12 Small Things News

Terry's garden party

Summer in San Francisco can often be cold, windy, foggy and frustrating. It’s often the best time to get out and explore other cities to get a taste of summertime. My good friends Terry and Ray Paetzold hosted a summer garden party for me, to introduce 12 Small Things to friends at their beautiful home in Lafayette. Terry’s parents and my father were best friends in their later years living in southern California. As our children have grown and our parent’s have passed away, Terry and I have grown closer with each milestone. Terry is a terrific chef, having cooked and catered with some of the best in the Bay Area, and has started a cooking school called In Terry’s Kitchen. Terry served a variety of appetizers to complement my artisan products from around the world, including India, Africa and Mexico. The weather was hot, the guests were lovely and everyone seemed to be having a good time enjoying Terry’s delicious food and wine while shopping generously in support of artisans in need.

Hope for Women

I’m pleased to introduce two new products to my 12 Small Things collection for summer. The delightful floral note cards on my homepage are handmade by women in El Salvador, imported by the fair trade company Hope for Women. In 2001, massive mud slides and a devastating earthquake left many families in the highlands of El Salvador homeless and jobless. With their fields destroyed, many people began traveling to low-paying factory jobs in the capital. As an alternative, a group of enterprising women formed Arte Comasagua, an artisans’ organization that handcrafts stylish designs from native flowers and plants. These women now work locally, caring for their families and saving for their future. Hope For Women, run by Evan Goldstein and his dad from their office in Connecticut, is a socially responsible organization committed to providing sustainable employment for economically disadvantaged women worldwide. I met Evan when we were both attending the artisan gift show in Lima Peru in 2008, and have been following the great work he does for women artisans in India and South America.

Appetizers with dragonflies

The other new product I am pleased to feature, is hand-painted bamboo balancing dragonflies from Vietnam, imported by Far East Handicrafts in Vermont. I met one of the partners, Kirk Richmond, at the New York gift fair last summer and among all their interesting products from artisans in Nepal and Tibet, were a few brightly painted dragonflies that Kirk balanced for me on his fingertips. The dragonflies are made by Reaching Out Handicrafts, located in Hoi An, near Da Nang on the Coast of Vietnam. This self-organized crafts group provides employment and an extended family for many people who were affected by the defoliant Agent Orange, used during the Vietnam war, that caused innumerable birth defects among the population. Reaching Out Handicrafts is a great example of people working together, helping each other through very difficult life experiences. Far East Handicrafts Importers were founded on Fair Trade principles in 1988, and work directly with crafts people to ensure fair wages and good working conditions.

Santa Fe Folk Art Festival

My latest summer adventure took me to Santa Fe, New Mexico, for the annual Folk Art Festival. Never having been before, I wasn’t sure what to expect except for warm weather, which there certainly was in abundance. The other thing in abundance was people! Bus loads of people, anxious to shop from all the different collections brought by the artists themselves from all over the world. I tried to work my way in and out of all the tented booths featuring the products for sale, but often had to pass by for all the crowds in front of me. While perhaps a bit uncomfortable for my shopping pleasure, the crowds were a great advantage for all the artisans who can support their family and fellow workers for a whole year from the proceeds they earn at the festival. I met my merchant advisor and good friend Karen Gibbs and her partner, Colvin English from By Hand Consulting. They were volunteering at the artisan booth “A Million Hearts for Haiti“, helping to raise money for Haitian artists, along with their friend Keith Recker, the editor of HAND/EYE magazine. Keith had also worked the opening party the night before where he sold rum drinks to help benefit HAND/EYE Fund’s Artisan Grant program. Between the party and two days of selling stone, metal and fabric hearts for Haiti, Keith and friends were able to raise significant funds for artisans in the devastated country.

Keith, Karen and Hearts for Haiti

Fortunately for me and others in need of a break from the crowds and heat, Santa Fe has two amazing folk art and history museums right there in the fairgrounds at Museum Hill. At the International Folk Art Museum I was able to catch the a bit of a presentation given by one of the women from the Gahaya Links Cooperative in Rwanda. Gahaya Links was one of the ten women artisan cooperatives featured by the museum in their special exhibit, “Empowering Women: Artisan Cooperatives That Transform Communities”.  I toured the museum’s creatively displayed collections featuring miniature sculptures of entire towns and village scenes from New Mexico’s history plus small puppet theaters, dolls, ceremonial objects and clothing all presented imaginatively for the public’s pleasure and education.

