Such a Charles

In another lifetime, when I exhibited at art shows, there was a show at Lincoln Center. I applied for it on the proviso that Ann would accompany me, and Beth, if she could. I navigated some big cities in my time, and I mastered Long Island, but NYC was out of my league, alone. Without them, and Charles, I would know nothing about NYC except the GW and Throg’s Neck.

Booths ringed the perimeter of Lincoln Center, and were on the mall. These had to tear down every night, to accommodate patrons, so I chose a booth on the east side. To load in and out, I had to park the van on a road I think was called just Lincoln Center. We had a window of time to unload, then the van had to be moved. At that time I carried all the garments on wheeled garment racks, reducing the dolly loads to two or three.

But, at Lincoln Center, everything went down a long sidewalk, up several sets of shallow steps, and more long sidewalks to the booth. We took the booth structure first, and as I set it up, Ann and Beth began transporting the balance. I saw both garment racks coming down the walk, one propelled by Ann and Beth, and one by a tall man, expertly guiding his from the middle. It was Charles. He helped us load out, too. He would take no money for his work. He told us the best route back to the Hudson River parking lot, and to give panhandlers cigarettes, but no money.

Charles appeared at the show, with customers in tow. They shopped, but Charles was disappointed none of my shirts fit him. He was at least 6’6”, and his shoulders approached fifty inches. I knew I could custom make a shirt, with a flat fell seam up the back, using two lengths my forty inch wide fabric for the front and for the back, instead of two widths. It should have cost twice as much, but instead I gave him my “good friend” discount from the regular price.

At Lincoln Center

Thus repeated my time at the Lincoln Center show. I realized Charles was attracted to weavers as if weaving had been a profession in a previous life. He couldn’t collect enough of it, and that on a living as a bookseller, abiding in a NYC apartment. Between the shows, I often received little parcels from him. There were books, bits of fiber art, all sorts of weaving. Once a beautiful pine needle basket, from an indigenous weaver in Georgia came out of the box, and I had to chide Charles on his extravagance. How valuable did he consider a “good friend” shirt every year, with some towels for ballast.

When I retired the Lincoln show, Charles ordered fifteen towels, which he divvied out to friends, according to his erratic letters. Then came 9/11, and I lost track of him for a bit. Finally, my “don’t make me come find you” letter had a response, and in his very Charles way, he was completely consumed with volunteerism.

As happens, we did lose track over the next ten or so years. Last fall, though, Charles was out of towels. He sent a chatty letter to me, at the old house. It languished on the Hoosier; K forgot to give me the accumulating mail. When she did, I read six pages of Charles’ interesting handwriting, on sheets of handmade paper. I wonder what he doesn’t collect.

I answered him in January, with the crushing news. My towels are over, gone. If he had saved any for himself, he’d still be using them. (I might send him a twenty year old specimen from the towel drawer!) I recommended a good weaver to him, who makes towels for sale, using my favorite ring spun 8/2 cottons. I wonder where that weaver buys it. Stop it, Joanne. Too late now.

Yesterday, a package came from Charles. He is “downsizing.” Yea, and I have a bridge in Brooklyn. He has retired the bookstore, is writing his books and plays, and travelling all over the world. The same eclectic collection, tied up by two bits of ribbon, also saved from years ago, I’m sure, packed in the box. Such a Charles.

Charles does not want the other weaver’s towels, he says. So, I contacted the other weaver, and selected six towels to go to Charles, NYC via Peninsula. I do want to see them first, to be sure they are what I think they are.  I think I need to get the Shaker Towel pattern back from Praxis, and commission a few. Think of it! Paying for towels.

A book, Wisdom Weaver. Postcards from his Russo/Asian travels. A continuous strap, from an indigenous weaver in Brazil. Probably to hold a baby or a jug. Some blue scraps pieced neatly to a damask napkin. I recognize the initials as an old friend of his. She died one of the last times we corresponded. Charles was very distraught.

The big towel fish that got away! Love it.

Reverie

This morning I set myself the mind boggling task of filling in the 2016 township calendar on the website. Before I started on the calendar, I put up a picture of the road super, retired after thirty three years. I found the perfect picture, don’t you think. 

