I had a great day at market on Sunday just past. It was a public holiday weekend and Port Douglas was pretty full. The market ground, similarly, was crowded with visitors from pretty early in the morning.
Despite the size of the crowd, however, the day got away sluggishly for me. It appeared the majority of people were just strolling around or buying 'cheap' bargains ... which I don't have. Perhaps also, a lot of people were doing the one thing you're supposed to do on holidays ... sleeping in!
Things picked up considerably after 11:30 AM and the next two hours produced an outcome as good as it should have been at this time of year.
I took my new spoon rests (see this article) down and sold one to a lady who just fell in love with the shape. She intended to use it as a little dish to place garlic on ... a very worthy fate in my mind ... and likened the experience of her discovery in my store to that of a small bowl she 'found' in a market in Africa. I told her the story of how the small rest came to be and she, in turn, related a funny story about the purchase of her African bowl ... and so, the two pieces were suddenly connected by a story thread. Nice.
I had some really nice people buy multiple items through the late couple hours of the day ... including locals, which is always a great thing.
It's such an uplifting experience when a day at the market with good sales is augmented by warm interaction with visitors to the store. It reminds me that what I do these days is so much more than just an occupation or means of making a living. To say I'm doing it for the money is the most farthest thing from the truth and would serve as a good reason to stop doing what I do. If I was making things purely to exchange for money, then it would be time to go get a real job.
One of the great gems of selling work in the market, for me, is that five or 10 minutes, or whatever, of interaction with certain people. It doesn't happen with everyone, nor do I expect it to.
Every now and then you strike up a rapport with a person or group and a sort of 'bond' forms which becomes this friendship between strangers. I get visited by such 'friends' going back as much as 10 years. In fact, the very first person who purchased one of my larger bowls visits every year when she holidays in Port Douglas from Perth ... and I always look forward to seeing her. So too, my very first ever market customer from Day 1 at the market 10 years ago also revisited several times over the years when out in Australia from the USA.
There are lots of reasons why I choose to live on the fringe and generate an alternative income stream, but the human aspect is definitely one of the main ones.
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