Market Girls

As we are rushing headlong towards our almost third market, it has been an amazingly fun ride. Not only because it was wonderful seeing so many artists and crafters creeping out of their hidey hole to come share their talents at the market, it was also all due to the other three of my market compatriots; Tenacious Tiny, Terrific Trish and Trusting Toni.

Wonderful ladies all though it's amazing we even came together in the first place.

Seriously though, all of us have pretty much nothing in common apart from the artsy crafting that basically brought us together - so that gives rise to the occasional difference of opinion since we all have intensely contrasting personalities and generally hail from dissimilar backgrounds. And yet since we are a fledgling non-profit group, there are no specific set tasks and roles for any of us so we generally cover for each other when the other is busy. With such overlapping duties and functions, you can bet it's not all hunky dory all the time.

For instance I'm always alright with a little bit of bending the rules here and there, as are Trish and Toni occasionally, but Tiny is an impossible stickler for her rules. Tiny Rules. Something I'm starting to believe is traditionally cross stitched in large capital-sized fonts on a wooden sampler framed in her living room.

Bet Tiny would so be the fierce black girl.

You know those dangerously tiny lil mean girls back in school that you just know will get their way no matter what? That's definitely her.

So yes, we do go on into the weekly dispute over the nitty gritty of running the market.

Number one on her exhaustive list of rules about the market would be the authenticity of the artisanal product - something which I'm fine with. Unfortunately that's followed closely by the fact that she wants the creator to be personally there since Tenacious Tiny has an undeniable grudge against intermediary vendors who bring in marketable items from the interior villages without crediting the makers individually.

Alright let's not argue over the impossible logistics of bringing every talented basket maker from their longhouse for a weekend leaving their family behind. Add that to the fact that if the sole basket maker opened a stall, she'd probably only have a meagre amount of items on sale since it takes quite a while to finish even one!

So those were my points. Took some convincing and several hundred messages to finally get Tiny to agree - while Trish looked on in growing amusement and Toni scampered off for fear of being dragged into the tiff. Right there you have a small illustration of how things work around here. Whatever personality type Tiny may be, I'm definitely the direct opposite which drives her quite insane at times. But I guess we do need conflicting points of views to make the market work as well as it does.

The Art Market & Me

Back during my schooldays though I was generally adequate when it came to my academics, few of my classmates would have come to me seeking pointers on mathematical sums or even physics conundrums. Simply put science & math simply wasn't something I was all that interested in and any questions posed to me, apart from those in my homework, would have earned a disinterested shrug from me.

Imagine my animosity towards a particular math tutor who insisted on handing out apparently 'fun' quizzes during our breaks.

It was towards the generally 'arts' subjects, as we would term it here, such as history, literature and art itself that I loved. Brief spells in between classes would have found me either carelessly doodling on the exercise book or sometimes pulling out my latest paperback for a quick read. And like in most any boys' school, there was always the incessant hushed request for the resident artist to draw female nudes.

I'm done with you. Get up and get dressed. 

Didn't take very much for horny teenage boys to get going at that impressionable age so anything slightly more voluptuous than their own childlike stick figure drawings would do. Turned out it wasn't all that difficult for me to sketch sexy sirens in all sorts of slutty situations. After all it was always the naked male figures that made me a tad more uneasy. Kept tweaking the nose of the handsome fellow, kept widening the broad shoulders, darkening the brows... just could never get them right.

And yes, they did make my heart go pitter patter a little. Yes, it made perfect sense in retrospect of course.

But that was all during my high school years. Though I still pulled out a sketchbook every once in a while after, I never did all that much till recently.

With the art market we organized, it was amazing to see so many creative minds under one roof! Don't think any of us walked out of the hall without feeling utterly energized by the crackling ingenuity and inventiveness shown by the many talented vendors who came to show their unique wares. That wasn't even counting the number of brainstorming sessions we had during our painting and crafting workshops which gave me so many budding ideas for creative collaboration from dollies to washi tapes.

Certainly sparked something in me which has me going through several pages of my sketchbook in a day, which is why I've been neglecting this blog for a little while!

How I Got Away With An Art Market II

Initially I think all of us, Trish, Tiny, Toni and I, even with the greatest of hopes and optimism, didn't think very much would come of the very first market we planned.

