Thursday, August 16, 2007

Downtown Albuquerque: Classy or Assy?

I joined some artist friends Downtown for a day of selling. You can pay the Downtown Action Team 10 bucks (as long as you have a business license) and set up shop for the day. There are shady spots, so no tent needed. Yippee, right?

Once we set up, it smelled a bit funky. And the flies! So many flies, I am probably going to have maggots hatching out of my skin in a few days. Then I notice this:

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It's like a litter box for dogs. Or a poopy park. Call it what you will, it's really gross and it was a few feet away from my booth. Why was there a large litter box in the middle of downtown? Because of the Blinded Veterans convention. At first, I did wonder why there were so many people with seeing eye dogs wandering by. Also, the fact that so many of the people in the area were blind might explain our lackluster sales.

Nevertheless, it was fun because I was with friends. If I had been alone, I would have been so bored. I guess the homeless guys weren't in the market, though as another friend pointed out later, "wouldn't they be the ones who need bags?" Ahhh, the bag lady market. Genius!

Some pictures:

Ren's booth (Plastic Pumpkin Designs)
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My booth (Burst of Happiness)
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Paula Manning-Lewis's booth, shared with Josephine, but I don't know her business name (oops)
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Inter-artist bartering, Paula, left, and Ren
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Hanging out
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Finally, the flies got the best of us, and Ken pointed out that the reeking sewer grate right in front of Ren's table was probably more to blame for the stench and flies than the giganto litter box.
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Sorry, I didn't get permission to post photos of these people, so holler if you don't wanna be here, guys.

4 comments:

Raaa. said...

Nice artwork. It all looks good.
Shame about the less than perfect place to set up shop but as long as you had fun it's alright!

Anonymous said...

??spelling!!
why was their a large litter box...tsk tsk

Robyn said...

T-shirt Face saves the day again -- I have corrected the spelling error. Those darn their, there and they'res

In my defense, it was my day off.

Paula Manning-Lewis said...

Hi Robyn, Thanks for posting the photos!

I do have to say, in all my years of setting up downtown, I have NEVER had the experience of the huge doggy doo box! Ren said she is going to get a list of conventions so we don't have that problem again!

I'm glad to hear you enjoyed yourself and I hope you will give it another chance!

:)