Transposition Misrepresentation....

I LOVE MY CANOPY!!

In my last post about the Arts in the Park Show in Richmond....I made a slight but important error. I said I'd been going to that show since 1997. Actually, I transposed the last 9 and 7 and so it should've said 1979. What a difference.....almost a couple of DECADES!! And in reality, I may have gone in '77 or '78.

And what a difference those decades make too. When I first started doing this show, no one had canopies, those magical pop-up tents that are ubiquitous (woo, big word, that) at all arts and crafts shows. Oh no, back in the old days, at Richmond, you had to set-up on Saturday morning, take everything down on Saturday night and put it all back up again on Sunday morning. Oh wow! What a PAIN! I can't believe we did that. We must of been mighty young then cause I would never even consider doing that now. When I told this to other exhibitors, they looked at me funny like, yeah right, sure you did. Or maybe they were just looking at me like I was a dinosaur from prehistoric times. I don't know.

It was a funny thing. I didn't do Arts in the Park every year. There were a few years when I didn't do pottery. It was so hard to do when I had young kids. I mean, there were always reasons I had to stop in the middle of things....kids being hungry, or fighting or someone having to go to the bathroom. And when your hands are all gucky with wet clay, it's so hard to stop. So some years, rather than being resentful of the demands and interruptions, I just concentrated on mouths and bottoms and refereeing. It was easier that way. I wanted to enjoy my kids too....do fun stuff with them....rather than getting aggravated by what I couldn't do pottery-wise.

The first time I went back to Arts in the Park after a hiatus of several years, it was astounding. It was like mushrooms had sprouted in Byrd Park.....canopies were everywhere. I think I was the only person who didn't have one. And so I was the one sitting under an umbrella but still getting soaked and I was the one dumping water out of the bowls. I was also the only one who had to do the take-down and put-up-again routine.

So I got a canopy, the most wonderful invention in recent history. Some craftspeople gripe (craftspeople can be a whiney bunch) about their canopy. They sometimes blow away or crumple with wind if they're not anchored well, or the ceiling fills with water and collapses if there's not enough arch. However, I LOVE my canopy! I'm amazed at how easy they are to put up....by one person!...and how they keep me dry and shaded and best of all, of course, they keep things in place overnight. The inventor deserves a Nobel Prize or at least a Product Design award. How they work is so cool.

The one thing that I do gripe about with my canopy, is that the jacket that fits over the thing when they're folded up is way too tight. Why they couldn't have put an inch more fabric into that thing is a mystery, because it would've made life soooo much easier. It's such a struggle to get that tent cover over that my finger tips ache from trying to pull the damn thing over the canopy. So every time I fold up the canopy....by myself!!....in very very little time!!...when I get to the end, trying to make it into as small a bundle as possible, I hug that canopy. I hug it tight! And I always say, because it's a rule, beacause it's true, and because I want to remember it when I'm struggling with the cover, I always say, with fervor, "I LOVE MY CANOPY!!"