shift that will likely continue into the future as the Saturday Market reinvents itself each season.

The Fire: From the Saturday Market Archives

Please note: This blog is not an official Saturday Market forum or set of posts, but a personal one of member Diane McWhorter, who happens to be archiving the Market collection this winter in preparation for the 50th season. 

In the Saturday Market archives, I stopped last night just at the newsletter announcing The Fire. It happened on May 2, 1982. It was arson.

This was when the Market was still on the Butterfly and stored equipment underneath, in two rented parking spaces with various schemes to protect it. They used a chain, but the chain got stolen. In 1981 there were six times the stuff was vandalized, spread all over the place, and whatever was of value was stolen. The fire, on a Sunday morning, was clearly arson, probably done by someone passing through who had also targeted a similar organization in Seattle. I haven't read all of the details of the recovery yet.

The leading up to it is compelling though. 1981 was a very wet, terrible weather year for an outdoor Market. In addition, in 1980 a national recession struck, thanks to Reagan I guess, or the usual things that cause recessions. Here in Eugene it was rough, with lots of people relocating to find the elusive jobs. A government program, CETA, would give people $300 grants to buy tools. It wasn't a great time to be a craftsperson, but at least that was a job. I was painting signs then, and managed to live pretty low on the food chain, though I had to sell all manner of little things at the Market to get by. It was a little before t-shirts for me, so I made cards, calendars, and painted some amazing signs for places like Mr. Moto's and Poppi's, La Primavera, whomever I could find. Hundreds of us created our own jobs and held on for better times.

The Market on the Butterfly had at times held an overflow for its 250 allowed spots, but not that year. Vendor participation dwindled and while there were always a lot of food booths, growing to 40 once, people without jobs weren't buying a lot of crafts or art until Christmas, which had always been solid. Christmas Fairs throughout the 70's were generally two weeks long, every day, long days, but enough people were still left to sell on Saturdays that in 1981, for the first time, a five-day run of the Market was tried. It included Saturday Dec. 19th, and went through the 23rd. The rest of the December Saturdays were just the usual. Fees in those days were $3 plus 10% of the previous week's sales...this structure turned out to be fatally flawed, as on a bad weather day, people often didn't return to pay their fees from the previous good day, and when it was a good day, people might be paying on the previous week's poor sales day.

It's important to remember that the Saturday Market was the first of its kind, so the whole decade of the 70s was experimental, and often the parts that didn't work well were hard to change as quickly as they needed to be fixed. When attendance was lower, so were the numbers of interested, dedicated volunteers, and the balance needed of volunteers and staff could skew. No one wanted staff to work for free, but often the winter closure resulted in staff quitting rather than waiting out the three months of no pay. At the time, staff retention was recognized as a huge benefit to the organization, so we had two great staffers who had worked for a few years by then, plus a few hard-working volunteers, just not enough of them. We budgeted for staff to work at least some over the winter, so even when there was no income, there were expenses.

As you might predict, because this is a bit of a tragic story, the extended Christmas included renting 20x20 tents for customers, lots of great entertainment and special attractions, and lots of advertising, with the attendant big budget expenditures. Fees were raised to make it work, but it was all about vendor numbers, and it rained. It rained so much that one day was described as "the rainiest day ever." I think I remember it. There was 5 inches of rain, and the nine or so of us that stood under a covered area didn't quite know how we were going to pack up and get home. Rent for the Butterfly went from $40 a day on weekends to $500 a day on the weekdays, as the County wanted to recover the costs of the lost parking revenue. We were paying for all night security too, for the booths left on site.We were paying for useless advertising as no one came like they had when times were good.

Suffice it to say, the budget was busted. In January the leaders of the Market started trying to get loans, and to get a handle on how big the deficit was. There wasn't even a solid Treasurer at the time. It's a little hard to figure it all out from the records as all the 1981 newsletters are missing, but during the winter the staff salaries were deferred with promises to pay when things improved, an April opening was decided upon instead of May, and various fees were proposed. A $5 membership fee, and a Season Reserve fee were pitched. Reserves were in place then, but this was a discounted amount to interest people in early spending to pay the December bills. It worked, as did asking for donations, but it turned out to be a deeper budget hole than was known, and everyone kept digging of course. It was never mentioned that the Market could just roll up and quit, after a successful 12-year run. It was too vital to the community, too much a part of the cultural art scene. It was called "The Cradle of the  Arts Community of Eugene" by the head of the Eugene Arts Foundation. And the economy would turn, as in 1982 the Hilton Hotel, whose balconies overlooked the Market, was scheduled to open.

