Whine, Whine, Whine ….

As you can see, I’ve been a bit off track lately with articles and everything else. I usually pump out quite a bit of stuff, probably because it’s fun for me, and it’s about things I’m interested in and figure you other doll makers might be as well, and I must not be too far off the mark, because quite a few of you visit this site fairly often. I do thank you for your interest and for your comments, and it’s my sincere hope that by initiating this site and by spending the hours involved in tracking so many of you down via the internet, that I possibly played a small part in rekindling the interest among the remaining members of the doll community to reach out, contact each other, and re-establish ties with other doll makers and suppliers. Whatever the reason, there seems to have been a notable increase in activity on the various doll boards where doll makers are now sharing their secrets freely with both other experienced doll artists and novices. The doll community is indeed alive and growing once again.

That all sounds very positive, so you may be asking yourself what’s bothering me. Well, I must admit it’s rather petty, but here’s what happened. When I set out to track you all down, I decided to attend as many doll shows as I could manage to financially, both to support those who have kept on renting booths through thick and thin, and finally to rent tables myself to give me a chance to pounce on all the visitors who unknowingly wandered past and talk to them about dolls, and porcelain doll making in particular in hopes of finding a few new souls to add to our numbers.

Did I make any money? Sometimes I managed to sell some of the miscellaneous junk that came my way for enough to cover the cost of the booth, and sometimes not. So why keep doing it then if I don’t meet expenses? Well the answer is simple. It’s both fun and rewarding for my husband and I, and we consider it the cost of our recreation. We don’t go out all that much, we don’t gamble or whatever, we mostly just hang out around home doing what we like to do, so we use any entertainment money that we might have doing what we like to do, just like the rest of you. And part of it involves printing out flyers listing doll classes and doll repair services, both as a service and in hopes of turning up new doll classes to which I can direct the folks who are now so frequently contacting me.

Anyway, back to the issue. I feel like what I do is a service to the doll community as well as being enjoyable, and then a dealer turned around and stole from me at a doll show. Big deal, Huh? Like I should be the exception! I know most of you have been stolen from as well at one time or another, and as unpleasant upsetting as it is, you just consider it one of the unfortunate costs of doing business, and I know I should do so as well.

Okay, I already admitted it was petty, but what really, really hurt my feelings was that it was it was not only another doll person, but a DEALER! How do I know that? The item stolen was a Goodie Two Shoes workbook on making doll accessories, and it was stolen before the show was open to the public. No one else was there but us. Was I stupid to trust the other dealers? Or, at least naïve? Maybe I like “naïve” better. I was naïve. But whatever I was, it ruined the show for me personally, not just being stolen from, but to know that it had to be a dealer.

I’m trying to suck it up, but this episode is casting a shadow over my plans to continue. Now THAT isn’t “naïve”, it’s just plain stupid! Why should I let one thief ruin everything for me? I don’t know. I just know it’s not going to be quite the same for me from now on.

Why am I still so bothered by this? The obvious answer is that it hit me in the ego. I guess I thought that because I’ve been trying so hard to be helpful to the doll community that I was immune to this kind of thing. Naïve? No, just stupid. So am I going to quit? Absolutely not! I’ll probably wait until the morning before the show to set up from now on, then keep a more watchful eye on things, but I won’t quit. I just wish it could be like it was before. I wish we could all go and take part and have a good time, and not have to worry about what petty things someone might do one of us.