For such a small town with hardly any artistic gatherings as such, there seemed little chance we would even be able to collect enough promising vendors to form an artisan market. About a handful was all we expected and we planned it as such with a smaller event space than the one before. And even though we had decided to revive a lackluster market that happened semi regularly, the crowd at their very last event had been less than gratifying.

Hardly a ringing recommendation for the next.

Shouldn't come as a surprise then that I didn't have very high hopes for the customer crowd so I tried to reasonably manage everyone's expectations.

Paul : Guys, it's just our first market, a test for the crowd in town, so don't worry if not many people appear.
Tiny : There will be a huge crowd. 
Paul : At least we hope. Nonetheless it's just an opportunity for us all to get together and know one another. 
Tiny : There will be a huge crowd. 
Paul : I really hope you repeating that would actually make it happen. 

Turns out that seemed to do the trick.

Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon, the ancient Chinese proverb goes to explain the spectacular talents hidden in people yet undiscovered. A phrase that has certainly turned out apt for our particular situation since artists and crafters came out of nowhere when our first offer went out. Seems like right beneath our noses, we had painters, calligraphers, sculptors etc. all ready to showcase their hidden talents. Didn't take long before we were already getting worried whether we even had enough available venue space to fit them all in.

Like it or not, it was the management of such a diverse group of temperamental artisans with peculiar needs and wants that turned out to be a challenge. Urgent messages on every social media possible went zinging to and fro as we handled the occasional mercurial diva.

Tiny : It's your turn. 
Paul : I did it this morning. 
Trish : I'll do it but you guys owe me dessert. 
Paul : As long as I don't have to handle that melodrama again. 

Not to mention handling each other with our eccentricities since we had only started to know each other - meaning Trish, Tiny, Toni and I.

How To Get Away With An Art Market

Rather than make a new year resolution that I would probably fail miserably at, I decided to do something far more productive and rejuvenate an art market already present here. After all I've always wanted to run a little artsy bric-a-brac store of my own so why not try out my rusty shopkeeping skills with something a little less permanent, and a tad more substantial than just a pop-up store!

For years on end, I have been a frequent visitor at an annual arts and crafts market here - and yes, I've often wondered often enough why it hasn't become a more regular event rather than only briefly during the run up to Christmas. After all, there seemed to be quite a growing crowd of participants each year. Few could answer me however, though I could easily guess the reason was mainly due to the semi-active participation of a couple of overtaxed expatriate housewives who tended to flit in and out of the town throughout the year.

Hardly the sort to help make the fledgling market a more formally established item on the city's itinerary. 

Which is where we come in. One of the more determined participants, henceforth to be named Tenacious Tiny, corralled some of the more vocal people into a tight band to jointly organize more art markets here. Through Terrific Trish and Trusting Toni whom I've met on and off through the various events in town, I found my way into this group who hoped to bring together the crafters and creators in Miri under one single umbrella. 

Or at least that's what our main objective said!

Though none of them remotely resembled this fellow sadly. 

Despite my initial misgivings, the number of interested vendors in our market idea turned out to be quite significant; with a rare handful heaving a sigh of relief that someone had finally taken charge to make it more permanent. All I could think of was why hadn't they? Guess initiative is harder to find than I thought!

Several evenings of coffee and brainstorming followed between Trish, Tiny, Toni and I as we figured what to keep and what to change about the upcoming events. Thoughts of shifting the market venue to a more convenient location turned out to be far more tricky than we imagined. Not only did Tiny adore the original rustic location in a beach hut bistro, she as a local agoraphobic native didn't fancy driving more than five metres away from her house. Took a little bit of convincing but we managed to divert to another location closer to the town centre. 

Even the dates of the event kept moving around the calendar as we tried to balance the logistics of preparation with the advent of the Chinese New Year. 

Fortunately with Trish ever so adept at computer graphics, we soon had several posters and ads ready to place up around town; which Tiny and I sneakily plastered up at the more prominent junctions in town. Helping with the social media accounts, I found myself embracing the role of a peppy millennial coming up with wildly animated, enthusiastic remarks to accompany our numerous adverts.

Gotta admit there were some days I found myself utterly exhausted from being that vivacious- and wished desperately for a cup of thick black coffee.