FLOWERMART: TAKE TWO

And then the big day came. Walking up the steps into the sprawling Mt. Vernon Schlossberg-Cohen home, I thanked God that her property was literally steps away from our traditional booth space, slightly to the left of the Washington Monument. No one had shown up to help set-up. Days before we had loaded everything made from the ECO into my Jeep and Jay's Suburu. FYI: Large tubs full of ceramic RAPware? The best exercise for areas you didn't even know could hurt. Now, we would have to unload everthing from the house and onto the shelves- except there were four hands to get everthing done. I realized that patrons would be walking past our booth in mere hours- it was a beautiful day and at the end of it- the bottom line that it had to be done- and done correctly whether interns from the Community Art class showed up or not. The custom-made wooden shelving was put into place. The sign given to us by festival organizers was put out. Product was pulled out and arranged so each pot had a matching plate. A careful eye was given to make sure there were a variety of colors and themes present for visitors. RAP business cards were placed inside the pots and on plates. A table was set up with a cloth to handle credit cards and cash. And a space with bags and newspaper to wrap purchases was created. Then each plate and pot was price-checked to cut down on price haggling or bartering in the event that a tag was missing. Some prices were also changed, some went up, others went down. Surplus material was placed back into tubs that sat on the grass behind the table along with valuables belonging to the RAP workers, students from the Community Art class. While I hadn't taken the second part of Community Art yet, I wouldn't have chosen to be anywhere else on the first May weekend in May 2011. I had seen a large portion of the work being sold created in the ECO basement, had learned to work the kiln in the back of the building and after much trial and error, often resulting in ceramic explosions and laughter, I felt I had to be there to see the process to the end. The hours ticked by, and by the end of day two- there were few words to explain my feeling of being a piece of the work that pulled off another successful year of Flowermart.