Trading Love and Inspiration

The Mother’s Day show was even better than I imagined it would be.  We had a steady flow of people from when we opened at 10am (Zaidee’s yoga class, which is held upstairs from the gallery, let out  and her students were our first shoppers) till about 5pm.  I got to meet Holly from Raquette Lake NY who owns a bakery and refuses to put my potholders to work. (Their work is to look pretty she says).  There was the woman who told me that Jon’s photos are even more beautiful and poetic then ever before and bring light to her life.  She couldn’t stay for his talk because there was a lilac pruning lecture in Schuylerville she wanted to attend. So many people thanked me and Jon for sharing our lives and I got choked up every time I heard it. There was the woman who just quit her job to raise goats and chickens.  She and her husband built their home from the trees on their land and even though they only have 2 goats, they already have a market for the meat.   I met an artist  who makes all her work from anything recycled, her earrings were made from soda cans.  Then there was the encouraging grandfather who wanted to get my “I Am Enough”  potholder for his teen aged granddaughter.  Someone else bought it while we were talking and I promised to make him another.  Oh what a lucky girl she is to have a man like that in her life.

And at 5pm, when the crowds stopped coming, Jane, Nancy, Chung-Ah, Kim Gifford (she’s in the next Pig Barn show at the end of June) and I had tea (which Zaidee brought to us, thank you Zaidee)  and we sat around talking.  And I saw that hour with those women for what it was, while I was in it.  It’s what I’ve always wanted.  A safe and generous community of creative people where the conversation flowed naturally.  Everyone listened to each other and everyone had something interesting to say.

But really the whole day felt like something I’ve always wanted.  I felt like I was surrounded by loving people, and we traded that love and creativity and inspiration back and forth all day long.