Art Show Orphans

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I went to the 41st Annual Carolina Designer Craftsmen’s Fine Craft and Design Show this weekend.  Ordinarily I go to the “Pre-opening” on the first day of the exhibition.  People sip free wine of indeterminate vintage and the air buzzes with a gently affected anticipation.  It is all quite festive. This year other obligations took precedence and I barely scurried in before closing on the last day.  I found it a strangely melancholy experience with a touch of the forlorn.  The unsold goods peer from the shelves like the unclaimed children of orphan trains.  Found wanting and unwanted, they preen with self-conscious bravado as craft roadies begin to circle the display floor with packing blankets and masking tape.

Some exhibitors still muster a bright smile, “If you have any questions, I’ll be glad to answer them.”  Others fold themselves into director’s chairs designed by some lesser student of Giacometti, legs dangling, their eyes tired and unfocused.  Their gaze shifts to the orphans perched upon the shelves or left lingering, garish, under glass.  Affection fights disappointment.  The leftovers will be gently wrapped and packed away to be defrosted for the next show, the next town, the next season.  But, oh, if only they had found a home, if only they had left the building in the hands of someone new for whom they were unique and truly lovable.

“We’ll be closing in thirty minutes.  Exhibitors should refrain from packing until then,” booms the man behind the curtain.  “We’d like to thank everyone for their help in making this year’s exhibition such a success.”

Despite those instructions to the contrary, booths begin a subtle deconstruction while their keepers avoid complicity by slipping on varying guises of inattentive nonchalance.  The concession stand windows rasp rudely down as, behind the scenes, rainbows of silk, ceramics and glass cascade into anonymous cardboard cartons. Countless hours of exacting, loving labor disappear into crumpled newsprint or are swaddled in bubble wrap, laid to rest and taped securely, rip and sigh.

The trip home must, it would seem, start in exhalations of blended relief and recrimination.  “Well, not bad I guess, given the economy and all. But, still .  .  .  .”  It seems an unforgiving way to make a living, hawking the products of your heart to throngs often ignorant of the incredible investment of energy, artistry and effort represented by each piece – as individual as a snowflake.  But then, I choose to imagine, they drive through a burst of Maxfield Parrish light that ignites the last of autumn’s finery and they think, “I could capture that, in glass, on canvas, in wood or in the kiln.  Hmm, maybe when I get home I’ll try to use .  .  .  .” 

More orphans in the making, thank goodness.
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