Market Staff sold the promise hard, and April happened! Reforms like same day payments and raffles and promotions helped. The newly renovated info booth

looked fantastic, tables and benches were improved, there were 25 great food booths, but it hailed on Opening Day (April 3) and rained the next week too. Craft artisan booths fell to 60 and 10 food booths didn't show either on that second week. May first, however, brought the new city-aupported Imagination Celebration, which involved a parade, a Chimney Sweeps Festival and Lookalike contest (was this Mary Poppins time, or just David Stuart Bull?) and things started blooming. May first was hopeful.





But early the next Sunday, arson completely destroyed the new Info booth, all of the ten tables and 30 benches, the Lucy Booth, the stage frame and awning, all of the signs, sandwich boards, banners, flags, tools, bulletin boards, hose bibs, everything useful and necessary to put on the Market. It was estimated at $7000-10,000 but it was almost all handmade and beautiful and not really replaceable. The Info booth in particular had been made in a UO workshop, designed by architects, and handbuilt by volunteers in 1973, and was a work of art. Moreso, the community was devastated. On May 8th, members gathered for a circle and dug deep.

It was a difficult year, and leaders emerged who could dedicate time and effort, many of whom still serve the Market or support it. Still, the lot looked empty all season, and various schemes were tried to present as a lively, happy event, while privately despair sometimes emerged. Bills were gradually paid but none of the grants applied for were given. Finally in the fall, the Market wrote to downtown business leaders and politicians, asking for an Advisory Committee and some help. A move to the Park Blocks, the original location the Market had wanted in 1970, was requested.

It was granted! The Market was allowed a trial period of December and the following April, 1983, to see if the members would work together to sell in the lovely park, with only 125 spaces, (now stretched and finagled to 250 again) to revitalize the organization and continue the important work of holding up Downtown on Saturdays during the recession. The downtown mall needed the support, and by then the merchants and public servants well knew the benefit of the large Saturday event. The City Council voted to grant the Market $1850 for moving expenses, and on November 18, 1982, the First Market in the Park was held.

Even though success was still hard won after that (the 5-day Christmas Market failed again) history had been written. The Saturday Market rose from the ashes. I have a little baggie of the ashes for the archives. It's a most compelling story, and such an embedded part of my own history that to me, it explains a lot.

Fire galvanizes. It did that for us. Within a year I was on the Board, painted almost all of the Market signs for costs, and worked together with people I still work together with, to do what needs to be done to keep the Market on track, thriving, and ready for more.

I know what it feels like to sell in a parking lot, and then move to a park. I know what  it means to come on rainy days and sunny ones, and how to have the long, sometimes philosophical conversations necessary to guide and keep the Market for the longhaul. I know how it feels to be part of an ever-changing, ever-passionate community of creative, loving people who just want the best for the community and for ourselves, able to integrate our self-interest with what is best for the common good.

I'll write more as we go along, since there is so much to tell and I am practicing for the eventual book, but I wanted to share my deep feelings as I sort through these folders and piles of papers and tease out what really happened from what is said and remembered. The truth is that our community has the resilience, the strength, and the passionate dedication to not only survive the challenges of the 50th season and Anniversary, but to project beyond it for the next 50 years. I won't be here for all of that, so it might have to be you. Don't stop caring about us. We're worth it.

Here's the link to some of the vintage photos of the old days. We were so young!

Art in Our City: Support it!

This podcast was fascinating to me, hit me on so many levels. I didn't want to over-comment on their post, but this is something all of the people in my art circle should give some time to listening to. There's a lot here.

The City of Eugene is collaborating with a lot of artists, and this Art City group is still somewhat mysterious and yet, powerful. The podcast is produced by Eugene Contemporary Art, and if you are one of those hermit crafters like I am, you might have missed this stuff. Their events and those of the City in the last year, in particular, have been stunning and super successful (the murals are an easy one to see that in) and yet it seems to me, Saturday Market has not figured out how to align warmly here. But we need to.

