Design Festa

I really didn't have much motivation to participate in a "design
festa". Especially when you consider how much cash I would have to
drop for a 1.8 by 1.8 meter piece of cement somewhere on the floor of
the Tokyo Big sight exhibition center built on an island of garbage.
I was turned off, and as usual loathe to part with my money to exhibit
my artwork.
That being said, I needed some kind of motivation to do something
before I chose some other scary options, like "more work", or "ride my
bike more" or "watch more TV". Since design festa offered the
possibility to create your own space and exhibit whatever pleased you,
it seemed like the best option to alleviate impending feelings of
uselessness. Plus, I got a tax refund check that was the same amount
as the exhibit price... so, the answer would be yes, be prepared to
festa.
After two months of semi intensive preparation the date of the show
arrived. My friend Ian came over and spent the night. We got up early
the next day to take the train out to Daiva, the island constructed of
garbage, where the exhibition center is. Despite Ian's warnings about
Daiva having a cockroach infestation; we trudged my odd sized
materials on to the train and twenty five minutes later we were
marching towards our destination. When we got in we set up quickly.
This gave me an opportunity to walk around the center and see the other
exhibitors setting up. I saw right away that my efforts of preparing
over the last couple of months paled in comparison to others. Not only
were some booths constructed with incredible care and effort, many
showed great imagination and ability. Puppet theaters, music studios,
performance installation spaces, massage lounges, food booths and every
imaginable kind of cheezy unnecessary cutesy impulse buy shwaggy junk
was on display. My humble booth featured a large "partition", marker
drawing on a former refrigerator box that really served more as an
impact image to draw the public over. Also on display was a collection
of baseball caps that I made using fabric markers, scissors and
matches. To top it off a place to examine my portfolios, write down
adulations of my greatness and take a business card. To the left of me
a couple had purchased two spaces to show their painting and
drawings... they were really, really good and I was really happy to
have them next to me. However, they would leave their space unattended
for hours, and when present would spend all their time creating more
artwork. The guy was painting a psychedelic masterpiece and the person
I assume to be his wife compulsively drawing on one paper plate after
another, no prices were mentioned and no attempts were made to sell
anything. On the other side of me, in contrast, a couple of
Anglophiles had set up something that looked more like a swap meet
booth. They were totally disorganized and came late, set up well over
the boundaries and bickered with each other often. One of the
"artists" was particularly annoying. He would call people over, even
when they were looking at the work in my booth, and offer to write
their names in English with a paint brush, then he would ask for
payment. I maintained my smugness, well aware that at 800 yen a pop,
there was no way he could re-coup his expenses. Never the less it
would have given me greater pleasure to have the Sepaku robot in the
booth down the way take a chop at this dork before taking it's own
life. Across the way from my booth was a calligrapher dressed in light
samurai garb. She was advertising her services as a calligraphy
teacher while offering to write your name for you. Yoshiko told me
despite her efforts and ambitions, there is no way to become a master
calligrapher until your reach the age of 65... then you retire?
The two days were filled with folks shuffling in and out of displays,
macking at the international food court and getting wowed at the
fashion show and outdoor live music stage. There was really no
particular age or style that seemed turned on by my work, though I
tried to maintain the delusion that only people of discriminating
taste would discover true artistic greatness upon entering. People
seemed primarily interested in the partition and the burned hats, it
seemed that the novelty of an "idea", was a big issue. I was warned by
more than one person that my burned hat idea may be stolen...egad, how
do I know I thought of it first?