Nicolette’s Design Diary

The sun and blue skies mocked me as I drove from Alexandria to Timonium this morning. After enduring 12 hours of cold and the wind at the Art on the Avenue in Alexandria yesterday, the sun came out to make a perfect fall Sunday. I arrived back in Timonium to find James and Mary in good shape. They hadn’t killed each other and Mary had learned how to make sales and everything was running fairly smoothly. She’s still a little uncomfortable when it comes to checking out credit card orders, but because of it she developed a way to pre-prepare shopping bags so she could quickly package purchases after processing the credit card. I like her system so much that I plan on using it from now on.

James of course managed to make friends with everyone at the show…I doubt that anyone even knew I was gone yesterday. And as usual, he was on dog patrol seeing as we haven’t seen our babies since Wednesday. While on patrol, he discovered Maestro a 3-year old Pomeranian who is a certified therapy dog trained specifically for assisted living and nursing home environments. He was a real sweetie and petting him just made us anxious to get back home to our own poms.

James also filled me in on a bit of terrible news from one of my fellow artists. It appears that Friday night, one of the jewelers at the show, was robbed of over $100,000 worth of inventory, practically her whole stock. It appears that the thieves broke into her van while she and her husband were eating dinner. What makes this lost so crushing is that this jeweler had spend most of the summer creating this stock and it’s now gone just like that. And not only was she robbed of her inventory, but she’s also forced to pull out of all her fall and winter shows because she has nothing to sell. And as anyone in our business knows, October through December is prime selling season because of the holidays, some artists make anywhere from 50 to 80% of their yearly income during these three months. For artists who may be just living on the edge, thefts like this can be a business ending blow.

Unfortunately theft and shoplifting is not an uncommon occurance at shows. You have people shoplifting merchandise out of your booth, thieves stealing money out unattended cash registers and cash boxes, customers making purchases on stolen or invalid credit cards, and thieves breaking into hotel rooms and vehicles to steal both cash and merchandise. And the shoplifters aren’t always the people who steal because they can’t afford to buy from you. At the Princess Anne Show last year, James spotted a nice well-dressed middle-aged woman slipping a pair of $9 earrings into her purse while her daughter was buying a $60 bracelet. James attempted to confront her about it, but didn’t want to blow the sale I was closing with her daughter by making a big scene. It was clear from her reaction to James that she knew what she was doing. Clearly this lady could afford to buy these earrings, they were only $9 after all…so why steal them? One of our artist friends from Harpstone told me about a lady who stole a pair of earrings and then had the audacity to bring them back for a refund! But it’s usually the fact that artists are small one to two person operations that’s the reason that thieves feel more comfortable targeting them. We’re small, we can’t afford high tech security systems, we often work alone, and we’re mobile, making us easier targets for theft and fraud. But because we’re so small, theft especially large scale theft like what happened this weekend can cripple or even end our businesses when they do strike.

It’s more than likely that the clowns that pulled off this theft will never be caught…I can only hope that karma kicks in and they get exactly what’s coming to them. As usual, my fellow artists banded together and did what they could to help. Saturday morning a group of artists helped the jeweler pack up her booth and load up her truck so she could make the return trip home. And on Sunday we took up a collection for her and managed to raise over $4,000 in donations. I know that will hardly make a dent in what she lost, but we can only hope that it helps her out at least a little bit.

One great thing about having three people working in the booth is that I finally managed to take the time to take a leisurely walk around the show floor visiting friends, checking out new artists, and taking in the atmosphere. And breakdown was a breeze, packed up and out in 1 hour. I’m sure going to miss the help next weekend!

[tags]craft shows[/tags]