Dallas Dallas Dallas

Coffee in a Starbucks go cup, "Livin' On a Prayer" by Bon Jovi playing quietly on iTunes for music (we are on the showroom floor, after all. I can't blast it out no matter how much I would like to). Reading this blog for past couple of weeks must be somewhat like driving past a bad car wreck. You can't help looking, and you're really glad it's not you.

I think I'll start the post today with notable quotes from the show: A woman on a scooter chair came into the booth and talked to Todd while I was at lunch and said, "I'm here to give you a pep talk. I like to go into booths with beautiful artwork where the artist is sitting there and not selling anything, and I like to give 'em a pep talk." Are we that obvious? I need to goose Todd up a bit... Then there was the woman who came in and asked, "Can I have one of your postcards?" Todd replied, "Sure! I can even give you one with a price sheet if you would like." She answered, "No, that's alright. I just need to fan myself, I'm having a hot flash." To define the majority of the buyers we have seen, I heard the following from two women passing the booth, "I just want to find some leopard print sheer material for my bathroom." C'mon Texas, I love you. Don't stereotype yourself!

Yesterday's classics were the woman on the cell phone who stopped next to the booth and said, "I'm by, like, all this glass stuff". And my favorite so far, the man and the woman who walked through the booth, looked at the pieces and he said to her, "What is it?" to which she replied, "I dunno. I guess you put cheese on it or somepn'."

But it has not been all gloom and doom I started the day by meeting my major goal for expanding into the gift shows--I picked up a major department store as a client. They are starting me in three locations, and we might be expanding into several more. The VP of the Home division and the buyer for tabletop love both my functional glass work and the glass and steel table top pieces with Black Cat ArtWorks. Whoo hoo!

Other than that order, though... I took the order the day before the show opened for the Washington state Indian reservation resort casino, and yesterday I took an order for a video rental store with a small adjacent gift shop. They placed a large order for large pieces, and though several of them were targeted for personal use, some were definitely for their shop. I'm not quite sure what I'm going to put on the locations page on my website for them... And that's it. Three orders, and a lot of people interested in buying "samples" at the end of the show. Got to make that gas money somehow.

Tonight I get to meet up with an old friend from grade school/high school after the show for drinks. I haven't seen his wife since not too long after they were married and I am really looking forward to seeing her again too.

Four hours to go and counting. I need more than one order per day to stay awake...