Trustee and zoning meetings on the calendar are fairly straightforward, but when I get to brush and leaf pick-up, I boggle, my mind and my eyes wander. I looked up at a picture that has been on my wall for twenty years. Everything in this house is old, me not the least among the detritus.

I love that picture, Stalking the Wild Yarn. My friend Nina presented it to me one winter, the seasons I set up shop in her antique gallery and waited for the spring to arrive.  Below that, exhibitor buttons I accumulated over the years at the big fall show in Louisville, St. James Court Art Show.

I loved that show, and never did it alone. I always took Ann or Beth, or both, who did more than help set up, tear down and sell. Both of them could keep the map of Louisville in their head and knew how to get to the restaurant and the motel, even if we were lost.

Did you wonder about the ostrich head? The speech bubble says “They’re how much?” Linda came across that, an ad for a long forgotten product. She presented it to me shortly after we both exhibited at the Letchworth Park fall show. It’s actually a fall color weekend event; the exhibitors are an afterthought; the sort of show where artists stand outside their booths and declare to the sky “God strike me dead if I ever do this show again.”

I was behind my booth on a smoke break and walked back to the front past one of the millions examining the jacket from hell and saying to the world, “They’re how much!?” “They're obviously made of solid gold, you fool,” I said on my way by. From the other side of the sidewalk Linda’s husband Dick looked up from their booth, crossed, patted my back and said “Take a break, Joanne.” So I went and looked at leaves for fifteen minutes.

The postcard came from Laura, in the mail, more than ten years ago. The front door picture—Nina, again. She set herself the project of photographing every front door in Boston. They are famous in the community, and displayed at most events. That’s Angus, the best Cairn terrier who ever lived, looking out the front door. The only Boston door with a dog, Nina said.

You all know Toby, the spoiled cat. Good lord, how much stuff can I accumulate? Back to the cat and the yarn and suddenly I saw the dust. All of it. I dusted down the wall and went back to work.

What really cold exhibitors do

I think this was Sunday.

No rain, sixty high.

A fellow exhibitor offered to take our picture.

My hands are clutched around handwarmers in my pocket.

I believe we had gone through all the handwarmers by Sunday;

I probably had toewarmers in my fists.

"No, no. Give us a gangster sign."

Whatever. Let me put my hands back in my pockets.

See the blue and white rug at the top left.

That is the one the chatty lady wanted in the quiet man's bathroom with all the boats.

Two old weavers meet the new generation, going to the fair (With apologies to Mother Goose and Simple Simon)

Life has been in the way the last month, and I never reported on the debut of my square at the P Flea, the first weekend of June. It was a good day with satisfactory sales for an inaugural event. Taking every advantage we could, Linda and I and two strong young women unloaded the entire booth—set up and contents—into my office the night before.

Unloading the night before the June Flea

Linda left her van far, far away the morning of the Flea, and I, anxious nothing go wrong, had us on the site at 7 am. Of course Emily and Laura had us set up by 8 am, and we toured the other vendors and generally twiddled our thumbs until 10 am opening.

Linda sold some stuff, I sold some stuff. Linda decided she wanted to return for the Flea yesterday, first Saturday in July. I told her it would be an even better day than the previous month, for the reason the world renown Boston Mills ArtFest was on, too.

In Linda's "real booth" all the area behind me is shelves of rugs!

She’s been in the business long enough to be skeptical of that remark, but as the road super explained when he stopped by for a look, “there is only one way to get to Boston Mills and it is right through town. The traffic creeps along, turns the corner, sees the tents, smells the brats and hamburgers and pulls right into our drive.” It took him five traffic light changes to get past the one light.

Linda did her usual business, including one gentleman who came back to be sure Linda could also do special orders for “the kids’ apartments in the city.” I took nothing this time; the previous Flea convinced me I no longer have the stamina to put in a day on the sales floor, while never lifting a finger to set up or tear down.

Before the first Flea, wanting to understand modern credit devices, I called an old friend who manages a gallery that holds quarterly events. Pop-up’s, these youngsters call them. She really wanted my “stuff” for a gallery she is opening in the old Wood Store, which I have mentioned from time to time. It currently is under renovation. She hoped for an opening this past weekend, but the work is proceeding slowly. Grrr….

