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Vintage Bead Show Returns: On the Road Again |
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Written by Dara Spiotto
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Monday, 01 October 2007 |
 Vintage Bead Show Returns: On the Road Again...
Ahhh… The fruits of labor! I’ve spent weeks preparing to go back on the road. I packed my car with a crowbar to get it all in and managed still to keep it from getting scrunched, crammed and spilled. Those beads turn my car into a weapon, as I ride the freeway on my car axles, lumbering along at a slowish pace. If I needed to stop fast I could catapult any SUV with a singe tap from my bumper, not to mention being killed myself by the beads in my car. The top corner of my stone rack hovers alarmingly close to my right ear as I drive. Any tap on my own back bumper could send that rack through my pumpkin head if it was hard enough. Not to worry, I’m a good driver and I have everything strapped down as hard as possible. Needless to say, I’m loaded and ready!
My first show was local. Hallelujah! To admit, I wasn’t up for a long freeway ride on my first endeavor away from my son. He was in his 21 month old bliss of unknowingness that I was going to be spending two days away from him. All he cared about was the hard partying he’d be doing with Grandma at the playground. That made it easier for me, since I knew that he was only 4 miles or less away from me. He even visited, but I’ll get to that.
Unloading the Treasure
At 7:30 am I was at the bead store, unloading the treasure from the car. I began setting up tables and laying out colorful cloths, arranging racks and deciding where things would go. I know for a fact that layout is really important in how people shop. In areas that get crowded you need to leave space. I guess being an fine arts major made me incorporate balance, symmetry and composition, and being a retail queen made me think shop-ability, layout and comfortable space. You can’t just cram it all in there. You’ve got to make it shopper-friendly and beautiful at the same time. Once the armatures were all in place I started bringing in the goods. That’s when staff showed  up to help. I gave directions on how to load the tables to maximize space, and how to hang stuff on the racks to make it logical. Then it got quiet. And then there was moaning!
Each bead that came out of the boxes and totes made them gasp, moan and squeal! The sound effects were so funny that at one point I just stopped what I was doing to enjoy and watch. I figured that with any luck our customers would feel the same way as soon as they laid eyes on the stuff.
Gasp! Moan! Sigh! Cluck!
When the doors opened for business we had a small crowd come in. That’s always nice, because you wonder if anyone at all will show up. :-) But of course they do. It's just my little spasm of paranoia. Then, they start making those same noises that the staff made when they were unloading the boxes setting up. Gasp! Moan! Sigh! Then it gets loud. Then, as my husband says, they turn into chickens and it’s a henhouse full of happy clucking women!! Sometimes when my girlfriends and I are in a good conversation, he starts clucking like a chicken to tease us and he gets us laughing. So when his guy friends are talking about whatever guys talk about, I like to grunt at them. Eye for an eye. Anyway, back to the clucking…
 Even though I looked at all the beads when I unloaded them, I still have to jump up and see what all the excitement is about. And it's so fun to hear what beaders will do with the beads they buy. I’ve probably said it before, but one bead can spark a dozen different ideas with different designers. Fantastic images of drippy Victorian necklaces and chunky, funky wire wrapped pendants float behind my eyes. Squealing ensues. It goes on for hours. At some points there’s no one in the room and it's good… I need to straighten and put back all the strands we pulled out while bead-storming. Sometimes I even get to sit and let some air in and out before I get into the henhouse again.
Vincent Visits
During one semi-lull moment I looked up to see my husband and son walk into the room. When little Vincent saw me he ran like in the movies with his arms wide open and his eyebrows up, a smile as big as the milky way. He flung himself to me and gave me a squeezie, his newest thing to do. What a refreshing sight for me, to see them there. I got to introduce them to the people who had only heard about them in the past. I had a cluster of pictures of Vin on the wall behind me, so that when people would ask me why I had stopped selling beads and traveling, I could point and smile. But to see them in person just made my heart sing. Vincent loves the beads. He stands in front of the rack and makes a noise like “Mmm-hmm?” like he’s asking if he can touch them. He doesn’t. But he’d stand there for hours if we let him. But then he got caught up in the excitement of the moment and pulled the stones off the bottom of the stone rack. And then they were off again, heading home for Vin’s nap.
 They Come Back
At the end of the day I say, “HUH? What? It can’t be six o’clock. I’m just getting warmed up here!” It's time to go home. We cover the tables and turn off the lights. And the beads get to sleep until the next day when I’ll come back in bouncing on my toes, ready for another go at it. And you know, I see the SAME faces from the day before. They say to me, “I stayed up all night beading with my new beads, and then I couldn’t sleep! There was a strand I didn’t get and I couldn’t stop thinking about it!” And so we dig into the trays and look for the strand that got left behind. And then the inevitable happens. She finds a dozen more strands that she can’t live without. “These weren’t here yesterday!” she accuses me. I hold my hand up like ‘scouts honor’ and she gives me a disbelieving look. So I wink at her to make her confused. Now she has to go through the whole room again to make sure I didn’t put out anything that she hasn’t seen. I give her a basket to keep her growing pile of beads in.
Each show is different and I love being part of the hubbub. I’ve got 4 more shows to go, and I’m sure interesting things will happen there, so watch for future bead show stories! |
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