Oh boy. 2025. The year of the ... collective sigh?

Everything's been bonkers since November and I have no expectation of the world finding an equilibrium in the near future. On the one hand, maybe we're due for a radical upset, maybe it just arrives covered in bronzer and shit instead of pretty packaging. Maybe things need to be horrible so we can get over our inertia and make the painful change happen. Maybe this is a secret blessing so we can sweep out the old guard and get things moving again. Maybe this is just how it has to be.

I've been thinking a lot about pro wrestling lately. Maybe "a lot" is an exaggeration but definitely more than at any other point in my life. I learned a new word: kayfabe. I think I heard it before but it sounds more like a social media username than a real word so it didn't register as a concept. But I think it is a very important word to understand and survive politics for the next few years.

It's all kayfabe. All this political posturing, the absurd grandiose shocker bomb drops. It's a performance for the audience to enjoy. The audience being redhats. The rest of us (the suckers) who have been clinging to outdated concepts like integrity and respect and want our politicians to be sensible and take their job seriously - we are playing our part in the show as the bewildered fool - we are the bull charging the rodeo clown. The lolcow to the trolls. The more upset we get about the onstage antics, the funnier we are to the audience. It's not real to them. It's entertainment. It's the tail wagging the dog. It's drama for drama's sake. Trump is all about putting bugs in a jar and shaking them up, and that's what his followers want. Bug fights. Every day a new soap opera installment. Bread and circuses.

I'm hoping he will be so busy generating meaningless drama that a lot of what he promised will never become reality. I mean, it'll be BAD and people will definitely get hurt, but I've been reminding myself that this asshole previously got elected on building a wall, got everyone riled up and shouting about it, and ultimately failed to deliver. He failed. He didn't touch "obamacare", nevermind repeal and replace it. He's great at drama but shite at results. We'll see, right?

Anyway, I'm tuning that shit out and saving my emotional investment until actual policy gets implemented. Which is terrible (how fortunate am I to be able to tune out) - but I'm not interested in playing the role of lolcow and giving this production more legitimacy.

So years ago I was drama vulturing over the epoxy cup crafters. They take steel tumblers and coat them in glitter and cricut decals and make these kitchy ultra-personalized epoxy resin nightmares. Just hideous tacky (probably toxic) trash. But super popular with the "country mom" set (the type of people who say sunflowers are their favorite flower with a straight face - I am sorry, nobody with good taste likes sunflowers). All these women making these things and selling them online and in craft markets and apparently doing quite well for themselves.

Well I revisited the epoxy cup crafting community and you guys ... it has somehow gotten way worse than just glitter cups. They got into tiktok. They livestream themselves making cups and sort of auction off slots to have cups made on camera while they chitchat with their followers. It's like how the successful MLM lularoe sellers used to sell via livestream and rack up massive sales because it creates an illusion of specialness and scarcity. But instead of an MLM, it's custom cups. (Which is a genius move if you think about it ... people do like watching crafty things get made. Credit where credit is due, it's a great business strategy.) So now there's "tumblertok" and massive drama between some of these cup creators, over what I could not tell you. There's a subreddit called tumblertok and I lurked through a bunch of posts with my jaw dropped and I still cannot explain any of it. As far as I can tell, it's junior high school preteen level drama. The drama is it's own sales tactic, because people tune into these livestreams to witness the next drama. It's like home shopping network, except if the hosts hated each other and had bitchy little catfights while selling polyester slacks.

Also apparently the crochet community is a festering pocket of drama, especially among the craft fair set who sell cute animal stuffies. At least I can understand the crochet drama - most of it is straightforward.

The point being that drama is ruling our world right now. Drama gets attention. People want to know what's going on - people want to take sides. People want to spot the next hot drama. It's the next level of reality tv, but you craft it yourself.

I legit watched a youtube by a crochet crafter who was documenting her booth at a craft fair and teased about this big drama that happened while she was vending. How she was so upset and cried in her car over it, and she couldn't even talk about it until the event was done. The huge drama? A vendor she doesn't like (illegally?) split her booth with another crafter who also made crochet animals. So there were THREE!!! vendors selling crochet at this big multi day event. Bad enough there were two but THREE!!! and the event coordinators would not kick out the interloper. So she blamed the illegal crocheter for taking $800 of her sales and so on. Like, it's manufactured nonsense. No serious experienced vendor would make such a fuss over this. So you have a little more competition, oh no? Make product other people don't have? There's no expectation that you'll be the only one allowed to sell a particular craft. But this woman blew it up into this massive problem, made a youtube video, and is presumably making money off drama vultures like me who watch her overreact to inconveniences.

