July 27, 2008

Yesterday I had a booth at the Frog Hollow Craft Center Show in Middlebury. The rain stayed away, at least until late afternoon. Unfortunately, the crowds stayed away, too, though the day had bright spots. One of the best was that I sold a shirt style that had been languishing. Months ago, exploring the subtle colors of late winter, I dyed a shirt a pale camel color with a wisteria design in blacks and russet browns. I thought it was beautiful, but it was shunned by all customers. Admittedly, the colors make the average pale Vermonter look washed out.  Then yesterday along came a young Asian woman. She  was hunting through the stacks of shirts, when it struck me that the camel colored shirt would look good on her. Sure enough, it looked terrific, the black of the design matching her hair and the camel shirt color lighting up her tawny skin.She liked it so much she put it on right away and walked around the show wearing it. How fun it is to see just the right colors on a person,  the final  gratification in making things for people to wear. 

Another great sight yesterday: at the end of the show, as we were all packing up under a threatening sky,  the Burlington Taiko drummers played on the top of the town hall steps. For the past two years I've been taking Taiko classes off and on. I've been a pretty poor student, but I've learned enough to know that the drumming is formal and choreographed, even ritualistic. There on the stage were the neatly groomed drummers, so disciplined  and so powerful  in that discipline. Twenty feet in front of them, on the pavement, was a dredlocked man in a tie-dyed t-shirt, who began by swaying to the rhythm, then danced--all by himself-- more and more wildly, kind of like Snoopy in the Charlie Brown Christmas. The rest of the audience sat staidly in metal folding chairs, probably a bit nervous about the approacing thunderstorm.