We use the same space, often, as the Park Blocks are a great place for some of their events. They often happened on Friday nights, and all we at Market often knew about them was the scraps of fabric left over (which I delightfully collected) or the blue tape left on the concrete (which I helpfully removed). We have the harsh habit of having to go to bed early on Fridays, because our Saturdays take so much energy and are so much of a focus for us. But next time you see "Art City" go to whatever they are doing and at minimum, appreciate it. This is building on our work and enhancing our art lives in our City, and it deserves every ounce of our support. And anything Cultural Services puts on, in my experience, will include people you know and it will be free, and those people are getting burned out on working so hard to be taken for granted. They wore banana costumes! That's just a metaphor. 

I am not an academic, though when I lived briefly in the Lower East Side of NYC I took a calligraphy class at the Art Students League and an Art History class at (what was it? This was in 1973) New College or something. I am a self-taught artist who has done it my whole life, maybe to spite my first grade teacher who really shut me down. I learned calligraphy, sign-painting, screenprinting, writing, drawing, all of those things by doing them. It doesn't make me a fine artist or a conceptual artist but I have mastered a lot and at one point, finally decided I could be capital-A Artist.

It was Jell-O Art that got me there. That is my fine art, and as it is an anti-art, it's pretty high level for someone who is usually defined as a lowly crafter. I hope we have learned to appreciate the craft/art spectrum rather than continuing any division. I know my tote bags don't lie in the same position on the spectrum as the exquisite ceramic work and jewelry work, or paintings that I've seen, but that isn't very significant in old age. I've made my living as an artist for more than 45 years, and in the process, strengthened my skills in writing, teaching, fabric arts, paper arts, and everything  that came across my path. I won't be retiring and I hope I won't stop learning new ways to express myself and my world.

I started writing this before even hearing the end of their blog, but they said that some of the things people can do are to seek support, and have something to offer. Bring something with you and offer it up. Find ways to elevate all artists and broaden the public appreciation and comfort with art, from that on the conceptual edges to that of the everyday. Artists have far more in common than we think. We all are basically problem-solvers. Help solve this problem, and promote each other. This is easy.

We are at a time in our city when big things are happening, my generation is aging and disappearing, and younger artists and crafters are going to be the ones who carry on. Lotte left us. With that, I took on the task of bringing her legacy forward. She helped so many artists, not just with co-creating the Market, but by her arts administration and shows and collaborations. She gave us our roots, and allowed us to hold space for artists in Eugene for 50 years! This is the gift that never has to stop giving. You may have noticed more fine artists coming to the Market, but when I look back at our posters, I see that we have always had a large spectrum of our own in our 600-person membership. We balance that with our entry-level business incubator, which has also been an essential part of our mission, because sometimes it takes awhile to get people to notice you and understand what you are actually making and offering. Not everyone enjoys the full day of retail and the ways available to market your work and enlarge your network through the Market. It's one way, but it's not an easy way, and support can be marginal. I know I had to stop bringing my Jell-O Art because it got all the limited space in the customers' attention and didn't sell, also preventing me from selling the things that did sell. Everyone has to find their balance. Sometimes it is too hard to wait out those zero days and days when you pay all your money in fees and nobody even gives you a be-back, much less the kinds of appreciation you seek. They asked in the podcast, who validates your work? Ultimately, the only one who matters is you, but of course, you're trying to make a living. They suggested finding doctors and other professionals who can afford to support art, and you know, those people shop at our Market, and the Farmers' Market, and they do buy those $1000 dollar pieces and ask for commissioned works. I know my range of sales includes both zero days and $900 days, so things happen you might not expect. You do have to be there for that to happen.

Making art with the goal of selling it is part of what we all have to do, even if it isn't the best part. To be successful at Market, you sometimes have to change your work to respond to what people do want to pay for. It's a tricky walk with pricing and making production work as well as the stuff your heart and soul are really invested in, but lots of people walk that  slackrope and get it rolling waves to a stable platform. It does take some personality adjustment sometimes. And it's ultimately a lot easier for many to sell online or get work into galleries where they don't have to put in that weekly 12-hour day and give up their weekend nights. I found ways to make it work, but had to walk away from a lot of them. I don't sell t-shirts anymore, though I heard in the podcast (maybe with a little tongue-in-cheek humor) that making t-shirts is a proven path to success. Yes, it is, I can agree. It's very fun, as well.

