Guess who just became a vendor at the Arts Market?

As some of you may already know, I've signed on for a booth at the Arts Market, an awesome little store on Queen Street East here in Toronto.  I start on Wednesday and have been running around like crazy for the last few days, getting ready.  

Stock is not a problem - I have paintings a-plenty.  Paintings stacked on top of dressers, paintings leaning against the walls, paintings in my dresser drawers.  Frankly, I'm afraid that my next major creative spree will finally bring the art-load to critical mass and The Boy and I will be immobilized by an avalanche of canvases and either starve or be crushed to death and the only way to remove our putrid, stinking corpses from the building will be to lift off the roof and haul us out using a crane.

So that's pretty awesome.

The daunting part, for me, is that my "booth" is really just an empty space - if I want any walls or fixtures in there, I have to install them myself.  I've never had to do anything like that before.  The freedom is exhilarating - I can customize my space however I want, as long as I stay within my designated 4'x4' turf - but boy, it's gonna be a lot of work!  Especially since The Boy and I don't drive, or even really know anyone who does.  We'll have to do a lot of schlepping on public transit, I think.

To give you a better idea of what I'm up against, here's a picture I just took while sitting on the couch and pointing the camera down our front hallway.

Pictured:

a) My childhood toy box with arts-and-crafts detritus and camera tripod on top (this is normally the area where I take product photos).

b) Desk lamp protruding into picture (I use this - and its identical twin - to light product photos).

c) Front door with pretty red tassel thingy that my ex got me when he was travelling in China.

d) Bedroom door.

e) HUGE FUCKING PIECE OF MASONITE STRETCHING FROM MY TOES TO THE HORIZON.

You don't really realize how big 4'x8' is until you have something that size in your apartment and have to choose between letting it block the bathroom doorway or the living room doorway.  It is huge, you guys.  And it will hang from the Arts Market ceiling and act as one of my booth walls.

Oh, funny masonite story (that's gotta be the first time anyone has ever said that phrase...): I was too cheap to bring it home in a cab so I wrapped a chain around the middle of it and lugged it home slung over my shoulder like a purse.   

A purse that weighs around forty pounds and is longer than I am tall.

I live at least half a mile from the home improvement store, by the way.  Maybe more.  Also, my apartment is up two flights of stairs.  Once I reached the landing, it looked as though the masonite wasn't going to fit around the corner (and/or the weight of it would keep dragging me down the same four stairs over and over again as though I were an modern-day Sisyphus with boobs and a kickass haircut) but obviously I was victorious in the end.

If you visit the market and check out my art (and if you live in Toronto, you totally should!  I might even be there in person and we can hang), you can look at my glorious turquoise booth wall and know that the one corner is rounded off like that because it kept dragging on the sidewalk while I was lugging it home.  It can be an inside joke between us.

Anyhoo, it's 10am and I haven't been to bed so I should probably go do that.

p.s. The Boy doesn't know it yet, but I'm gonna try to persuade him to carry the masonite to the market with me on the subway.  I think if there are two of us carrying it and I tie rope "handles" through all the edge-most holes, it might not be so bad.  And it'd save me like $50 in cab fare.  Yes indeed, this is a good and sensible idea.