Third event:
Attending the comic book fair in Macclesfield, MACC-POW. I had to do this as part of my course, putting my work out there, it was a very fortuitous arrangement where another artist suggested I join her and another woman at their table. It was a win-win situation: they were doing a joint workshop so had to attend MACC-POW but their book was not available till the following week, so had very little merchandise and I would have struggled to be accepted for a table but had sneaked in by the back door so to speak and helped fill their table with stuff.
I sold hardly a thing but was quite happy with that, this was about dipping my toe in the water and my audience was not there (it was much more of a family day out sort of event). As one of my fellow stall holders said “we are the traumatised women section” and as such a niche group, maybe needing a larger, more established festival.
Useful take home messages:
other than useful practical ones which I’ve made a note of elsewhere, (like take a large cloth for the table) it was interesting for me to attend with a large facial dressing. It really made me reflect on the issue of facial scars etc. I became very conscious of my strong fear of rejection because of it. I’ve never been someone who likes to draw attention to myself and here I was doing just that and not in a good way. I discovered I intensely disliked the thought of people feeling sorry for me.
In order to deal with those feelings I had a brainwave, I drew on the dressing to make it comic book style with zig zag lines and POW! I had to channel a bit more of an extrovert self than I am to carry it off but I managed.
No one asked me in a horrified voice “what happened to you?” and 2 people (part of the organising group) complimented me on it.
I would have much rather NOT experienced it but it gave me a little tiny bit of understanding of how it felt to have a facial issue.
Towards the end of the day when I came back to the stall after a quick breath of fresh air, the woman I was sharing with was reading Zine 1. She said “I’d better buy all 3 as I want to know what happens”. She wasn’t soft soaping me, I know this as she had already told me she was autistic so she meant what she said, so that was good feedback that I am catching my readers interest and them wanting to find answers.
On another note I’ve got to the end of my first draft of Zine 4 WooHoo! Lots of work to tidy it up now but that is a landmark.
One of the difficulties in finishing each Zine is I have to know where I am headed and at the last minute I decided to explore my relationship with my father’s side, and I had to decide on a linking image which I now have. Meeting up with him as a child was like the circus rolling into town, exciting, overwhelming and then just as quickly disappearing again. And over time, the razzmatazz starts to not look as good.....