The opening will be end of this month. I am sorry she could not dovetail with Boston Mills; I know from twenty five years ago what a lucrative weekend it is. However, I am pleased to be part of her new effort. I have sold at various galleries in the Wood Store since 1990; it is a good location and a good venue, and my sole obligation is to take things in, ready to sell. What more could a weaver ask for.

I signed us up for one more Flea this year, the first Saturday in September. I know from experience that is a good weekend in town, too. Emily and Laura will set Linda up and tear her down, I’ll keep her company, and tell customers they need to take a peek at the new River Light Gallery in the old Wood Store.

Ode to Jerr-Dans

If you’re an ordinary motorist who needed a flat changed or a battery jumped, the call to AAA for help probably was answered by a fellow in a specially outfitted car, or a tow truck. If you’re an exhibitor at an art show and the van lets you down coming or going,  you tell the AAA operator to send a Jerr-Dan because your vehicle weighs eight or nine thousand pounds, is extended, and is going nowhere on the end of a hook.

Over the weekend Emily helped Linda at the Worthington Art Festival, a suburb north of Columbus, Ohio. On the way to the motel after setting up Linda realized her van was not shifting properly. She left it at the motel for the weekend, and she and Emily hitched to the show with fellow exhibitors. She drove in to the show on Sunday, they packed up Sunday night, and Linda called Triple A. She asked them to be there at seven; they arrived about ten.

The driver put her van on the Jerr-Dan and drove the two of them two hundred miles back to Columbiana. He put them down at Linda’s mechanic’s garage, they hitched another ride to her house at two a.m., and all ended well with a new transmission line.

It was Emily’s first Jerr-Dan adventure, and she asked me about some of my more memorable Jerr-Dan moments. In truth, I only came home on a Jerr-Dan once, but did have a ride on a Jerr-Dan to a garage that replaced my radiator on the way to a show.

I have seen exhibitors arrive at a show on a Jerr-Dan, unload their van and send it on to a garage for repairs while they put on their show. That probably sums up the fortitude of every exhibitor I know. The show always goes on.

Ann and I had a Jerr-Dan angel pull up behind us, on Interstate 84 in the Catskills in New York State. We were leaving the New Paltz spring show some Memorial Day Monday. It was still very light out. I was passing a semi on a two lane section when there was an explosion and a tire blew at seventy miles an hour. The noise confused Ann, but I knew, and quit passing the truck and got to the berm when the truck was clear. “Blew a tire,” I told her, and got out to assess the damage.

I was on the phone with AAA shortly, and the operator told me it would be several hours; we were in a very isolated piece of upstate New York just for starters, and it was the holiday weekend. Just then a Jerr-Dan pulled in behind us. “Never mind,” I told the operator. “He’s here already.”

An elderly fellow climbed down, we unloaded the van to the extent of accessing the spare. He changed the tire, we reloaded the van and I asked him how much I owed him. “Nothing, m’am,” he assured me. He was retired and spent his spare time cruising the interstate in his Jerr-Dan, looking out for trouble to fix.

Ann came round the back with a tin of her oatmeal cookies and insisted he take a couple. He did, ate one, reached back in the can for a couple more, and then said, “Now, I’m going to follow you girls to the next exit and I want you to pull into the service station there. That spare tire is low; I’ll fill it up and check all your tires and send you along. I’ll need to charge you a couple more cookies.”

I thought I was Road Runner, but I may be Wily Coyote or, I’ve absorbed a Niagara Falls of credit card technology in one afternoon.

It took me one trip to the phone store and two calls to the help line to get my cute little square up and running today. At the phone store two young women, I’d guess eighteen and twenty something, helped me download the app to my phone.  The younger one, Amanda, began the download, which took several minutes. Waiting, I said to Morgan, the older, I quit all this technology more than ten years ago and the last mobile point of sale terminal I used was a radio signal transmitter.

