We recently attended Living Craft at Blenheim Palace in Oxfordshire, showing our hand-woven silk scarves and hand-dyed yarns, along with several hundred diverse UK-based artisans. In between gophering and munching my way through a self-filling plate of German speculaas cookies, I got talking to several arty neighbours over the course of the 3-day event. One of the most repeated lines was:
The only thing you can guarantee in this game is that it will be up and down, good and bad, exciting one day and depressing the next.
Constantly different
Adventure wildlife artist Paul Dyson from Nottingham was very philosophical about his inability to gauge how a crowd would react to his beautiful detailed original paintings and prints. He has been going to this particular show for several years, and has quite a following, so to us newbies, it seemed he would have a good idea of what was to come over the 3 day event? Not so! On the Friday, he was happy with sales, on the Saturday, less so, and on Sunday he was ruing not bringing more postcards. It may not have been as productive a show as previous years, but that didn't mean that next year it won't be a blockbuster.
Consistency did not seem to play a part in this side of the artisan and artist's existence!
As he said, it only takes one customer to swing the whole day. One commission can develop into a few. One person at the stand can attract 3, then 5, then a horde. I was reminded of the phenomenon of pointing with conviction at an empty sky - stay long enough pointing with enough conviction, and the whole street will be pointing! In Paul's case, though, looking at one of his 53 limited edition prints of a
Snow Leopard on Everest, there was good cause to stare and point and wonder and feel other eyes drawn to that special piece of work.
Constant flux
Across the way, ceramics and glass maker, Myra Wishart had a similar story to tell.
From removing a new piece of work from the kiln to standing at a stall at a busy show, the common thread seemed to be a lack of clarity about what EXACTLY was going to happen next! Would the glassware be cracked or amazingly original and impossible to replicate? Would the discerning public admire her striking ceramic heads and buy one, or would they plump instead for a colourful glass Christmas dangly thing for under a fiver.
Constant flurry
And so to the novice Lilou stand. 12000 people were due to arrive over 3 days, in a massive wave of exposure, a tsunami of interest compared to the more selective website traffic and Facebook interaction we have had to date. Well-to-do professionals, few families, few kids, floods of targeted consumers coming by the coachload programmed to buy buy buy upmarket British handicrafts for Christmas...
Would 30 scarves be enough to meet demand? How many leads could we pick up? Would people even like what we did? Would they care everything was hand-made, pure mulberry silk, hand-dyed and one-off?
For us, day one was a constant blur of chat and demos on the loom and standing looking positive in the lulls, and frenetic attending to the stall to fine-tune the presentation, and wondering why there were so many kids and families... the result - one sale of one skein of hand-dyed yarn! Oh.
But the next day, almost within minutes of the show opening, the couple who had purchased the one skein, came back and bought another 11 skeins, almost half the stock gone! Woah, slow down, people, we don't want to look sold out by 10am of day 2.
A little low
The Saturday public obliged! Interest was constant and in droves, but money stayed in purses. However, it was fascinating to study hundreds of people, all independently enter our space and gravitate towards "their" scarf ie their colour. Some shrugged and left, some smiled, some chatted and asked questions, one self-confessed Primart shopper looked quite faint at the price tag. It was a great market research opportunity.
A little high
And then, in the last couple of hours of day 3, by all accounts the show's worst day for other sellers (although promoted by the organisers as the best day!), we sold a scarf - stall costs covered! And to boot, Ingrid and Pamela ended up packing away while conducting an hour long conversation with a very excited uni professor who wanted Lilou to provide in-school demos to local public school children, to show them how cloth was made.
And then a real high
Back at base, the online sales have continued. Unlike the show-goers, we know that the purchasers have studied our range several times over a period of time before pressing the buy button. (
Spontaneous purchase and
Lilou scarf don't usually appear in the same sentence!) One review from a Swedish customer was so positive, it almost made me weep with pride.
What one Lilou customer had to say…
“Hi, I got the package yesterday. But I couldn’t stop myself from opening it today. Just to have a small peek…
Oh! My! God! There is absolutely no picture in the world that could give that scarf justice! It is absolutely amazing! You know, when we were in London we went into Selfridges and Hermes. You know me, working with fabrics, I just HAD to touch all the scarves. Amazed by the color and texture… Wishing I had a big fat wallet with lots of money so I could wear one of those.
Well. I have to tell you: I think that your scarf is even better. And besides, 200 GBP is a bargain compared to the 1000 that Hermes charged for their scarves! And just the feeling of being wrapped around with love every day! Thanks again!”
Eva-Karin K., Göteborg, Sweden
So, one day to the next, even one hour to the next, how consistent is your life as an artisan? Do you think that constant change is what makes creative people tick?