Drummers from Africa on stage

Fortified by air conditioning and a meditative break, I rejoined the crowds to finish my tour of the booths and listen to live music first from Cuba and then an African group sporting none other than bagpipes. On one of my last stops I finally met Anna O’Leary, my contact for  Echery Pottery and Barro Sin Plomo, the organization working with ceramicists in Mexico to help transition them to lead-free glazes for their pottery. I was first introduced to this beautiful collection of Mexican pottery through Aid to Artisans, who launched the project with the help of scientists, doctors and designers including Mimi Robinson from San Francisco. Anna invited me to a benefit that evening for Barro Sin Plomo hosted by  Chris and Patti Webster at their amazing Santa Fe home. After guest introduced themselves to one another while listening to live music, we were given a demonstration by one of the ceramists from Mexico who showed us how she sculpted intricate candelabra. Her family is currently being sponsored by Barro Sin Plomo to switch over from their hot, lead glaze kiln, to a new lower temperature kiln that works with lead-free glazes. Not only is this new system safer for the artists involved, it is also safer for the family living around the glazes and kiln and cooler for the household.

Anna, Eric and Kevin O'Leary

Anna and her father, Eric O’Leary, a well-renown sculptor himself, spoke to the guests about the years of dedicated work by all involved with Barro Sin Plomo and the success stories resulting from their efforts. As I stood listening to the speeches, watching the candle votives flicker in the darkness, while faint sounds of thunder rolled in from the desert, I felt so lucky to be associated with people doing such great work for others. As I returned to the Folk Art Fair Sunday, the crowds were much thinner and I had a great chance to meet with potential partners for my business who are all about helping artisans around the world. But that’s a whole other story, yet to be told this summer.

Soap Box Moms

As Mother’s Day approaches, I’d like to share with you three stories about mothers who are working as fair trade artisans trying to make a difference for their families and communities. My first story is about a group of mostly single moms who make luxury soaps from their homes in New Orleans. Fondly referred to as “Soap Box Moms”, these women are raising their children while trying to make ends meet in a challenging economy still recovering from Hurricane Katrina. Once a working single mom herself, Beth James founded the company “Queen B” to make fragrant garden scented soaps and lotions with help from local women in need of a job where they could work from home.

Silk Scarf project

My second story is about artisan mothers who are part of “The Silk Scarf Project”, a non-government organization created to help struggling rural communities in northern India who previously depended solely on agriculture to survive. Children had to work on the farms, and fathers often had to leave their families for work in the city. The Silk Scarf Program teaches these communities how to grow, spin, dye, and weave silk into beautiful scarves. This project has empowered women in the villages to earn an income and operate a business from their homes, enabling their children to attend school. I purchase these amazing scarves from Dolma Designs and 108 Mala who work directly with these resourceful women.

Jann Cheifitz and daughter

Jann Cheifitz started her first business making T-shirts as a teen in South Africa living under apartheid. “They became my form of protest, like wearable graffiti,” says Cheifitz, now a mom living in the East Village of New York. Jann was a political activist and taught people how to print up their own designs through a community arts project. Inspired by the punk do-it-yourself ethos, Cheifitz later moved to England and sold her T-shirts on the streets of London. She finally moved to New York and teamed up with fellow South African Carole Scott to start their own company “Lucky Fish”, making unique, graphic designs on casual clothing for adults and children from their fair trade factory in Brooklyn.

With my family Rob, Olivia and Johanna

I feel honored to have been introduced to these women and to be helping to support their projects through 12smallthings.com. I also feel very lucky to be a mom this Mother’s Day to my wonderful daughters and among my community of family and friends as we help support and celebrate one another. Happy Mother’s Day 2010.

February was a blur of activity from which I am now just starting to unwind at March’s end. My friend Barbara Adamson and I held a Valentine’s event the first Sunday at The Bliss Bar in Noe Valley called “Love, Jazz and 12 Small Things.”