“Wi-fi?” queried Amanda. No, I told her, this was before Al Gore invented the internet. An actual radio signal carried the swiped credit card data winging to the processors and the approval back to my terminal. “Wow.”

I became an entrepreneur about the time credit cards were offering revolving credit, not thirty day terms. It was the wave of the future to a forty something weaver with goods to sell. We started with a knuckle buster, an imprinting machine, put the day’s slips into a glassine fronted envelope and took them to the bank to deposit.

Linda still uses her knuckle buster. She tells about a young man at the Central Pennsylvania Festival of the Arts last summer who wanted to interview her about her knuckle buster. He was a Penn State student in a Business and Technology class who had never seen such a thing. Could she process a check with it? He took a picture of it to show his class.

I was not long at out of state shows to realize there is a class of lowlife who depended on knuckle busters to deprive craftsmen of both their goods and their money. We had a point of sales terminal on the wall in the studio by then, and every night I would call home on our 800 number and read the imprinted slips to my sister to key into the terminal. The few iffy cards I took were generally resolved by finding the person in the local phone book and straightening it out.

It was still a cumbersome enough process to look into mobile technology, and we undertook the expense of the radio terminal. The scalawags were more numerous by then, and I learned to look up from my terminal and say “Oh, dear. This card was declined. Do you have another one you might want to use?”

Or the time I looked up into the eyes of a handsome young college man, making about a hundred and fiftyish dollar purchase. “Oh, dear. My screen says I am to keep this card if I can and call the police as soon as you are out of sight. What should I do?” And he said, “Oh, that must be the card I reported as stolen and forgot to throw away. Here, use this one.”

That wonderful little terminal was the end of my credit card processing experience; I sold it to another artist and left the world of sales forever. I thought.

Now I want to process credit cards again, and got the little square and a no monthly charge plan for less than we used to pay for actual point of sale processing. Cute little bugger, isn’t it:

Pretty little app on my phone; that dollar sign there to the right of the middle row of apps. Who could ask for anything more?

After supper tonight I whiled away a few minutes reading my news feed. There was an article in the “picked especially for you” section. On October first, the new and improved EMV credit cards will be deployed by all banks. To convince merchants to accept them, the processors have adopted the expedient of shifting the liability for fraud from the bank to the retailer. As more and more customers pull out their Europay Mastercard and Visa (EMV) chip embedded plastic which is not swiped, savvy retailers will buy the new readers.

Card reading terminals will soon join knuckle busters.  Oh, the irony of being drug into the post millennial era of credit card processing and obsoleted, all in the same afternoon.

Warp and Woof

I’m sure you remember the warp is the length of the fabric; the threads come up off the back beam of the loom so the shuttle of weft can be passed through the shedd and finish making the cloth. Listening to The Mill on the Floss yesterday, while putting a new warp on the loom (I have no recollection of ever reading that book!), the author referred to the warp and woof of the heroine’s life.

The new warp

I know the word “woof” as part of the stuff that makes up fabric. It has a murky history, seeming to come into the language from many olde sources. I cannot recall when I last read the word. It hasn’t been near as long since I last exhibited at a show, but that’s exactly what Linda and I are doing this Saturday.

I held out the opportunity to Linda a couple of weeks ago.  My ulterior motive was to have part of her booth, but she’s not amiss to selling some rugs, either. So, come Saturday two old weavers will share a booth at a venue I hope will become successful for the young entrepreneur sponsors.

The show is called The Peninsula Flea, modeled after similar affairs in towns much bigger than mine. Boston, New York. My thirteen year old grandson told me that if the Cleveland Flea is referred to as the C Flea, he supposes ours is the P Flea. Ha ha.

The premise of the shows seems to be upcycling, repurposing, clever ideas for old stuff. These new ideas just pass me in a flash. I suppose it’s as trendy as shabby chic was a decade ago. Here’s the link to The Peninsula Flea; you’ll have to smile. Or, as Linda and I once said to each other, waiting for Ann and her friend to be finished browsing an antique store, “Their collectibles are our mother’s junk.”

