The Price Tag and What's Behind It
That is when I feel seen. Really seen. Not the price tag, not the booth, not the comparison to what is next door but the work itself, and the person behind it.
There was a market last spring that reminded me how hard this can be.
I watched people walk through my tent to get to the booth next door.
The vendor beside me had pretty jewelry and I want to be clear about that, because this is not about her. She was doing what she was doing and doing it well. But it was not handmade. Not really. Premade charms, strung together, priced to reflect that. Her tent was swamped all day. Mine was not.
And I sat there thinking about every step it took to get to my table in front of me.
The hours. The failed attempts. The techniques I taught myself from scratch. The tears I do not talk about very often. All of it sitting right there, piece by piece, on a folding table in a tent, and the thing that seemed to matter most to the people walking past was the price tag.
That is the part that is almost impossible to communicate across a market table.
You can’t always see what went into something just by looking at it. You can’t always see the skill or the intention or the hundred small decisions that made it what it is. The evening I stayed up too late getting a texture exactly right. The batch I threw away because it wasn't good enough. The color combination I tried six times before it became the thing I was reaching for.
None of that is visible in the finished piece. It is just there, underneath everything, invisible to anyone who does not know to look for it.
The sad truth is that we have been trained to see the price tag. Not what is behind it. And some days that is just really hard to sit with.
I did not leave that market feeling triumphant.
But Josh was there. And Josh, who knows me better than anyone, who has watched this business grow from the very first pair of earrings to everything it is now, Josh believed in me that day when I was having trouble believing in myself.
He did not minimize what I was feeling. He did not tell me the hard day did not matter or that I should not let it get to me. He just held the thing steady when I could not. He reminded me, quietly and without any fanfare, that he was right there and so was the work and so were the people who would eventually find it.
Deep down, I knew he was right. That there would be other days. That one hard market was not the measure of what this was or what it could become.
But knowing something and feeling it are two different things, and on that particular day I needed someone to bridge that gap for me. He did.
And then there is you.
The one who walks up and says, tell me how you made these. The one who wants to know what got me into this, how long it takes, what the process looks like from raw clay to finished piece. The one who bee-lines straight to a pair, picks them up in half a second, and already knows she wants them before she has even asked the price.
That is when I feel seen. Really seen. Not the price tag, not the booth, not the comparison to what is next door but the work itself, and the person behind it.
That is who I make this for. The woman who wants to know the story. The one who picks something up and feels the weight of the hours in it even if she cannot name exactly what she is feeling. The one who understands, instinctively, that handmade is not just a description of the process. It is a description of the intention.
There will be more hard market days. I know that.
The booth next door will sometimes be swamped and mine will be quiet and I will sit with that feeling and it will not be comfortable. That is just part of this.
But I will also remember that day last spring for another reason, for Josh holding things steady when I could not, and for the knowledge that somewhere in the crowd was always going to be the person who walked up and asked how I made them.
That person makes it worth it every single time.