In my case, what has apparently emerged from my work is that I am offering a big part of my soul at the Market, and that's what people seem to really want from me. My witty shirts of the past, my baseball caps, and the occasional vestige of Jell-O Art have been fun for people and made them brave enough to get close to me and the Saturday Market community. It seems that we have the reputation  as a group, of being somewhat insular and not easy to feel a part of, which seems counter-intuitive to me but probably just because I have been there so long all I see is open doors and not any that are closed.

I'm seeing this open door into the heart of Eugene right now, and I want my readers to walk up and knock on it. We have a Cultural Arts Department that is over the top enthusiastic and hard-working, and they are a huge part of why we had a good Park Blocks season this year. The City is supporting the Markets so hard right now! It will be up to those of us who can be skeptical to see the real efforts of what has been done to strengthen the richness of the cultural life of our city, and to just shut our mouths if we hear ourselves beginning to complain. Think all the murals should have been painted by locals? Come on. There would not be as many of them, and what a fantastic gift this has been to our dullish exterior! Think there should be more galleries and places to experience art? Do you go to the ones we have? Start there.

If you just want to take a couple of steps that won't hurt, go support Art Bingo on Feb, 10th at Sam Bond's Brewery. Sit with us and have some laughs and go home with some incredible prize or other. You get to choose your own from the table, which might be the best part. And there are three winners per game, and the last game goes "blackout" until everyone wins. It's an easy immersion. And there's beer. And tom and Sue Hunnel!

And you are lucky again this year because the Jell-O Art Show is on March 30th, which is not Opening Day of Saturday Market (that's April 6th). It's a 3-hour show, there's a Tacky Food Buffet, and you really  do not know what you will see there. We've had performance art, and what might be conceptual art and contemporary art, but it's ephermeral and anyway I'm no expert on these things. I just know what I love.

The main thing I love about the Jell-O Art Show is that the whole point of it is, that because a ridiculously uncooperative medium was chosen, the first thing we tossed in the bin was a critical structure. There's no bad Jell-O Art, because we don't judge. We have little kids and nonagenarians and occasionally a fine artist in disguise, or sometimes not even in disguise, but we make art and we put it up on pedestals, and for one short evening we celebrate art for it's own sake. No prices on it, no credentials, but sometimes there is an artist's statement and always there is a witty, clever show that a bunch of amateur but enthusiastic performers (yes, we include professional performers if they want to be in it) put out there for your delight. This will be the 31st time. If you haven't gone, stop by. The Radar Angels are a fun group that is an essential part of Eugene's quirk.

So, to circle back a little, how I got my capital A? I was working at my son's school as a volunteer, helping the artists in residence like Paul Otte, and running little workshops and classes, and I offered some mentorship opportunities as a parent. One kid took me up on being mentored in Jell-O Art and while preparing a curriculum for it, I stopped to listen to myself. The first thing I wanted to teach him about was the creative process. I stopped and asked myself, wait, if I have a creative process, isn't that what actually makes me an artist, instead of just someone who makes things at random? Think about all the steps of that, how you get the spark, explore the possibilities, research, play with media, learn techniques, have results, reject those results and go farther, all of that. Isn't that it?

I could tell I was a Jell-O Artist. I jumped off the diving board there, feet first. I no longer beat myself up for not having a degree or reading enough art magazines or being able to draw people's faces with any skill. I might not be an Artist in your eyes, but I am in my life, and at 68, I can feel that this is more than enough.

So now my job is to give it away some more, bolster what is happening and can happen outside my home, strengthen the connections we have and make as many new ones as I can. We all need more neurons working in pleasureable pathways in our little brains. Open it up. Hold someone else up too. It will be a lot more fun than, say, watching the Grammys on Feb. 10th. And listen to some podcasts. I have to go back now and listen to episode one. I might learn something! At minimum, I will feel a spark. And that's what I really want. Pure energy. Thank you!