It’s been twelve years since I mounted an exhibit. I have nothing. Hence my invitation to share Linda’s booth at a show that was not even on her horizon before I told her. Then I told her how we would set it up to accommodate both of us, and then I set out to replace things. Receipts. Coat hangers. Bags. Cash box. What about credit cards? Hopefully in the nick of time I have purchased The Square. It’s supposed to come this week. Like my very first point of sale credit card terminal, I may learn how to use this one at the show.

We have two young women to schlep it all in and back out at the end of the day. And, we have lots of upscaled warp and woof to sell. We’ll see how it goes. Well I hope; I’ve signed up for three weekends.

A model story

In the dark ages, when I was a novice weaver, I thought I was a fiber purist, but I was a fiber snob.

Acceptance to an art show, especially the first time, is dependent wholly on pictures submitted. After the first time the jury looks for work that is new, fresh, growing, but, it’s still all about the slides.

Fiber can be a challenge to photograph, and I looked for a photographer who could do this kind of jury slide. At the studio I found the job was well done; rugs photographed from a height, bags in nice little groupings, and shirts laid on a good background and photographed with attention to weave structure and colors.

We were accepted to some decent local and regional shows, and, of course, next I tried for the big time. My first round of applications to national shows included an application to the Smithsonian Craft Show, and the rejection letter included jury remarks the clothes would have presented better on a model.

I took that letter straight to town and slapped it on the counter at the store of my friend Chris, who kept two artist galleries in town. Chris heard out my rant about judging a bird by its feathers and other such analogies. When I got done he said, “Joanne, get a model.”

My new photographer, in upstate New York, put my clothes on the same woman who modeled all the garments he photographed, and Jerry photographed for a lot of fiber artists. His model lived down the road from him, in Woodstock. When he had a job for her she left her garden, walked up the road, put her hair up on her head and modeled, dirt under her fingernails and all.

One day Jerry said he wasn't photographing garments anymore; his model quit. Someone had complained about her wrinkles, and she quit. What to do? I got by on the old slides for another year, but pushing the old slides to three years is so risky.

I thought of my friend Gail. I took her and a stack of clothes to a new photographer not far away.  I told her all she had to do was put her hair on top of her head. She came out of the dressing room with her hair up, the natural skirt and jacket, wearing black heels and carrying another pair which she had brought. The other requirement for modeling for me turned out to be bare feet. And so we carried the last several years of weaving.

Weaving again, I really feel the Smithsonian jury’s remark to put the clothes on a model. Helen, my quiet studio lady form does not complain and does not come to meals, but she just isn’t enough. Fortunately, I still have friends.

The girl in the hat and the periwinkle shirt. She's modeling the denim shirt at the top of the right column, in the Etsy button.

And no, I never applied again to the Smithsonian show. They really were out of our league, but that letter taught me a lot.

Recovering from grumpy

I added a picture page to the township web site and invited people to send their pictures. They don't, of course, so I keep adding pictures, and people say, "Oh, I like the pictures," and I say, "Great! Why don't you send some!" and they say "Oh, I keep meaning to do that!" Only the public is slower than government.

And, speaking of government, it's been two weeks, and a meeting to discuss our differences has finally been set, for next week, of course. You wonder what causes grumpiness? Don't get me started.

I've been so grumpy (and the weather so rainy), I've even fallen behind on my project to put a picture of every business in the business corridor on the web site. A burst of fifteen, and the last four I just haven't made myself stop for permission.

Yesterday I kicked my self out the door, got permission from one more business, and wandered around taking some "township" pictures. The other problem with township pictures is the editing. First, make them shiny and put on a hallmark, then resize them. That last irritates me. 

Why won't the webmaster let me put up lots and lots of pixels, I want to know. He claims our computers don't need that many pixels to look good, but after my Blogger pictures, I think my township pictures look grainy. While I was doing all that fooling around, I thought of some neat titles for some pictures.

I outsmarted the heron into two good pictures yesterday. The township picture is titled "Heron gone." Love it.

I took these two on the way out my own door. Garden succulents are new to me; my last acquaintance was sixty years ago, looking at them in rock gardens on my way to school. I had no idea they bloomed.

This succulent is happy as a bee in clover. Good to see my neighbor's honey bees, here and in the clover that is our lawn.