Barbara Adamson at Bliss Bar

Barbara is a jazz vocalist who’s been working in publication design until recently, wanting to get back into the music scene. With no street fairs to be found in the Bay Area for February, I wanted to hold a private event that would be fun to attend while providing a chance for Barbara and I to showcase our wares! When Barbara informed me we had chosen Super Bowl Sunday to host our event, I initially panicked about the attendance and fretted over the party I’d miss. Thankfully, Barbara and I have friends and family, our best fans and customers, who don’t care all that much about football or who own a VCR and aren’t afraid to use it. Barbara sang a great first set of love songs to a nicely turned out crowd who came to support us.

Dylan and Morgan at The Bliss Bar

At intermission, I enlisted the help of friends and family to model my Valentine’s Day collection from 12 Small Things, while I told the stories of the artisans who made them. The show stopper was the “Mi Amor” underwear from Lucky Fish in Brooklyn, modeled by my niece Morgan and her friend Dylan who scored big points by missing the game to model a fair trade blanket from Peru! My daughter Olivia helped me sell product in Bliss’s upstairs lounge while Barbara sang her second set, finishing with “When the Saints Go Marching In”, as New Orleans won the Super Bowl on the bar’s muted television. Thanks to everyone’s purchases, I was able to donate $100 from the event to Doctors Without Borders for their relief work in Haiti.

Dancing at Olivia's Bat Mitzvah

February was also an eventful month for my family, as our daughter Olivia decided on her own to become a Bat Mitzvah, even though my husband and I are not particularly religious, preferring nature to churches and temples. However, we were happy to support our youngest who just turned 13 and impressed her family and friends with a beautiful service at Beth Israel Judea. Our Jewish friends and family members gave the Torah blessings for Olivia and everyone helped us celebrate afterward with food and dance, bestowing much appreciated gifts to Olivia for the five year journey she undertook.

Heartfelt

After those two big events, March felt like a real letdown with no particular holidays to promote sales for my website. Fortunately I had the sense to say yes to opportunities for networking and trading services that kept my momentum going and a bit of revenue coming in. Thanks to my friend and retail mentor Darcy Lee at Heartfelt, I joined both the Bernal Heights Business Alliance as well as a local entrepreneur group that help me stay in tune with my neighborhood and meet other merchants during this challenging economy. My entrepreneur group helps me prioritize goals for my business, makes me laugh and basically puts energy back in my tank for the month ahead. I feel very lucky to live in such a great San Francisco neighborhood with my family, friends and neighbors all willing to lend a helping hand.

As I look back on the past year, even though I have many “woulda, coulda, shouldas”, I’m so grateful to have been able to launch 12 Small Things and am thankful to those who helped me accomplish my retail artisan concept after three years in the making. Last month I brought 12 Small Things around to my San Francisco community and while the events weren’t always financially lucrative, I found I received more than I hoped for. Thanks to the Renaissance Entrepreneurship Center‘s Business planning class I took the first half of last year, I had invitations to participate in two holiday sales, one in the financial district at the First Bank and one at the Opera House in the Bayview district.

Renaissance First Bank Holiday Sale

The event in the financial district was in the penthouse of the First Bank and I felt very swanky with my former classmates, selling our wares on antique tables and plush carpet to the tunes of holiday music and clinking wine glasses. The guy selling chocolate truffles cleaned up while my sales were sporadic. But I did get a chance to see my friend Susan Toland from my Gap days, who now works for the Academy of Art University. True to her word, she introduced 12 Small Things to some of her friends who turned out to be great customers for me during the holidays. So many of my friends have generously forwarded my website to their email list of friends, which has been some of the best help and publicity I have had during these early first three months of business.

