After two years of blog silence; I'm here to vent. Wanna hear the newest drama? It's all about miniatures. The dollhouse kind.
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| The Amanita Cottage, now featured in 2 magazines. |
Last September, I submitted my Amanita Cottage dollhouse as an exhibit at the local Miniature Show. It won Best In Show. I was over the moon. I had a fun time vending at this show as well. If you don't know, I now sell miniature kits.
There were not a lot of attendees during that weekend, nor
tons of vendors. The show, compared to years ago, was anemic; and there were
few new vendors. A lot of the merch was dated. However, there were a couple of
new standouts at the event.
Come the end of the show, I packed up and left, exhausted. I
only noticed like weeks and weeks afterwards, when I finally got around to unpacking my
dollhouse, that the Best In Show ribbon was gone and a first-place ribbon had
replaced it. Someone had taken my ribbon.
I was shocked. But guess I shouldn’t have been.
I thought it was one of the other contestants that might
have switched it, but someone who is in the in-group at the show whispered to me after
my TikTok post about it went moderately viral, that it was the show organizer who changed
it after these were awarded.
Now mind you, I know it’s just a ribbon. I have my video
showing the right ribbon on there when we got there Sunday morning. But it’s
not really the ribbon itself that is the issue. It’s the principle.
I am trying not to be petty, and trying my hardest to be
civil, but I have just had enough of this situation. Especially now.
The local show had been canceled for Covid, and then the show owner did not resume it for a few years, instead focusing
on the bigger show in a nearby city. I contacted the owner, and asked her what
was going on, and she told me she had an ailing husband who required care and she didn’t
have enough energy or time to do it.
I offered to help. I offered even to take over all the organizing
and legwork, whatever she needed, to get the local show back up and running. I
think it’s a thing the community locally really needs. But she refused, and not
very politely to be honest. I offered to at least help her update the stagnant
website, and again, she said no without the slightest courtesy or politeness.
There are a few people who are part of her hive that help
out during the show, and it’s shocking to me that none of them stepped up, to
be honest. We all have lives and whatnot, but there’s no shame in asking for and
giving help when it’s needed. This is a legacy event for miniaturists locally,
and it should be a priority. I get that the neighboring city’s show is bigger,
but that doesn’t mean that equal energy locally wouldn’t make this one as big
or bigger.
I’ve run events a lot in my life. I am proud of the Oregon
Regency Society and how it’s grown into its own thing now, with a new magician
at its head. I know what it’s like to be virtually alone, with people who
promise to contribute and then who just don’t do the work and fade into
silence. Honestly, it’s made me more wary of inviting people in to help,
because it’s more work to get some folks fully engaged than it is to just do
the things myself. I understand being a control freak when your ‘helpers’ leave
you no choice but to be one.
Then the people who said they would, but didn’t help, show
up to the events and they pick on all the things that weren’t done, or that
aren’t perfect, even though it was their lack of effort that made it that way;
leaving all their promised work in the hands of the one person organizing it.
It is a symptom I have seen in countless communities like this. I’ve seen it so
many times.
I have to keep in mind that the show owner is an octogenarian;
a definitive boomer, and she her cantankerousness and vitriol has been getting
more and more concentrated with each passing year. It’s viscous like motor oil.
She has no chill.
At this past show, she was simply insupportable to new
vendors and the participants too. Just rude as all hell. I heard her use the
term “pickaninnies” under her breath, about a group of small children excitedly running
from table to table. I had to look it up, as I had no idea what the word meant.
I guess growing up outside of the racist zeitgeist of this country has had some
advantages.
I had a little exchange with her over a friend of mine
winning the prize during the show, nothing major. But she was sourer after
that. She doesn’t like me. I don’t need her to. But I realized after that
person said what they did, that maybe she did change the award.
It was so petty. So small. I made a vague post about the
smallness in the community on TikTok, and it went crazy. Like 300K interactions
or something. But I just said that someone took the ribbon. I had no suspicion it was her up until the bird whistled.
There are a set group of vendors that sell at every show,
and a lot of them are loyal to her. I get that. It’s wonderful, actually. That’s
what you want in a show. That's a goal for any vendor event.
But they seem so loyal that they are doing themselves a
disservice. They accept her behavior and to me that’s just counter to their
interests as vendors. Especially when you see her neglect and her rudeness having
a negative effect on what is a legacy event that has been operating for years
in the city—something the community of miniature enthusiasts can rely on as a
gathering place. If I were a regular vendor, it would piss me off to see that
the show runner is undermining the show and dragging it down with her stubborn
insistence on refusing help when she really, truly needs it, and treating new
people and attendees so abysmally.
I don’t know if there’s an organizing board, but if there
is, I doubt they’re effective as she is running this thing virtually on her
own, with no improved or modified systems for years. If it ain’t broke, don’t
fix it, I guess. If the show was a house, it would still have brown-orange shag
carpet and orange Formica countertops. She’s not open to modification, or
growth. And it shows.
