Ocean Grove Craft Sale and Open Studios

 

I decided to get up there in the morning, about an hour before the beginning of the events.  There was a craft fair and an open studios scheduled for today, from 11 to 5pm.  It was established that this was not a building supported function, but something organized by a tenant.  At least the open studio part- the craft fair was probably related to the building, as I don't think something like that could come from anyone in the building.  There were still a lot of cars when I got there, front and back, but I did find some spaces in front and went there.  

Vendors were busy setting up inside on the first floor, tables on the sides, in the center, and even around the stairs on all sides.  I didn't have to do any of that.  Took the elevator to the basement, and saw the back door was propped open and lots of people carrying things in through it a down the ramp.  Large things would be to big for the elevator, but the central stairway was cleared.  In the elevator were signs listing all the vendors and open studios that would be on the three floors, but nothing about the basement.  Typical.  Dropped off my stuff in my Studio, and found it a little warm.  The heater was running.  Molly had gotten to it, removed some of the things she had made, but piled up a bunch of stuff all around the thermostat- more than had been there before, and more than I could move today.  I would have to tolerate the increased temperature.  Went to the office and found no one there, until I went to the back room and found Bobby there.  Also noting that the basement was left out of the signs in the elevator, he decided to make one that promoted the location of his studio, for anyone who came looking for it.  He told me he planned to put it by the elevator on the first floor.  Eventually he did.

Thanks to what Molly took out, I didn't have much to do to get the room in shape for visitors.  But I did go back upstairs, to access my car and use the restroom.  While there, I climbed part of the central stairs and took a few photos of the main hallway being set up for the craft fair.  Here are some of those:

Above is the center of the hallway.  Below is the left side (from the stairs), and the right side was set up the same way.  There were also tables set up along the side walls outside the stairs, and alongside the stairs, plus some near the theater on the first floor.  I heard that there were more set up on the 2nd and 3rd floor as well, but I didn't go up there.

As I was walking through, I passed Joe Borzotta (our organizer) and he said hello to me, so he knew I was there.  But there was nothing more for me to do up there, so I headed down to my space.

I decided to open both of my doors, figuring the excess heat would blend with the cool air coming in the propped open back door, and it would all even out. As all of this was going on I had a disc on, one of he discs I had left there in the Studio, Neil Young and Crazy Horse, Live at the Fillmore.  Still don't have many details on this, except that I got it from John Siblik, and it must date from the years when he was working with Crazy Horse.  For what it's worth, he bills "Let's Go Downtown" as a song from an upcoming album.

Around 11 am, at the official start of the event, I put on a blues disc, got out my latest project, and got to work, but I'll save all that for a posting just about that project.  An hour or so into what I was doing I had my first visitors of sorts.  It was a family group of three, but they were looking for the studio of Little Bobby Duncan, so I directed them there, then got back to my work.   

No one else came by.  At what seemed like a good stopping point I put away my tools, took a photo of today's work, cleaned up, and started heading home.  Heard a dog barking, and saw some people in Bobby's studio, which turned out to be Elyse and her husband.  They took off, so I took the elevator up with some guys who had been in the basement looking at the old boilers.  The crowds were thick up by the craft tables, but I had seen nothing I needed there.  Meanwhile, more were coming in the door, including some people I knew from Belmar.  I figured my parking space would be much coveted, and decided to go home and have some lunch.