At Bimbo's 365 Club with Kenneth Bazile

The holiday marketplace and tree lighting at the Bayview Opera House, also sponsored by the Renaissance Center, was similarly rewarding. While most of the pre-Christmas crowd was busy receiving gifts from Santa on center stage, I was meeting some of my fellow vendors who were from the neighborhood and who brought their own personal vision to their goods, whether they be handmade jewelry, original paintings or hand-embroidered children’s clothing. The organizer of the event, Kenneth Bazille, was my very first customer at the Renaissance Center’s annual fundraiser event at Bimbo’s 365 Club in North Beach last October. Kenneth was helping me haul my tubs of product into the club and saw the fleur-des-lis cufflinks I had for sale from New Orleans. Kenneth is originally from New Orleans and he couldn’t believe I had just what he needed as he showed me his shirt cuffs turned inside his sleeves for lack of a pair of cufflinks. Bingo, my first sale. Kenneth has been very supportive of my concept and I wanted to return the favor by participating in his first community sales event in the Bayview. Besides meeting some very nice vendors I had a few good customers, one of whom called me the next day and came to my holiday house party where he bought a number of items for his girlfriend and mom. He had a glass of wine as I introduced him to some of my friends and I really felt the benefit of getting to know your neighbors.

Mission Casbah

A third event I participated in was the Mission Casbah, a weekly Saturday marketplace at Mission and 18th, featuring fair trade products as well as used books, records and clothing and a great snack and drinks bar. The day I signed up for was popular for holiday events at other locations, so I was one of the few vendors participating. While I wasn’t sure I would make a lot of sales, I had fun talking with the young hipsters who were there and greeting those who passed by, curious, but not shopping. The organizer of the event, Barbara Renaud is great and has a vision to turn the unused nightclub space during the day, into a thriving market scene for people to sell their products, hangout and meet friends. She and her husband bought a few of my products for Christmas gifts and were very enthusiastic about my concept. The guys making most of the sales that day offered t-shirts at a very good price, designed by local artists, perfect for the Mission. Trying to make the bast of my Mission debut, I asked two young women if they’d like one of my postcards and we talked for a few minutes about my concept and fair trade practices for artisans around the world. One of the women, Adelle, asked if she could take a few pictures and even though I was trying to hide a winter cold, I was happy to have the attention. An unexpected holiday gift, she wrote about 12 Small Things in her blog, the Fashionista Lab, San Francisco edition. Her post, along with Tom Abate’s from the San Francisco Chronicle’s business column, “Get to Work” on SF Gate, plus my good friend and merchandise consultant Karen Gibb’s column in Hand/Eye Magazine’s website, made for one very appreciative entrepreneur. Add all the support from family and friends and even though I have lots of work ahead of me, the journey is a lot richer for the experience. May it be a happy and healthy new year for us all and may we remember to enjoy the ride ahead.

In considering artisan products from around the world for 12 Small Things, I felt my collection needed representation from the United States, as so many Americans are struggling with the economic recession, albeit on a different scale than most underdeveloped countries. Nonetheless, there are many American communities in need of economic support and one in particular that, despite all the attention from the infamous Hurricane Katrina, still needs more help.

In trying to make contacts in New Orleans through friends of friends, The New Orleans Chamber of Commerce, the Arts Council and Tulane University, I was about to give up when a fellow student in my business class, Bill Washington, suggested I attend the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival and check out all the arts and crafts vendors who sell there. While at first I thought it was too extravagant a venture, after two more unproductive months of emails and phone calls, I booked a cheap flight and hotel, bought my festival tickets and flew to New Orleans.

Congo Square stage

The Jazz Festival is held at the horse track, transformed with music tents, vendor booths and thousands of people. This is a big festival with multiple stages playing music at once. The “Congo Square” stage featured three black goddesses dressed all in white, singing across a field of rapt listeners, while next door at the “Fais Do-Do” stage, a Cajun band was playing Zydeco, with members of the audience dancing the two step. My favorite stop was at the Gospel tent, where the pure power of all the singers assembled on stage gave me goose bumps.

African crafts

I turned my attention to the vendor booths and shopped the “African Marketplace” where I found some of the same things one finds in other African import stores. Nice, but not local. To my disappointment, I found many of the booths were rented by out-of-state vendors, touring the country’s festivals. Apparently when the festival first started forty years ago, there were only local artisans selling product made in Louisiana. There were some of those craftspeople still there, but they were featured more as an exhibition.