Day of Birth

It's my son's 29th birthday today, so that means 30 years ago, I was busy in a way that was entirely new to me and was never repeated. His birth opened a door to a life I am so glad to have put my faith into. What a leap!

I think my major concern was that I was kind of a selfish person, and at 39 I thought maybe that wouldn't change enough to allow me to be a good parent. I learned some new things about that selfishness that made it much less of a problem, one being that it could translate into focus and fierceness and those had their uses. I am finding now that being on the obsessional side of commitment makes me dependable and powerful. I do my homework! I remember that while siting and nursing I would completely plan the next interval of my day, week, or however far ahead of myself I could get (sometimes an hour, as I remember) and I was never so organized. Had to do it without making a list, so I could still gaze lovingly at my baby and at least try to convince him that all our needs would be met.

And I am an A student, still, as I was in school. For whatever reasons (not all functionally postive I suppose) I want to do a good job and although the energy levels of being 68 have eroded some of that possibility, I have had to be organized and learn how to prioritize and compartmentalize and those skills have been essential. The whole time I was raising him I was running what was once a large business, then a sole-proprietorship, and also re-building a house that turned 100 in 2016. And mostly selling at Market, though I admit I left the governance to others during that time. I was still paying attention, but there were plenty of volunteers and the days of Bill and Beth were good ones. Good as they always are, if a bit of a thrill ride at times.

I came back to volunteering in 2007 or so when my son was out of school and I could drop my 4J jobs and volunteering there. Since he was my priority then, I worked more at his school than at the Market. Still did the Fair, still did the HM, but had to do things like tear out lath and plaster on the weekends. Those were some days. You generally get a lot done in your 40's, if I am typical.

I'm doing a task right now that is confidential and because of that, kind of isolating at this point. It's homework, though, and I have dug in and made my outlines and study questions and I think my process is fairly sound. I had not expected to do this task and it has brought some sleepless nights but overall I believe I may just be the perfect person to have in this particular room, so that's the good part. It's only one corner of a much bigger picture, so I'm channeling Vi with her patiently repeated "All Will Be Well" and "Things are Unfolding As They Should," and just keeping myself applied to the tasks. I wish I could discuss it.

I don't know how people live who have to keep a lot of secrets and discretion in their lives. This is an evolving skill set for me. I got the base stuff as a child about how to be polite and know when to use the less-than-complete truth and through further study began to get a handle on how to not make everything about me, but I am used to being able to do a lot of processing of emotions and I have spent a long time journaling this week. In the scenario that someone will want to research and document my life at some point (which is not a real scenario, it's that of some kind of fabulist) this will be a rich volume of my journal collection. In the reality we are actually living in, this journal will be one of the first that will have to go into the burn barrel.

No one is going to want to read page after page of "(Date, day of week:) Mood: Anxious." If I don't start out with it I soon get to it. I took some time off yesterday to clean house and ended up working on the archives (I'm archiving 50 years of the Saturday Market, if I haven't mentioned that.) and that was pretty fun, as it always is when I dive into those newsletters and minutes books. it helped lessen the anxiety somewhat and provided some perspective. Fifty years. Starting in 1970, when I was 20. I have an essay in mind about the parallels.

Our history is rich, and surprising, but I am not sure how much I will be able to actually tell. Archie Weinstein is gone but Jerry Rust might have some corrections for me. Sometimes the newsletter contains a political analysis, in those early days, that is apt, radically honest, and not exactly complimentary to any of the principals.  We had some firebrands, and some haven't changed much, but there is no narrative that completely captures the deep and site-based culture of our Market community. I will try to weave the narratives and display the nuanced and nubby fabric.

It's too early to publicly announce but you 22 readers can know that we got a little grant support for this archiving project, so I am fully committed now to this unpaid part-time job. The grant monies are not for me but for the project costs. I took on this job because I wanted it to be done by someone who is an A student and who does their homework, and while I am not the only one, I know I am dependable. Single motherhood proved that for sure. Building the house that is now filled with these archives, being a Market member and volunteer for 44 years, being a good daughter and sister: all of these huge accomplishments tell me I can do this.

I trust that other people will help me do these things with style and accuracy. I trust process, and I trust a large variety of people, who while undoubtedly are generally acting in their own self-interest, also have the wherewithal to see beyond that to the common good, to which I hope we are all dedicated.