Look what is being rewarded here. Make drama, get attention. Get attention, get money.

So there's this misbegotten coupling of pro wrestling and home shopping network that is happening culturally. Yikes, right? I feel like this is the proper lens to use to view the insanity in the world right now. We're living in bottomfeeder trash TV land. This is what people want.

I've been focusing on business stuff (thus the investigating into craft markets and revisiting cup makers) and doing what I can to get ready for the vending season. I really need to start making product. We trashed the garage working on stuff for the harry potter christmas party (which went great and was super fun - we got snubbed by spouse's parents for the second year but I don't care), and now I have to wade in and reorganize, so I can switch to bottle cutting and engraving. It sucks doing this in winter, because it's cramped and I lack the space to spread out. We've had unseasonably warm weather this past week, so everything is melty and gross. We have a problem where if there's a lot of wetness in the topsoil, it creeps into the garage and makes parts of the floor wet/damp. If it were properly cold I might be able to use the backyard to temporarily put stuff. Now I can't even use the floorspace effectively, and I'm also worried some stuff next to the garage walls is in danger of getting wrecked by the damp.

New Kitten has been destroying the plastic sheeting I had put up in the paint corner to protect the walls. It makes rustly noises so he thinks it is super fun to wrestle in there and claw holes. It's now destroyed, half pulled down, and there are little paint flakes everywhere. I have to clean things up, move the tables, take down the plastic and put up canvas dropcloths. He'll probably try to wreck that too, but it'll take more abuse than the plastic sheeting. Like, the garage is just a filthy disaster right now and it's tough to know where to start. There's no good open space to move things.

I went to an event on saturday that had 35+ local artists. The timing was bad (too soon after the holidays when I knew we'd be laser focused on the HP christmas party) so I didn't apply to vend, but I wanted to go and check out the vibe. The weather has been weird and it's January, so I thought there would be a poor turnout. But it was hopping! The parking lot was packed, there was a good crowd (enough that I had to seek out one of the less crowded rooms) and it seemed very successful. I think the organizers will try to make it a repeating event every few months, so I will def apply in the future. I also ran into three old coworkers from the screenprinting shop, so that was really cool. They seem to be doing great and I hear they are working on unionizing at the shop and it's a much better place to work. Fantastic, it was hell for screenprinters there. One old coworker now owns a vintage shop that is very community involved and seems fantastic. Most of my screenprinting coworkers were artsy people who liked music and events and stuff, so running into several of them at this event is not surprising.

Naturally I was there primarily to check out "the competition" and get ideas for booth displays, etc. Lots of jewelry, some of it gorgeous but nothing for gauged ears (thank god, or I might have been tempted to buy). A few artists with paintings and prints, but nothing similar to my style. A mix of obviously young, inexperienced vendors who barely remembered an unhemmed piece of fabric to cover their table, and professionals who put a lot of thought and care into their displays. The soap vendor and the cookie maker were getting a lot of attention.

Lots of vendors with their head down at the table, focused on their phones. Sure, it's tough for introverted sellers. You don't want to pay the customer too much attention and make it weird. Scare them off. You gotta cultivate this air of pleasantly waiting, like you're not there just to claw fresh hot doolars out of pocketbooks that stray too close. You play like you're also a fellow attendee, enjoying the event and having a good time. Not like you're a bored babysitter.

One vendor at the end of the aisle had a nice tall display with lots of colorful prints, but she either had a very unfortunate case of RBF or she was just sour and over the event before it started. When I was at her table she looked straight through me, like she couldn't be bothered. Granted, I didn't dress up and I looked a bit scruffy, but it was like she wrote me off in a fraction of a second. Lady, you are not going to sell much projecting that attitude. I'd never tell her to "smile" or whatever, but when you are sitting at a booth trying to sell your art, impressions matter, and it will affect how people perceive what you are trying to sell. Because in a way they are buying into you, as an artist, as well as your work.

I thought her art was a bit amateur, which means her attitude was even MORE important. You can get sales with okayish art if you're fun to be around and people want to give you that boost.