These three are from the abandoned horse farm in the park. Brier Rose, the park calls this farm, which makes locals angry, as it is the old Black Farm. I agree with the locals; there is no reason to rewrite history. 

Probably a swallowtail, in the Queen Ann's lace in the field. Getting closer involved a trip up the road and hopping a ditch. The latter isn't going to happen, so I just shot away.

And what is Emily doing this week? Working for Linda at the Central Pennsylvania Festival of the Arts at Penn State. Photo by Patrick Mansell in the Penn State News. Hard work, good for you.

Art is Work

Last Thursday I set aside everything else to go with Linda and "do a show," Broadripple Art Fair put on by the Indianapolis Museum of Art. Linda books the same motel year after year where there is a big retention pond in the middle of a great deal of urban construction. Previous years we've fed the ducks.

This year Linda fished, every night. Fishing is a passion, and if she had her druthers she'd do a lot more. That striped stool carried a lot of gear; the brown vest the same. She opened her tackle box in the room and ooh'd and aah'd, but I didn't fall for it. I know fishing from nothing. She caught bass and sunnies (whatever they are). She put them all back. I wonder if she caught any twice.

We left for Indianapolis Thursday afternoon; Friday morning we arrived early at the art museum to set up.

It was cold and wet, and became colder and wetter in the falling rain. Many set up the following morning. Linda's youngest cousin, Bruce, arrived to help. Bruce is fifty five. He has a lot of good setting up years left in him.

Saturday was too cold and miserable to recount. When not huddled in my chair I wandered around. All weekend I watched a bus being painted. I once painted all our interior booth set up brown, using spray cans. My index finger was numb for a month. These fellows used the index finger method. I've seen thumb controls that can be put over the button. Perhaps they haven't arrived yet in Indianapolis.

Do not be deceived by blue sky. The temperature did not reach sixty that day.

Another great find while walking for warmth! An art teacher put together this hands on children's project. She and her assistants built geodesic domes using dowels. Think Tinker Toys! Covered the dome with chicken wire. Strategically placed bins of rag strips and invited passers by to weave. They had a four harness Nilus LeClerc on a table, to demonstrate "regular" weaving. It had less than an inch of work on it. The domes were covered by Sunday night.

 Plenty of "real" art on display. The artist in the upper left won a third place ribbon. Sadly, I never located first and second. They must have been something!

The weather was beautiful for Sunday; sixty and sunshine. Ten degrees from perfect, but not bad.

Some garden art. I could go on and on; there was more than enough to look at.

My favorites, the children. I asked the young father permission to snap his little girl, and he smiled, too.

Then it was Sunday night, and over. Tear down, pack up, go home. Our neighbor was a glass artist. As he packed up I saw the paint brush on the back of a panel. Removes dirt from those pesky spots in his creations, I'm sure. I loved the dad going for their van, trailed by his boys.

A protest

I traveled the Southern Tier through New York State as often as I could.  Route 17, now an interstate.  I loved the Southern Tier, in spite of its lack of rest areas.  After it became an interstate I did not use it.  It probably looked much the same, but I couldn't bear the idea of its undulating ribbons of road being an interstate highway.

In the spring of ‘97 I did a show at the state fairground in Syracuse. Jan rode with me, to help Linda at her studio, while I did the show. Linda lived south of Auburn at the time, and the drive to her house from the fairground was perhaps half an hour.

Linda brought Jan to the show in time to help me pack up Sunday night, and the two of us dropped down to the Southern Tier to come home.  The road goes through mile upon mile of farming country, rolling over the Allegheny foothills.  The big towns are small, the small towns are hamlets. For miles and miles the road also travels through the Seneca Nation.

As we hummed along in the dusk, suddenly I realized there were no other cars on the road.  I looked at Jan as I mentioned that and as I looked the side of the highway erupted in orange flames.  In the center of the flames, a pile of tires, around the edges, men waving. Then flames exploded on my left. Then again on the right. Then, nothing.  As we discussed what kinds of fools might be igniting tire piles, emergency lights flashed ahead.  Slowing down in the growing dark, we saw New York State Highway Patrol cars and officers in the road, directing us to an exit.