Yeah, I feel guilty that I didn't march, but I can only take so much on at a time. This weekend is for study, sorting, planning, and figuring out where those pain points and plus points will be, so I can navigate 2019 and live up to these commitments.

And I didn't even get to talking about Jell-O Art yet. It's in progress. The only reason it isn't overwhelming is that it's pure fun and will be the comic relief to all the serious work I am and will be doing. Save the date: March 30th, from 5-8 pm. Our mode is to tune into the zeitgeist and come up with something just like Jell-O: melts in your hand and your mouth, ooozes all over your best dress, slides off the plate on the way to the table, and despite its perfectly magical clarity, brilliance and splendidly gorgeous colors, disappears almost immediately. And, it's anxiety-free.

Our Extra Hour

Nice to get up and turn the clock back...even though it means our last market on the Park Blocks will be dark at the end when we give our final howl of the season (for those of you who aren't there, we always end the last Market with a primal howl to the Crafters' Moon as we leave downtown for a winter indoors. It's a fun balance to the little song in the morning...)

I feel called to respond to Bob Warren's Weekly viewpoint about the Market's relationship with the City and the Farmers. First, I thank him for caring about us, and for saying that in public, which we as members rarely do. Those of us who try to speak for the group know we can never fully express the thoughts of 600 diverse members, our staff, our Board and all our community supporters. Hardly anything is fully in agreement with this group, except that we love the Market and want it to thrive.

His main point, which was a little hard to pick out, was that the PPS consulants from NY, who were hired to advise the City on downtown solutions, proposed closing the Market for a season and a half and tearing the Park Blocks down to the ground and starting over. It was a terrible shock to us who had been working with the consultants and immediately destroyed the trust that we, as primary stakeholders, would be heard. The City has never directly said that they won't follow that advice.

If you aren't aware, I am the head of the Downtown Developments Task Force for Saturday Market, and as such I have been meticulously tracking our relationships in downtown for the past four years, with plenty of attention given to it before that. You can check back in the archive of this blog for many posts I've written about the subject. I listen to as many of the City Council meetings and workshops as I can, and have been included in lots of meetings with City  and County Staff and others working on these issues. I have a collection of paper a foot high and I have studied both that PPS report and the Park Blocks Master Plan in detail. The city has never directly told us they won't close or move us, though we have directly asked for that assurance.

And it isn't like I started five years ago. In the past I took minutes for the Farmers, and I've had relationships with them for over thirty years. I was there when they separated from Saturday Market about ten years in, and watched as they tried to make it in various locations until they secured the north block across the street from us. I've sold at lots of Tuesday Market configurations, and know for certain that the only way we crafters succeed at TM is when we are right there within the produce booths. Proximity is everything for the markets. The synergy and symbiosis is extremely complex, has a long history, and I would dispute the dog/tail analogy. Sometimes it's one way, sometimes the other. It's not simple, and involves a lot of individuals who don't agree.

One thing that's true is that we at SM are wary of following the farmers down the path they've chosen. We are heading in a different direction, or more correctly, they've struck out on a new road and we are staying on the one we're on. When the Urban Renewal Funds were allocated, the City did pitch a large sum, $11.2 million, to the Park Blocks Remodel, (Edit, I had this way off. $5.2 million was for parks spaces, which included Kesey, Hult Cts and Library Plaza at the time, and $4.7 for farmers was correct, plus their leftover $500,000 which still hadn't been spent) to match the $5.2 million for the Year-Round Indoor Farmers' Market. The money has been sitting there, some of it used in the Lighter, Quicker, Cheaper efforts to activate the Park Blocks and downtown. I would say that almost none of it has yet been used to directly benefit Saturday Market as the renter of the southern blocks, but things have been proposed. Some of it has benefitted us, indirectly, like dislodging the camping that was making the PB unsafe for us, and a general improvement of the downtown, but most of the energy has been spent on the weekdays, because Saturday didn't need fixing. We've told them that. Everybody but the PPS consultants knew what we meant.

