Sellin At Art Festivals, and Shows!

I know! beginners don't usually display and sell the carvings at art festivals or carving shows. But some of you do, I'll bet. Yesterday I went to an art festival. Probably close to 200 vendors. The festival was divided into two areas. One was just regular "art stuff". The other was a "Heritage area, where the participants had to be dressed in period garb, and be working on their art and crafts. In this heritage area were, a broom maker, potter, rag rug weaver, quilter, candle maker, tinsmith, stone carver, wood workers and turners, and wood carvers. I liked this heritage area, and spent some time there. One wood carver in particular caught my attention. He was dressed up as a Mountain man trapper, and carved walking staffs and sticks. His sticks were really nice and priced moderately at $20 to $45. I tried to start up a conversation with him, by asking if the stick he was carving was Aspen. His answer was, "of course it's Aspen". Yikes, a grumpy Mountain man. Some more attempts at conversation resulted in more grumpiness bordering on nastiness. Any thoughts of purchasing a stick were soon dashed. I eventually took up a seat on a bench where I could watch this feller operate. It soon became obvious that I was not the only one turned off. I did not see one stick being sold in 4 hours (and some were outstanding). Where as the broom maker had a steady line of folks buying way over priced brooms. The difference being that the broom maker was a overly pleasant and talkative ol' feller, who answered very question like it was the first time he was asked. Nuff said!