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Saturday, October 24, 2020

Pinky Goes Potty

 

“I think I’m going to run a market stall at the annual Artisan Fayre,” I said to Scotto a couple of weeks ago.

He scratched his scalp and frowned. “What will you be artisanning?” he asked.

“Dunno,” I squinted into the distance and my small brain quivered as it concocted a plan. “Don’t worry, I’m not thinking of selling all the paintings I’ve done of you and the dogs. I strongly suspect they have no ‘market appeal’.”

He nodded and smiled wistfully.

“I could make miniature fairy gardens in flowerpots!” I squealed. “I could plant succulents. Even I can keep succulents alive.”

But then I pictured the fairy garden I’d made for myself and realised that no self-respecting fairy would be seen dead in it. Even Polly the sausage dog was so disappointed in it, she’d stolen the miniature wishing well figurine, chewed it to pieces and hidden it in her hidey-hole in the garden.

“Think Scotto, think! What can I make?”

Scotto had a bit of a coughing fit and hobbled outside spluttering that he had to work on the deck.

Scotto’s been ‘working on the deck’ for four years now. I’m sure he’s replaced all the wooden boards at least three times. Occasionally, I have a niggling hunch that the deck is an excuse to get outside in the fresh air and away from the inside of the house.

I still had no idea what I was going to make for the market when I filled out the application form. Even when I wrote my ‘artist’s statement’, I dithered. 

I finally wrote about how I was an artist who ‘adored representing the animal kingdom on terracotta pots and other mediums by utilising acrylic paints.”

There was a slight hiccup when I discovered I was expected to write; 1. A Covid safe plan and 2. organise third-party insurance.

As you know, I detest bureaucracy and paperwork. It was touch and go, but in the end I did it. I didn’t even make Scotto help me. I can’t explain how I did it because it makes me nauseous to talk about it, but the job was done.

When I received an email from the Artisan Fayre accepting my application, I ran around the house whooping, ‘I’m an artisan! I’m an artisan!’. It was truly thrilling.

Once I’d got my breath back, I sat down and calculated how many pots I would take to the fayre. I reckoned about fifty would be a good number. Plenty of consumer choice with fifty painted pots.

Then it hit me.

I had no pots. I’d never painted a pot. I had no idea what I was doing.

Was I going mad? Was this a late effect of menopause? What had I done?

Anyway, after three weekends of dragging Scotto to Bunnings for terracotta pots, and three weeks of getting up at 4:30am every day before school, I’m on target for my fifty pots. (I’ve had two visual migraines in a week.)

Some of them are a bit dodgy, but I’m pretty chuffed with most of them.

The moral of the story is, ‘A watched pot never paints itself.’

Here are some of them.