We've been sitting in this position for years, of figuring out how to say no without saying no. The first thing was the Feasibility Study for the YRIM, which was initially proposed as a Public Market kind of development which the farmers and the crafters would share, co-managing it, finding ways to make it work together. We participated in the study survey, which showed that it was feasible, but when we realized it would obliterate the Market we built, we said a definite flat NO to further participation in the project. We coulda had a building. We decided we don't want a building. We most definitely do not want to sell indoors. "Public Market" has a history for us.

Our magic is in our once-a-week, outdoors in easily accessible, beautiful public space, with low-cost participation costs, member control, independent funding, and all of the very same tenets set in place by our founders almost fifty years ago. That's who we are, that's who we want to be, and we know we are the experts in how to do this. You can see our success every Saturday. We don't really want what the city has offered.

Goddess knows we don't want a fully remodeled space. Our deep culture is site-based. I've written about our neighborhood relationships and all the ways we've adapted to our space in the 35 years we've been in the southern two blocks. We could not move, even temporarily, to some parking lot with no shade and no services to accomodate construction, without it destroying what we've grown. Our stance is that we can't move, and we can't close, but there are lots of weekdays and a whole period of 41/2 months when we are not renting the Park Blocks. If the City wants to improve the concrete, fix the walls, remove one or two trees (no more!) or propose a way to add a restroom or a new stage within those limitations, we might enjoy that. We might support some things like that. But not all of us. If you take out the fountain and eliminate my space, well, I will have to re-assess my whole operation down there. If you put a bathroom where I have sold for so many years, change where the food booths set up, move the stage to the other block, or ask us to move to City Hall block for a year, we think Saturday Market might fail to thrive. We think we would lose members, find that a lot of people would take a leave of absence at minimum, and our budget would be broken and we'd suffer. So our position is no closing, no moving, and no going indoors year round. We want what we have built. But we are the tenants, not the owners. Yet we are a big part of the owners, which are actually the public, right?

The City has patiently explained that a community solution has to be found for the Park Blocks, and we don't own that, as renters one day a week (for 35 years, though.) Yes, of course, we activate the park and downtown like nobody's business, and the City staff who has tried to emulate us during the week for several years knows just how hard it is to do that successfully. We have the keys to that and they've learned from us. They even subsidize other craft organizations to have booths at their events now. Crafters bring life and quirk and people love them. Farmers do too, and there's a  lot of mutual admiration in that synergy, until it gets framed as competition. We don't compete with the farmers.

So the building and our relationship with the farmers. Sigh. I was fired from taking minutes for them, as it became clear that we (SM) were not going to agree with some things going forward, and I was perceived as an outsider. They did a lot of things that made them different from the LCFM we knew. They began appointing community members as Board members, ended informative communications and a high level of member involvement, for a different business model that they felt served their purposes better. They ended the longstanding "gentlemen's agreement" that we had held with them, that we would not sell produce and they would not have food booths. They added a beer garden, and began adding businesses that were more commercial than we allowed in our Market. Maker is the Seller went by the wayside for them, as they allowed direct agents and employees more than we did. All of the changes were things they wanted for their organization and we couldn't really even object that much. They are a different kind of market with different needs, and that just became more so as we diverged. We had to actually oppose them in some siting proposals, such as closing 8th and Oak so they could use 8th as selling space. We had to show them that would probably not work out to their beneift either.

That was all okay; we had some hard feelings but we mainly operated much the same as usual. Our friends were still our friends, and we tried to keep our disputes mostly out of the public eye. Lots of people still think all the activities on the Park Blocks are "Saturday Market." Then came the UR funds.

The Farmers' management and Board bought into the building idea. They want the YRIM. We said our hard NO but we said it softly, and we chose to not oppose the farmers in meeting their own needs in the way they want to meet them. We've been watching and listening, and though we have our fears about changing the Park Blocks operations, we aren't opposing the building. Some of our members have all along had no objections to it, and nobody knows how it will play out. It could be good for both markets, and it could kill both markets. It is speculation at its most concrete level.

Remodeling the Park Blocks into the Town Square is a huge project with lots of details, and there is where we sit, contemplating the details and wondering about how to proceed. Confidence isn't high. We could use some reassurance. Maybe Bob can get us some.