Catfish for lunch

I took a break from the 100 degree heat in the air-conditioned grandstand that had an exhibit of Mardi Gras costumes and historical parade photos. I learned about the Baby Dolls who were a group of prostitutes from the Storyville red light district who used to march in the parade. The tradition of the group continues with women dressing up in baby doll costumes and marching in the parade, although I don’t believe they are working in the same historical profession. I strolled back outside and ordered up a plate of fried catfish and potato salad with a large red herbal ice tea and sat in the shade in Jazz Fest heaven.

Studio Inferno demo

My next stop was the “Contemporary Crafts” booths where I met some local artists. A large group was assembled by one of the booths where a woman was demonstrating the art of glass blowing, hot furnace and all. The owner, Mitchell Gaudet, started Studio Inferno in 1991, in the old World Bottling building and has become one of the South’s most well known glass studio and artist’s space. I also met a local jeweler, Thomas Mann, whose work I really liked. Thomas lives and works in New Orleans where he oversees a jewelry and sculpture studio and gallery where he exhibited his work, “Storm Cycle, An Artist Responds To Hurricane Katrina”.

Tulane's fair trade store In Exchange

At 4:00 I had thoroughly done all the arts and crafts booths and was wondering what to do with the rest of my day and evening. I remembered in one of my endless online searches for “artisan goods, New Orleans”, coming upon a business plan for a fair trade gift shop on the Tulane University campus. I left the festival and took the streetcar up Saint Charles Avenue, with an amazing view of the large column mansions lining either side of the wide divided street. Tulane University is lush and beautiful and at ten minutes after 5:00 on a Saturday I actually found the campus store, In Exchange. As the founder, Erica Trani, gave me a tour, I recognized some of the international product and artisan groups she was working with. She told me about writing her business plan at Tulane, and getting funding to start her fair trade store on campus. I could tell it had been a lot of hard work. When I explained my concept and search, she was very complementary and supportive, pointing out some local artists products she had and gave me a few references.

French Market

The next morning I took the local bus to the French Market and walked along the Mississippi down to Café du Monde for the classic New Orleans beignets and café au lait. Feeling fortified, I stopped in at the New Orleans local arts and crafts gallery where I met Gerald Haessig, a local ceramist and sculptor. I explained my mission to him and he told me about New Orleans Thanks You, a collection of work by New Orleans artists who donate a portion of their proceeds back to the community, through non-profits helping with the recovery from Hurricane Katrina. Gerald showed me the necklace he’d made for the project, featuring the French fleur de lis symbol, that has taken on a new role since Katrina as a rallying cry for rebuilding, recovery, and pride for New Orleans. Gerald designed the necklace with the fleur de lis symbol in front of a Roman column, symbolizing the strength of the people, stately mansions, and historic plantations of New Orleans. A banner above reads, “Merci,”  honoring the city’s French heritage, as a message of thanks to a volunteer or someone special. Gerald donates a portion of his proceeds to the Headwaters Relief Organization, a non-profit group of volunteers helping to rebuild in the 9^th Ward. After a long search, I knew I’d found some great, small things from New Orleans.

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Roy and Louise

One of my 12 Small Things vendors, Roy and Louise van Broekhuizen of Laga Designs sent me an email update on the recent earthquake damage in Padang, Indonesia. They described scenes of  people huddled outside their crumbled homes in total darkness and pouring rain, too afraid of aftershocks to seek shelter. Unfortunately, the scene is all too familiar to Roy and Louise, who led a team of volunteers to Indonesia in 2004 after that powerful earthquake and tsunami struck, killing more than 200,000 people and damaging homes and businesses beyond repair. The devastation they saw and the help they realized was needed, was beyond the work they were able to do in repeat visits to the area. They both wanted to do more to help survivors who lost their family members and sources of income.

Laga employee in Indonesia

During one of their visits they admired a local store’s handbags using traditional Acehnese design patterns. Wanting to help generate more income and jobs for the survivors, Louise and Roy bought some bags and sold them at house parties back in their home in Irvine California, to very enthusiastic shoppers. Roy and Louise both quit their day jobs and created “Laga” Designs, which means “beautiful” in Acehnese. Starting with 12 Acehnese women in 2005, Laga now employs more than 120 workers in Indonesia who carefully stitch each bag by hand-powered sewing machines. The multiple styles of handbags, wallets and cosmetic bags offered by Laga all have a very distinguished, classic look and hold their own when compared to many designer bags that are mass-produced and overpriced for corporate profits.