We drove around a tiny town, looking for information.  Nothing was open, the streets were empty.  Not natural.  I went back to the freeway; the entrance ramp was blocked.  A man came to the window and I asked what was happening.  In a pleasant voice the man began explaining the Seneca Nation was in a dispute with the State of New York.  He apologized for our inconvenience, but the Nation needed to bring attention to its plight.

A trouper came to the window, and told the man to be a hundred feet away. At the passenger window, Jan was in conversation with another trouper.  I had been conscious of her finding the map under the seat and thrusting it out the window.  While she got directions, the trouper at my window just told me the Southern Tier was closed and we needed to find an alternate route home.

We found the route Jan’s trouper indicated and started north, up and down mountains to get to the New York Thruway and home from there.  Jan got on the phone and called Tom, a trucker.  What was going on?  He called truckers who called truckers and the story came back to us.

As we climbed the first mountain and I listened to the story, I realized there was no one ahead of me on the road, and the lights behind were accumulating. Cresting the first range we had an “Oh, My, God” moment.  The entire southbound lane of this two lane road, from the top of the range far ahead of us, down the valley and up the side we were about to descend, was headlights, behind a semi that apparently overheated at the top of the steep hill and stopped.  But not off the road, as the sheer mountain rock would let the driver get no further off the road.

Jan hung up on Tom long enough to call 911 and tell a dispatcher to get someone to the top of this mountain to intervene in an accident waiting to happen. I lead my north bound caravan down the mountain and no one south bound was fool enough to try and get around the disabled truck.

One more mountain range and we cut across to the Thruway, below Buffalo, and started home again. Where did hundreds and hundreds of southbound vehicles come from, on a county road designed for farm traffic? From the Thruway, east of Buffalo, which the Seneca Nation shut down as effectively as they closed the Southern Tier. 

It was Magnificent!

All we learned from the truckers that night was the Seneca Nation had a grievance with the State of New York; the State of New York responded inappropriately, in their opinion, and the Seneca Nation responded by closing two major highways.

It was a tax dispute.  The Indian Nations are tax exempt.  New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer attempted to make the Seneca Nation pay sales taxes on goods delivered to the Nation, including heating oil and propane for cooking. When they refused, he cut off deliveries. 

The story never was news.  No one knew that in little homes all over the Seneca Nation people were cold, hungry, out of work. That Eliot Spitzer, probably unhappy the case was proceeding so slowly through the courts, exacted his own revenge on the Seneca Nation for not paying illegally imposed taxes.

Yes, the same Eliot Spitzer who imploded in scandal and failed to make a comeback in the recent primary election for New York City mayor.

The embargo was lifted, propane and fuel oil was delivered to homes in the Seneca Nation.  The Seneca Nation prevailed, and won in court.

Jan and I were an extra three or four hours getting home.  The folks on the Thruway, including friends from the show, were delayed eight to ten hours. But then, we were on the road less traveled.

The next time I went east on the Southern Tier I passed under a huge, lighted informational sign saying, and I may be paraphrasing slightly, You are Entering the Seneca Nation. Travel at your own risk for the next several hundred miles.” Same sign on the other end, when I came back. The sign remained in place for several years.

Apparently the best the Great State of New York had to offer.

Source

About festivals…

Jan and I both were otherwise gainfully employed when we encountered weaving.  We lived in two different counties, fifty minutes apart.  Weaving actual “stuff” was a heady experience, we made lots of it.  “We could sell this stuff” was the next thought and we looked around for venues where people sold the “stuff” they made.  We talked to people we were meeting who made and sold “stuff” and the Utica Ice Cream Festival was recommended as a good place, so we booked a place and showed up on time.

I just googled Utica Ice Cream Festival.  It is still going strong. Read the list of activities and see our learning curve.  Folks who come to a festival to eat ice cream, cheer their kids in sack races and check exhibits of vintage cars aren’t there to buy much hand crafted “stuff.”  The ice cream is excellent, however, and we made new and life-long friends travelling the same curving road as we.

At that festival we met Todd and Joni, silversmiths, with their three young children and another on the way.  Utica was a good half day’s drive from our homes, back then, and Todd and Joni lived in another small village between us.

