Patchwork Show Oakland Spring 2017

I know that dreams are only interesting to the dreamer but bear with me for a moment. Last Saturday morning I woke up at 5:30am before our last Patchwork Show of the season with my heart racing. I’d just had a dream that everything for the show went wrong. In my dream, I’d forgotten to put out our a-frame signs directing people to the show, all the measuring and marking I’d done the day before for the booth spaces had mysteriously disappeared from the cement, no one came to the show and all the vendors were packing up early! My dream was pretty much a worst-case scenario anxiety situation come to life. But, it was just a dream.

The actual version of Patchwork Show Oakland that unfolded on Saturday was nothing like my nightmare. We set-up and broke down the event in record time, the crowds came out in droves and not only did vendors not pack up early but several of them stayed late because even at 5:00pm when the show was technically over, it was still pretty busy. The show wasn’t trouble-free, but when an unexpected issue arose, we solved it quickly.

At the end of the day I thought back on my anxiety dream. This year marks our 10^th anniversary of putting on Patchwork Show and you would think that after putting on over 50 shows, I’d loose that pre-show anxiety. But, no matter how prepared and organized I am (FYI – I’m the type of person who turns our vacation shopping list into a spreadsheet sorted by grocery store aisle), I still get pre-show jitters.

Part of it is because I’m anxious by nature but I think it’s also because I deeply care about what I do and put so much of myself into my work. I try to never rest on my laurels or the success of past shows. I try to treat every single show as if it’s the first one, in the sense that I give it everything I’ve got. And, I can see that lots of our vendors do the same. I see some of them show after show, year after year and I watch their businesses grow. They grow because they’re constantly reevaluating their booth design, adding new products, doing everything they can to make their business better. They don’t sit back, relax and say “I’ve got this whole thing figured out”. They push themselves to learn and grow. AND, I’m so grateful to be a part of this hard-working creative community.

BIG hugs and thanks to everyone who made our spring 2017 Patchwork Show season a success – our vendors, guests, sponsors, partners, venues, staff and volunteers. Thank you and see you all in the fall!

P.S. – Special thanks to our friends at Yelp East Bay for including us in their Yelp Local Neighborhood Spotlight.