Ah, to go to market- the Gemini beast itself. Either a humbling and desperate experience that can leave one feeling quite worthless and rattled, or, after a well endowed crowd has conquered the stalls, an elated, blissful state of mind with a boastful touch as you recount the hard earned dollars you have successfully captured. Any true market season will have the highs tightly wound and nestled in with the lows as different crowds filter their way in through town. But overall, I can safely say that at this juncture in time, I absolutely LOATH going to market.
Now, I would love to blame my entire market experience on the poor crowds who come eager or not so eager to trade their coin for your tokens if they find its merit. I would really love to sit here and happily type how my lack of market success came down solely to a bunch of people who loved to bestow verbal praise rather than payment. This, however, could be seen as “unfair judgement” and have a lack of insight on to my actual part to play in joining a market. Though it would spare my feelings about my market abilities it really would be foolish to pin the blame on anyone but myself and my inability to promote myself as an artist and sell my art to those who were kind enough to take the time to check out the colorful booth Mariah and I had set up.
Overall, I will rate my first market season as a bit of a bust. Although, with my hopes tied to the moon it would have been hard not to have my dreams dashed to dust. I envisioned a bustling booth filled with patrons hungrily ripping though my prints, snatching all they could see while throwing their hard earned bills my way. Chaos, confusion and the perfect amount of a dopamine rush as I shared my prints with peoples homes from far and wide. I believed I might even sell out of my prints, or use up my packaging materials and be left with an empty booth! Ah, the sweet dreams of success.
Reality, however, was far more dull and depressing as I waited for people to deem it worthy to duck into our colorful tent for a moment at a time. With my underdeveloped sales skills and ability to read what “type” of customer had entered the booth, I was either an over-friendly bubble of joy to those who wanted to hide in the shadows, or pretending a person didn’t exist who probably would have wanted to be acknowledged. I was clumsily walking that line between taciturn and overexcitement without a step of success.
I know that preparing and participating in a market season, or even a singular market at a time is a very important way to improve these very important skills but it is a real ego crusher while you try to figure out what works for you. Though I would not deem my market season as a success, or that enjoyable of an experience, I would say it was an excellent educational lesson on what skills and steps are necessary to develop in order to not only attract people to your wares but to actually grow a big enough attachment to what you have to want to share their homes with what you have created.
I have much more to say and share about my first fully committed market season. Far too much to set upon your innocent soul in one fell swoop. I realized, once I began to tackle the many emotions, reflections and strategies that I had on markets, that I would have to divide my far scattered thoughts into smaller more manageable categories. Otherwise, this weeks anecdote was doomed to be a long-winded novel that jumped between many an island leaving you confused, tired and perhaps your heart a little bite bruised from second-hand wallowing. So, with that said, I have decided to detail the ordeal over the next couple weeks in more “bite-sized” snacks.
Next week’s anecdote will delve into how I came across the awesome opportunity to participate in my first “market season” at the Minturn Market and how Mariah (my market partner) and I went about setting up our colorful creations. I will reflect more fully on what I liked about how I had set up as well as what I would change and the difficulties that I was unaware of that arise from being in an outdoor market. Don’t worry, it will be far more upbeat and little less tainted with subtle wallowing— so please join me for next weeks tale Sunday at 10am!
Thank you for reading along with me next week and I can’t wait to begin to share more with you on my market experience!
As always,
Keep it offbeat!
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