To the day I retired I envied Joni.  Or any jeweler.  Three or four hours into my own unloading, unpacking, set up, with maybe twenty minutes to show time, Joni would come in from the parking lot with her canopy over one shoulder, carrying two large cases with handles.  The cases became the display, the beautiful silver pieces displayed on or behind glass counters.  And her so lovely, smiling, getting out this ring or that bracelet.

But back to our modest beginnings.  After the ice cream festival Joni wanted some place mats and came to the studio to select the fabric.  Jan made her five, and she wears the ring she received in trade to this day.  A couple of years later Jan met the toddler who she last knew as a baby on the way.  Mallory.

Back at the studio Jan went rummaging for anything left of Joni’s place mat fabric and found enough to make Mallory a small, square place mat.  It would fit her high chair!  Jan sent it in a manila envelope, addressed to Mallory.  Her very own place mat.

When her plate covered the entire mat, Mallory still used it.  When Mallory went to college, so did her place mat.  We saw Joni last a couple of years ago, at a local art festival, and yes, Mallory is married and still uses her place mat under something.

It did us no harm to learn from the bottom up, as it were, there are festivals and there are festivals.  Even with a “craft” tent, an ice cream festival is not an art festival.  And there is no experience to boost one’s learning curve like hearing, over the loudspeaker from the ice cream eating contest tent, “Sorry, son, it must stay down to count.’

Utica Ice Cream Festival

A good bed can win a war

Early on in our weaving career Jan and I tried different venues, experimenting on a fit in the fair world. Some of the shows were short on cash but long on stories.

One such show, the name I do not recall, was held in the Carillon Historical Park in Dayton, Ohio.  It was an outdoor show of no great renown, themed generally around a reenactment outfit that hosted a trading post.  I recall we were approached to exhibit because we often demonstrated spinning and offered some handspun, hand knit sweaters and hats and mittens.

The reenactors were American and British Revolutionary War soldiers.  And camp followers.  I remember little about the battles, which were held at regularly scheduled times.  A cannon was fired frequently.  The people who came to see battles reenacted were not much interested in a fair, and there was sparse traffic through the show.

For this post I did some research to find Ohio reenactor groups and some Revolutionary War moment that could realistically be staged in Dayton, Ohio.   As we all know, that war was conducted east of the Appalachians, although there were lots of British militia about in that whole lead up, the French and Indian War. My cursory research turned up little, so I have nothing of interest to add about the history reenacted.

It was a mighty cold weekend and although regular patrons were few, we did business with reenactors with cold children.  Our stock of children’s sweaters and mittens was wiped out by Saturday afternoon.  Before the show closed that night one young reenactor came in carrying a minute toddler, Willow, about eighteen months old. 

The sweaters all were sold and there seemed to be nothing suitable to keep the baby warmer.  Then Willow’s mother spotted the dish towels and bought a dogwood flower overshot towel as an extra blanket overnight for the baby.

Sunday morning was too cold to be outdoors, unless there was a booth to open or a battle to reenact.  We wandered over to the encampment early, to check up on Willow.  We met a British officer and his wife emerging from their tent, and, of course, remarked we were grateful for the real, warm beds we’d enjoyed overnight. 

The officer and his lady exchanged glances, then invited us into their tent. A canvass wall divided the front and back of the interior.  The officer drew the wall apart and showed us their primitive bed, with rope underpinnings, and an obviously modern box spring and mattress under the coverlet.  The secret to their success.

We found Willow, warm and toasty, and wearing her new towel as a cape.  We've seen Willow and her mother several times over the years, and at last meeting Willow still had her dogwood towel.  Not surprising, the towels in our kitchen drawer are upwards of thirty years old.

Overshot, dogwood pattern

Ducks, geese, birds and boots

We worked hard at the show; it was good to sit on the porch at night and watch the pond activity.

The ducks

Only one little one, and I can't guess why no more.

The Canada Geese. A pair with goslings came by.

Linda knew the name of this bird.  I don't remember.

A robin.

The boots.  The only picture I took at the show.  Aren't they grand.