It's over! The League of NH Craftsmen's Annual Fair has come to its close for another year. The fair tents have come down and my booth is packed up and stowed in my barn attic.
This intense retail show (9 days!) is grueling, but this year we were blessed with PERFECT weather. As the League director Susie Lowe-Stockwell likes to say, "Too cold to go to the beach, too windy for golf, too gusty for sailing--let's go to the fair and shop!"
My sales assistants have been fed and paid and sent home to their "normal" lives once more. I'm faced with a huge pile of special orders and commissions, my bank balance is full again, and I'm rubbing my hands at the prospect of buying more African trade beads for next year's designs.
It was a good show, in so many ways. In fact, it was a GREAT show. I only sold one small wall hanging, which normally would mean sluggish sales. But my jewelry and sculptures simply flew out the door. Er....tent.
And I'm not concerned about the wall hangings--they always take time to sell at this show. They are powerful and dramatic, and this is not really their market. People often look for 2-3 years before they finally take the plunge. And I had several serious lookers this year.
They'll be back.
Oddly, if you talked to some of the people near me, you'd hear a different story. There was much grumbling about bad booth location, poor sales, poor fair advertising, etc. And if not for a few serendipitous moments earlier this year, I might have been singing the same sad song.
To what do I attribute my success this year? Let me count the ways.
For the next few days I will share some of the tips I believe helped me have a great show.
Key #1: NEW, NEW, NEW
I had TONS of new work.
I didn't just have new designs or new colors. This year my jewelry design ideas EXPLODED.
I added new ANIMALS. Bear and fish artifacts, not only in my jewelry but in my sculptures.
I added new SIZES and DIMENSIONS. I had a wide range of selections, ranging from small delicate bird necklaces to a killer two-strand, heavily beaded and layered horse necklace. (And my daughter sold the necklace, priced at $850.) I also had a wide variety of bear and fish sculptures.
I added new COLORS. I blogged awhile back how suddenly I am intrigued with RED. A beautiful bracelet with a dramatic red bead sold almost immediately, and I have orders for more to make up.
I added new ELEMENTS. I expanded past my ivory repertoire and added faux lava beads, faux turquoise, and faux powder glass beads.
I added new polymer TECHNIQUES. I invented a faux soapstone technique for my little animal artifacts. I now have soapstone birds, bears, fish and horses. The technique is so awesome, I had people who actually carve soapstone ask me where I bought my stone to work.
I added new ADD-ONS. In the League, we are not allowed to sell items that don't include handmade elements. The exception is we can sell pieces we've assembled if they COMPLEMENT our lines and comprise a limited percentage of our stock. I made up some simple bracelets and necklaces that fell within these parameters. These bridged the gap between passionate collectors and people who aren't quite ready to wear my ancient artifacts.
Now for the caveat:
My body of work may have had many new elements. BUT it was still COHESIVE.
The same story still ran through it all.
The polymer work I do was not radically different. I don't "play" with the polymer simply for the sake of doing something new and different. Even the soapstone artifacts have the same look and feel as the ivory artifacts.
My old collectors (timewise, not agewise!) still felt connected to my new work. But now they felt compelled to add to their collection. And as older designs fell away, newer collectors felt compelled to buy the work that caught their heart before it, too, fell away.
In short, the changes came organically and naturally, as a side effect of my work evolving and growing--and my customers felt that.
Oddly, two of the biggest changes--the addition of a soapstone artifact and a bird, at that--came from a problematic special order.
A customer placed an order for a bird artifact bracelet, which threw me for a loop for several months before I figured out how to do it.
Then, when I finished it, she said she wanted a BLACK bird. Hmmm. Brain lock once again. Then finally.....SOAPSTONE is black! And the black bird artifact bracelet was soon on its way to her.
So the challenge that gave me the most grief this year resulted in the biggest boost for my work. Not a bad trade.
Embrace change, not for change's sake. But because the process of rising to challenges and overcoming difficulties often results in wonderful new directions.