A lot of people who attend and some vendors are unhappy with
the whole thing. I remember seeing social media comments about it after the 2019
show that included the words: dank space, dreary, dreadful, sparse,
depressing. That’s not good.
One of many comments I saw on my TikTok post was: “There’s a miniature show here?” Nobody knows about it locally except the people
who have always known about it. She doesn’t advertise in any really impactful
way. She does national miniature magazines. And online. But local miniaturists
don’t even know about it.
She’s so resistant to help and cooperation—and here we have
a vibrant local community of miniaturists; and seen from social media alone, a
spectrum of artisans and sellers that could fill the show to Chicago levels if allowed,
with just local people. She has the resources but refuses to use them.
I decided to throw out the idea of doing a show myself. Form
a more flexible show; an inclusive one, with a fresher take on things, fewer
dated offerings, fewer resellers and more artists; and that drew a friend on board. We weren’t thinking huge
scale right away. Just fun little gatherings and possibly someday, when we could afford
it, a larger show. We never looked at this existing show as competition. We
just marked it as a shared goal. We weren’t taking anything from anyone.
We thought we could put something on offer for miniature
vendors and enthusiasts to both participate in. We set up a really
modern, bright and clean little venue and created an idea for an event; a tea party
with fancy hats. We asked that the attendees build a miniature scene on their
hats, and we would hold a contest for the coolest one.
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| We sent out a save-the-date |
We are pretty delighted with this idea and envision a parade of absurdly adorable hats with tiny scenes on them; with creativity through the roof. It is interactive and doesn’t just sell something to participants, it involves them. We would have vendors, a few vetted ones, with cool, new things on offer for the show attendees. But all in all, just a small scale, super-fun event.
We were so excited to post it. We secured a venue, and were
given available dates, which were in the off-season, as the vendor was going to
help us make this feasible for our first event by working with a little flexibility
on payments until we sold enough tickets. They were super-affordable for the deposit,
and we were set to cover it. It’s hard to find venues that do that. Really
hard.
We farmed up a mailing list that included many of the
vendors that attend the local show. We sent off the event save-the-date with all
wonderful intentions and real excitement for it.
We received an email almost immediately from one of the loyal
local participants, asking if we ran the idea by the show owner, and if we'd asked her
if the date didn’t coincide with her show.
She had not posted the date of her 2025 show, her 2024 show was in
September, so we decided the October date was perfect, just before the holiday
season, off-season for venue cost, after her usual date for her show, and less parking congestion in town.
I was immediately irritated by the email, to be fair. I don’t
think we owe the show owner any courtesy on the matter. Maybe if she hadn’t
been so rude and territorial, we might have thought to coordinate directly with
her event and make it a complement to it. But we never considered that as an option, because of our experience with her as vendors and attendees.
She is not the Godfather and nobody who wants to organize
miniature-related events in this town is obligated to kiss the proverbial ring
to get her blessing. Sorry.
I was frank… We were moving forward with our date, it is
what was available for the venue. I said, if it interferes with the big-show’s
date, then she can shift her date. She has the flexibility. We don’t. I said if
they coincide, then it’s just another cool event for miniaturists who are in
town to go to. I don’t see a problem either way. In that discussion, I also
told the emailer quite openly, that I didn’t really want to work with her,
because she was rude AF.
I uploaded the official event poster with the venue named on it. Tea party tickets sold. A couple of vendors signed up.
And then the venue ghosted us. They don’t even answer emails
or voicemails.
Then a little bird told me that it was a deliberate sabotage
by a ‘loyalist’.
If this is true, then it’s just gross, honestly. How petty
and shitty and small. This is a community around something that’s supposed to
be beautiful, and joyful and full of imagination and creative energy. But instead,
it’s being influenced by angry blue-hairs who feel threatened by change and innovation.
I don’t get this mentality. In almost all hobby-interest led
groups I’ve ever been in, there’s always that element. That nasty, petty and
sour element that just can’t stand to see change or growth. Who turn things
that bring happiness and joy into nastiness and competitiveness; who make things
that are supposed to be fun and delightful, not. Interest and hobby communities are not avenues for narcissists to create their own little fiefdoms. I'm so very tired of people like this. It's so gross.
All we want to do was make accessible events for the miniature community.
We aren’t giving up by any means. I have paused the tea-party caterer
(who is STELLAR by the way), and am on the hunt for a new venue.
I don’t know how much bandwidth I have for this kind of
mickey-mouse politicking these days. It is what drove me out of the Oregon
Regency Society, and what burnt me out of peopling. I think it also contributed
greatly to the anxiety disorder I’ve been struggling with for a decade.
But I’ll keep trying until I can’t. I’m a little deflated, but not discouraged. The old guard needs to retire and let other people with new ideas to step in. It’s like they want to kill the community if they can't control it, rather than pass it on to the new guard. It’s so bizarre and selfish. I don’t get it.
