okay, I really shouldn't be taking the time to post anything, but tonight was the first night of the holiday art sale and it was great and intriguing and I hardly sold anything, but when I did it was an adrenaline rush, how capitalist am I. Tonight was the big richie-rich night for all the folks with money enough to pay for $50 tickets so they could come and get first glimpse at all our wares. The sale takes place in an ancient ballroom with baroque-ish ornamenation and spotlights were poised on the mezzanine, brushing down and blinding us with bedazzle all night. Very interesting to see the types who can afford the big tickets. There were a few really nice folk who came by and asked questions, but not too many really even though I've got a good spot. I was really happy that my roommate looked so askance at my chapbook-thingies or it all might have been a big letdown because for awhile there I was contemplating what would happen if I sold all my letterpress books, which would put me in good with Xmas shopping and also make me feel like my words have heft and weight to them... but only a few people looked at my letterpress and maybe two folks looked at my chapbooks, and that was just about it.

Interestingly enough, the piece I made for my sister/brolaw's birthday present - the item that I had tagged as cheesy and silly and not really worth much of anything - was the piece I sold two of... funny that "how to be a pirate" on linen has selling power these days. One of the two people who bought this asked me for a business card, which I didn't have, and then asked me to write down my contact info and website and told me it was all about marketing, which made me laugh. He was really cute actually. So, for about the first hour I was feeling kind of crappy about things and about my stuff, but there was free pizza beforehand and free drinks (!) during and so I had a few rum and cokes and warmed up to the crowd.

The other stuff around the art sale was a real hodgepodge - the paintings and photos seemed to be the highest sellers and people were selling them for over $400 bucks at times... some pieces I thought were really great, and some less so. But t-shirts, jewelry, glass works, ceramics, screenprinting, stuffed animals, embroidering (my table mate is another writing student who embroiders these wonderful phrases onto canvases... my favorite is "drag it around with you. people appreciate that."), patches, boxes, and so on ad infinitum. There are a few pieces I actually like quite a bit myself and I'll have to see what's around later - the sale goes on for another two days. Hopefully I'll sell a few more when the place is open to the general public, but I've got my bearings now and know what I'm doing there.

Which is people watching - how fascinating. There's one dude a table over who has a business card that proclaims him the "founder and CEO" of his own production company, which makes me laugh mostly because I get the feel from him that he's very serious about this. He came over multiple times during the evening and tabulated how much he had made and re-told us his monetary goal several times ($400) and assessed who had sold what and how much for, and told us we should jack up our prices (even though they weren't selling at the prices we have!). He basically loaded his table with everything he's ever done in the painting department, wore his cellphone attached to his belt, and a jaunty little hat perched on the side of head. Very funny; it felt like watching someone on coke, and who knows.

There was another great fellow too, who was wearing four ties under a very snazzy suit - not corduroy, not linen, but some thick material - and he paced around with a golden fan, snapping it open and waving it from time to time. I liked his paintings, pretty abstract and he took the time to read my letterpress book and made a few nice comments about it, along with admiring the jewelry the girls had made on the table to our right.

The guy across the corridor from us was wearing the classical corduroy jacket and looked pretty innocent and nervous all night - he was working with screenprinting and also digital pictures he had printed out on Rives BFK. I went over and pumped him for information on his process and where the pictures were taken, and he looked much more relaxed after he sold a few pieces (he looked very worried for the first two hours).

The guy behind us was in the Visual Communication department and he had these really beautiful graphic novel-type comics that I really enjoyed looking at. He was also very personable and we gossiped a bit about letterpress because he is TAing for that class this semester.

One of my students was also nearby - behind me - with some very abstracted painting with gold dust and oil paints, explosive type pictures, and she sold a couple and seemed very cheerful and it was great to be near her, and we talked a little bit about drinking during the sale and how that made it all better.

Anyhow, I've got to run because I have a major revision due tomorrow on a piece that I'm having a hell of a time revising (revising would be one of my rings of hell, equivalent to being halfway buried upside-down in slowly solidifying crude oil). So, off I go......