I found this in my Facebook feed this morning and the memories flooded my mind:
Things would really start heating up about a month before the July Fair. Mama would feverishly work to finish up a new round of character dolls, working into the night with her modified sculpting tools that included a coffee can lid with bolts sticking out of it (for use in firing) and toothpicks and dowels of various sizes that she used to sculpt and shape each unique face and set of hands. For days at a time, we'd wake up to a new set of head and hands that would soon be attached to a cloth body, costumed and given an identity for it's debut.
There would be days where she would just make bodies - put together wire armatures to be inserted into a cloth form and stuffed before waiting in rows to be hand sewn onto waiting heads and hands. Some days would be "hair" days where she would painstakingly create wigs out of wool roving - including tiny curls wrapped around toothpicks and stuck in the oven to set just like you would in a beauty salon. Other days would be sewing days: cotton dresses for apple pickers, choir robes for church choirs, overalls for a grandpa waiting to sit on his handmade chair.
We did what we could too. Mama taught us how to weave chair seats to scale with tiny pieces of reed. Those were the days your hands would have little nicks and cuts from weaving wet reed. I also became pretty good at sculpting and painting fruit and vegetables - I would be happy to demonstrate by making an apple or peach or squash if you'd like. We'd sit on the back patio on a summer's morning weaving or sculpting until we had a line of accessories ready for use. It's not really the work I remember, it's being together, working toward a common goal. We were getting ready for the July Fair.
Pretty soon the week would be on us. We'd be in a frenzy to pack up displays, finish up projects and get the car ready for that trip. We'd load the booth and a carpet remnant on top of our Toyota Tercel, pack up the apple crates that served as display pieces, carefully wrap the character dolls Mama had painstakingly made in the months prior and somehow fit ourselves and the luggage into that tiny car. Whoever sat in the back seat always had to share it with an apple crate or two and pray the air conditioning would miraculously manage to blow that far. We'd set out on the windy road through the mountains to Asheville, NC, the headquarters for the Southern Highland Handicraft Guild, to begin the weekend that marked the zenith of our summer.
We'd arrive, tired from a day's travel, to the Convention Center that had been opened up to allow cars to drive through to unload stock into designated spaces. We'd search the floor for our "space" - usually indicated with pieces of masking tape on that Convention floor - and off would come the rug that would mark the floor of our booth. From the top of the car we'd pull off the posts Mama and Daddy had cut and stained to create the sides of the booth. We'd pull the copper rods that held the curtains (becoming walls), and would begin to build the structure that would become our home for several days. At last we'd pile all those apple boxes full of stock onto the floor in front of our booth before Mama would pull the car back into the designated parking lot.
Stephen and I would set up the tables, lay out the tablecloths and generally set the stage for Mama to return. Mama would then work her magic: carefully unwrapping each of her creations, putting apples in the apron of the apple picker, carefully setting a woman with her sewing basket into her rocker or arranging the choir in perfect accord as if they were breaking out in songs of praise. Only when everyone was in place could we find our hotel room and get some sleep before the Fair began.
The doors would open that first day and people would rush through - something like 10,000 people per Fair if I remember correctly. The main floor would start with a trickle and move to a flood. And the questions would inevitably come, "Are these those apple dolls?" "Are they made of fudge?" Then there was my all time favorite request, "Come on, you can tell me what she uses to make these. She'll never know." Mama's clay "formula" that gave her dolls' skin a translucency like no one else working in the medium was, and still is, a state secret. To this day I don't think anyone has figured it out. But that didn't stop many, many people from trying!
For days my brother and I would take turns alternately talking to folks, volunteering to cover breaks for other craftspeople and sleeping under the table. We got very good at making pallets out of blankets, which worked pretty well until someone started snoring. Given the customers were looking at a table full of lifelike dolls, we had a startled look or two when that happened.
It seemed like every moment we anxiously awaited a sale. Would this be a "good show" or a "bad show"? Would we make expenses? We knew anything over covering expenses would go to braces or winter coats or school supplies. And if we were really lucky, and the show was really good, we knew we'd have a "vacation" day on the way home where Mama would treat us to an extra day of sightseeing somewhere along the way home. Those sales always brought a rush of quiet celebration behind the scenes.
No matter how many people I talked to at those shows, I never made a sale. They always wanted to talk to Mama. Somehow talking to the artist was like taking home a piece of her, and she'd readily give a piece of herself knowing that every sale would allow her to do something more for her family. Through the weekend she'd talk until she's almost lost her voice, hoping to make just one more sale.
The end of the show would approach. Those final hours were full of anticipation, always wondering whether just one more person would take home just one more doll. Somehow those last chance sales were the greatest, the most grounded in hope. Then the Fair would close, we'd carefully wrap up what stock was left, stack the apple boxes and tear down the booth. Mama would pull in the car and we'd hoist the booth and carpet onto the top, tie it down with clothesline using the knots Daddy had taught us to keep it on top through the winding mountain roads, finish packing the rest and fight over who had to sit in the back.
Mama would make deals with us that final night. "If we can tear down in an hour, we'll go to a movie." Generally, that was a good show. "Let's see if we can tear down in time to hit the hotel pool." That may have been a not so good year. I guess you can say Guild Fair taught me a lot about how economics trickle down, how to talk to people, how to remain professional in disappointment and a lot about how to work hard for the good of the team. I also met some of the finest craftspeople in the world, learned from the experts about heritage crafts and even picked up a skill or two that I've used later in life.
So this weekend as they're celebrating another Guild Fair, I'll have memories running through my head of all those years we were a part of that experience. I'm blessed to have known those artists, those giving people who were always willing to share and show their skill with a young kid curious about how the world worked. And today when I go to my office in DC and randomly drop a fact about something like Raku pottery, weaving or marbling, I'll smile as I remember all those years traveling to Guild Fair, living a life only a lucky few will ever know. And I'll send silent wishes for it to be a "good show" this year.
