Sunday is my last outdoor market selling cards. Ever. I am committed. 2 people are coming during breakdown to take my display pieces. Some time next week, someone else will be by to take my tent and weights. I. AM. DONE. By the way, anyone who read the title and thought I was going all Walt Whitman, can exit through the side door now. Thanks. Calliope kind of began in the primordial soup of the Boston outdoor market scene. I started doing the South End Open Market in 2008 with (wait for it) fill-in party invitations. I had 3 or 4 designs that were all made from just paper. No illustration or lettering. Just patterned scrapbook paper, ribbons, and open...
I wasn’t going to do a 9-month. I checked in with you guys at 3, and again at 6; just after the holidays. I thought a 9 was excessive and pointless. I was just gonna wait until my one year anniversary and do a year in review and basically “sign off” as far as updates go. One year is a big deal. After that, I’m just a shop that’s been open a while. Not new anymore, just “open,” until maybe the 5-year mark. That downhill coast into what I thought would be the last big bump before I settled into a nice rhythm was interrupted by a car crashing through my front window only 10 months and 1 week into...
I’m still here! It’s been a crazy 6 months; 3 since we talked last. But I’m still here. I had days when I wasn’t so sure, but I was told by many merchants that I just had to make it through the summer. Summer is tough, people are on vacation, September will be better. Well, I made it to September. And then someone else told me September is worse than the summer. They turned out to be right. Crap. But I am still here. After a brutal summer, and tumultuous fall, I found out election years are tough on retail, and this year was bound to be the toughest of all time. Fuck. Ok then…we’ll make it to November! But...
Ok let’s just get right into it. I was trying to think of some poetic way to start this post, some nice little lead-in. I once read that you should always sandwich bad news with 2 pieces of good news, which always makes me think of Oreos and then I’m like “Ohhh Oreos…” but I never have any Oreos and there’s no good news to come before and after the bad news that you have no Oreos and the whole thing starts all over again. Damn. In his book “Growing a Business” (out of print) Paul Hawken says starting a business is rarely the end of the story. It’s the beginning. He specifically says a grand opening of something like...
Like anything else you get yourself all excited for, the whole transition from corporate day-job to being my own boss came and went way too fast and I barely had time to register every step. The Friday I said goodbye to the office I went to every day for almost 6 years was rushed because Rob and I had dinner plans. Before I knew it I was walking out with a box and yelling “BYE YOU GUYS!!” across the whole floor (yes, I actually did that.) The following week I had off. I spend Monday at the beach with my bestie and then hoped to only spend about 1 MAYBE 2 days at the store finishing up in there. LOL...