We do have a 5-year contract on the southern blocks, but things can be done to it within that. We proposed that some on-site storage might be nice, since our staff hauls tons of equipment two  blocks every week, and it's hard. So the City staff thought putting four pods, two for them and two for us, might be good, and they plopped one down, after we took a hard look at the site and tried to find space. Once we saw the first one, we said no to any more. They are huge and ugly, even with a dino wrap. We've adapted to those (two now) and the unusable, low-capacity locked restroom trailer. We've lost two prime loading spaces to those, and a few to the crosswalk, but the crosswalk was necessary and important for safety and kind of works okay. We like the pink flower boxes. The effort was made to make them fun and funky with polkadots and we liked that. We even asked for a similar treatment to the place we put our info booth. Some people even liked the EPD camera in the fire lane for two Saturdays, though I was not one of them. Yes, people who were watching the tapes, I was that old lady who kept looking at the camera with my arms folded. I felt safer without it. But nobody asked me.

We didn't really have a chance to oppose the deck on the west block, and the feedback we gave about design wasn't taken, and frankly, it's kind of a folly. Little used, it is impacted by our porta-potties. We asked to move those across the street so the deck would be better, but couldn't get that. The deck didn't take space we were using, but it impacted quite a few members and mostly we've settled into being okay with the deck and occasionally it works. We will certainly always need more customer seating.

This is getting too long so I'll try to wrap up. Thanks, Bob, for speaking in public, even with the small errors like getting Opening Day wrong (It's ALWAYS the first Saturday in April.) and I hope no one thought we don't get along with the farmers or want a bulding of our own. We want what we have built. We love the way it works now, and we don't want to change anything major. We've tried to be clear, and we actually have developed pretty good relationships with City staff over the past couple of years. We think they've heard us, and we think when the plans start being made, we might be okay with them. But, there's a giant, overwhleming BUT.

The City isn't telling us what they're planning, in specifics. The farmers aren't telling us specifics either. Better communication would be great. If there are drawings, we should have them in my foot-tall pile. What I do have is not acceptable. I have resisted going to the City Council and dumping my pile of research on the table and telling them I need better answers. I don't think they have them.

I have avoided going to the public for support, because I know it is there, and I believe that community solutions will honor our needs and we'll be able to negotiate the ways we will say no without saying no. I believe in our creative intelligence in finding true inclusive solutions and there are certainly some we need, like that fourth block issue, Free Speech Plaza, the outlaw space I support with the fees I pay for services and promotion of my Market. I am always hopeful that we are strong enough to be clear and give credence and evidence to our positions so that all will see that solutions can be found that are elegant, supportive, and successful.

Hope is a thing in short supply, and I appreciate the distraction from the national crisis to get back into our local reality. City Staff will present on Town Square plans at a worksession at 5:30 pm on November 13th (Tuesday because of Veteran's Day.) I will be at that worksession, taking notes.

I will speak at the following Public Forum if I need to, but it has never been my first choice to make this about me and what I think is right. Our decisions at Market are made by seeking consensus. That's just how we operate, and the current language of participatory decision-making and community conversations and so on isn't really as far from consensus process as you might think. The test will come when the City staff decides what they will move forward with when they hear everything the stakeholders have to say. Councilors have said the Park Blocks are forgotten space, are shabby, are unused, and many other things that make me think they have never been to the Market. I know they do sometimes come...I saw one there yesterday sitting on the lawn for a long time.

I thought about making her work by discussing Bob's column, but I decided to just keep doing my Saturday job, making money to pay my bills. Property taxes are due and I don't have the money just yet, though yesterday will help. Still, I spent $15 on grapes. I love the farmers. I'll send her my link.

We'll get through whatever comes. As archivist for the Market, I've read about lots of times when things looked dire, and here we still are to tell the story. We're not going anywhere.

If you would like to join my task force, you can email me at dmcwho@efn.org and I'll send you updates and links to articles and meetings. Not everyone wants to know every little thing about the Park Blocks, but if you do, there's a way to keep track. I can't channel the words of the goddess, but I can let you know what I know, and occasionally what I think. It's essential to me, and why I volunteer to listen to all those lengthy meetings and read all those detailed documents. I care. I know you do, too, and that was Bob's message. People care.

See you next week for our last howl in the gathering dark. Then the shiny Holiday Market! Let's hope for the best on Nov. 13th, after we survive this next Tuesday. You know what to do about that.