The Downtown Edmond Art Show 2014 is over, and I did pretty well. It helped that the piece that I worked on for the previous four months sold the day before the show started. But I had some difficulties in time availability and management that prevented me from getting more than the one piece done, and I was also not fully stocked on prints. When the show was over, there were two pieces that I only had one print left, and one of those was framed.
During the four month period of time that I'm working on getting ready for the show (which I refer to as my "hibernation" since there is practically no social life,) I always get a lot of ideas for projects to work on during the summer, and usually I am just busting to get started on them, but this year I put them off for a bit. The first weekend I spent just cleaning the studio. It took most of two days, and I still feel like there's more to be done. This weekend is being spent matting and framing, getting ready for next year. I figure if I do it now, I won't be in a rush next Spring. Next weekend I have some work to be done for clients.
This was the 21st year to do the Edmond show, and the weather and turnout couldn't have been better. My Dad came by to deliver some business cards and he had to park three blocks away. But I was alone for much of the show. Gaby is working a new job (yay!), and he wasn't available most of the daytime hours. It was the first time I'd set up by myself in a decade, though the two of us raised the tent the night before. Still, everything went very smoothly -- at least, at the show.
Part of the time availability problem I had during the hibernation was that for a month my weekends were split. This is not only exhausting for a night shift person, but it robs one of all useful time. One is given the choice of either sleeping or doing, and one Friday night I came to work on only 40 minutes of sleep. That's not good when your job is to drive other people's cars. But fortunately our new bell captain is very sympathetic, and he corrected the problem promptly. His assistant, on the other hand, created a problem that he wants to blame on me.
Sunday night, after the last day of the show, I was in the shower preparing to go to bed when my phone rang. I returned the call to the unfamiliar number, and the Sunday afternoon bellman told me that I was on the schedule for that night. I told him that that's impossible because I've been at art show all weekend, and I'm not available. He said, Oh yeah, that's right, and that he'd call the boss and see what was to be done. The overnight security guy was splitting time between that department and ours, so he wound up covering for me. (He never said so, but I got the impression that he wasn't happy, and blamed me for the situation.)
On Monday night, I told this story to several people who all seemed to understand the situation from my point of view, but on Tuesday night I was informed that I had been written up for a no call/no show. Ridiculous, I thought, and said so in written form on the write-up sheet that I didn't sign. The next morning, the ABC took me to a private room and explained that MY assessment of the situation was wrong. He said that I had requested time off, part of that request had been denied, that if I'd checked the schedule I would have seen that I was working. I thought his argument was very reasonable and well presented, but he was still flat wrong. I did not request time off. I informed him of dates that I WOULD NOT BE AVAILABLE. His failure to use that information when he made the schedule is not my fault. And although it is true that I should have looked at the schedule, I still would not have been in to work that night because I WAS NOT AVAILABLE.
Anyway, this is still ongoing, though in the background.
Since Gaby started working, he cannot go out to the club with me on Monday night, which is my only night that I can go out. I've stolen time to go out a couple of times this Spring, but without him, there seems to be a hole in the evening. Now that the hibernation is over, I can go out on a somewhat regular basis, but in the last four months I've missed out on a lot of what's going on in the lives of our friends, so I really don't know if Monday is going to be much of a habit with them anymore. I miss seeing everybody. But I still work with the lynchpin of the gang, and there's always Facebook to keep me somewhat informed.
Anyway, I'm looking forward to getting started on all these Summer projects I've got bouncing around in my head. A friend once said that the day after the art show was like New Years Day for me. I totally agree. And I resolve to... try not to waste the whole Summer.