I bought a glass pendant from a glassblower, and a print from a native artist. The glass pendant was sort of a pity purchase. The vendor was stuck in a bad corner and frankly, looked like they were a half step from dumpster diving behind taco bell for dinner. A scrap of fabric on the table and shoddy display. Interesting collection of little items, marbles, pendants, spinning tops, small goblets, but there's a good bet they made half of it stoned out of their mind ( ... glassblower ... in Alaska ... you know what they got into that craft to make). I chatted with them for a bit and they invented a particular glassworking tool to make a certain effect. I bought a pendant with it. It's pretty. Maybe our paths cross again, maybe I'll want a connection with a glassworker and I can mention I bought something.

The print I bought is in a woodcut style with a repeating motif of a chain of indigenous women braiding each other's hair. I like the energy that it brings. I need more art on the walls and not all my art.

The only glass cups I saw were a partial display of handpainted cordial glasses (smaller than wineglasses). The vendor had a hodgepodge of things - I wonder if they had focused on just the painted glasses (or any one type of item) if they would have got more attention. It's too much for people to take in if you have a smattering of jewelry, a few sewn items, some convenience store snacks, and some other assorted bits. Looks like a flea market.

I saw the funniest thing the other day while I was trolling for youtube videos about engraving glass. I found an artist who had a full blown professionally done video short about her and her glass engraving. Maybe she has a videographer friend - who knows - but it's basically a lindt chocolate truffle commercial except for glass engraving. You know, the "myth of the master craftsman" thing that I like to harp on. Well this is a prime example of that nonsense.

=> it out https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m5cBZPJlz04

Check this bitch out, she's got a giant empty clean room with perfect natural light to work in! In the morning she romps around in nature with her fancy camera and sketchbook intently studying wildflowers, then she returns to her house to engrave in perfect tranquility while piano music plays. Lolololololol.

I feel like I could do one of those "bentley" mock comparisons where I show a snip of Victoria in her nice clean farmhouse working on champagne flutes, and then I cut to my filthy damp garage, fighting with the Kitten over plastic sheeting, kicking stuff aside to make room to engrave with my dusty tower of saved spaghetti jars and kombucha bottles in the corner. I think it would be hysterical.

(I actually like Victoria's illustrations. There is real charm in her work. Props.)

So on one side of the spectrum there's "flea market" artists with a smattering of assorted baubles, but you can skew too far into "master craftsman" artists who are laser focused on what sells and end up seeming cold and detached from real life. Too perfect. Too commercial and safe.

Anyway I'm ruminating over this event and what I want to do with my vending display. I think I definitely want something to add height to a regular table, like wood crates turned on their side to make shelves, and I need a taller thing to sit on (eventually you must sit). I'm thinking about getting a 3' ladder. It would elevate me to standing height, if I sat on the top step. I kind of want to do a speakeasy/pub look - lean into dark wood. I don't want my booth to instantly read as super feminine so I might tone down some of my colorful display stuff. I bought some cheap "shimmer wall" panels to make a standout background sign. They are large flat sequins hung on a plastic peg framework, so any air disturbance makes them move and flash. Excellent eye catchers that need no batteries. A person can get so much eye fatigue looking at same-same vendor tables, even if they are nice vendor tables. I want something fresh so people get grabbed by my booth from across a large space. I think I also need to paint a banner that makes it obvious I have hand engraved art and not just copy-paste laser etched stuff. When your items are smaller and decorative, you have to make people curious enough to get close for a proper look. So that means something big and obvious and eye catching and interesting that everyone can see. You could have the best things in the world - if you're in a busy area and nobody can see your table due to crowds, they won't try to find an opening to circle back.

I don't have any potential events until early march. Spring events are sparse. Farmer's markets won't start up until June (late may maybe). I have some time, but of course it will go fast.

I have a new grinder machine supposed to arrive today I am very excited about. It's marketed as a tabletop resin polisher, but this one can fit a 4" diamond disc, which I really need. First I tried smoothing the cut glass rims by hand on wet/dry sandpaper and that took forever and results were meh. Then I rigged up this thing that attached to my drill with a 4" diamond disc. It worked a lot better for the coarse grinding necessary to get the rim flat, but the drill is hard to control and it felt like I had to stick to painfully slow speeds or risk bouncing around and breaking the glass. Also it wobbles on the bit. It's janky. There is a lapidary facet grinding machine that uses 6" diamond discs. It's probably what I really need, but the cheapest sketchiest mystery chinese one is $300 and that's a lot to make product I don't even know people will buy. Then I found this $60 resin polisher with variable speeds up to 6000 rpm. It's from china and has no reviews, yay. Buying it felt like gambling. I have my fingers crossed it isn't hot garbage.

I'm noodling around, distracting myself from cleaning the filthy garage. Guess I should go do that.

Happy new year.