Gianna and friend

I also checked in with my vendor Gianna Driver for our regular Friday meeting at Starbucks. Gianna has a website, Wear Gianna, selling beautiful scarves, pillows and bedding from Asian artisans in dire need of economic support. Gianna shared her story of how she started her company, which is focused on helping empower women around the world. Gianna’s mother was a mail-order bride from the streets of Manila who came to America to marry a Texas farmer with whom she had nothing in common. She had hopes of creating a better life for herself and eventually her children. Unfortunately her husband was a difficult man with three children from a previous marriage and the conditions were too difficult to endure. Gianna and her mother sought refuge in a woman’s shelter where her mother found employment as a night manager. Gianna remembers being woken up in the middle of the night in response to calls from battered women needing assistance from her mom.

Gianna and Chris

Gianna’s mom worked two additional jobs while Gianna worked hard at school; her studies culminating in a degree from the Wharton School of Business. Gianna landed a top paying job at a commercial insurance company in San Francisco, where she finally experienced financial stability, but found her work personally unfulfilling. She realized she wanted to use her experience and education to help women less fortunate, as she and her mother once were. Gianna’s love of travel brought her to remote villages of Laos, Thailand and India where she met with severely disadvantaged artisans barely able to make ends meet. Gianna worked with these women to develop their homemade crafts into products she could sell in the United States. Wear Gianna was launched last year and is truly a labor of love in support of these artisans by a bright, young woman with a big heart. I was one of the many happy guests at Gianna’s wedding reception in Woodside last month, with her proud mom and her wonderful husband Chris Balme. Chris runs the Spark program in San Francisco, creating job opportunities for at-risk middle school students. As with Louise and Roy,  the world is a better place because of the help being given by inspiring couples like Gianna and Chris.

I flew back east for my annual pilgrimage to the New York gift show at the Jacob Javitz Center last week. It’s the one chance I get each year to see many of my international wholesalers and touch base with all the wonderful people at the Aid to Artisans booth. There I met Katherine Allen from Craftmark, who has been so great in helping me source beautiful scarves from India. She was speaking with a group of women including my friend Gwendy from Original Women, who I met at the gift show in Peru last year. We all put on some of Katherine’s beautiful scarves and posed for a photo.

With Gwendy, Katherine and friends

Through ATA, I met  Simone Ambroise from Haiti, who brought me samples from artist Jomileau Exuvera, who works wonders with recycled metals. Jomileau made me smaller versions of his beautiful angel candleholders, so that I can offer them on my 12 Small Things website this holiday. I also met Lucrecio Macuacua and  Chila Lino, who work in Mozambique, helping artisans export their products to international markets. I have ordered dark wood candle holders from them; very handsome, mid-century.

Strong women, Anne and Michelle

I reconnected with one of my former teachers from the Aid to Artisan’s training classes, Michelle Wipplinger. Michelle has an amazing eye for color and has a line of natural dyes that she sells to those in the know around the world. Michelle keeps track of color trends in the fashion, design and film industries and is a consultant for those trying to anticipate future customer demand. Michelle was meeting with Anne Pressoir, another amazing woman who moved to Haiti and raised a family there. Both Michelle and Anne have faced many personal and professional challenges in their work helping artisans around the world, and both are still continuing to give of their time and talent. I remarked on what strong women they were, which they dismissed laughing, but it’s true. It’s too much work for the weary.

With Kim and Eve

It was hard to leave the Aid to Artisan booth but I had to see the rest of the show and my other fair trade wholesalers. I ran into all my favorite people who knew each other from being involved with the Fair Trade Federation, and obviously from doing shows together. I saw Kim Persons from Gecko Traders, who imports handbags made from recycled fish feed bags, by disabled and disadvantaged workers in Cambodia. She introduced me to the women from Global Girlfriend who had just purchased her business after 10 years of her tireless work. We also met up with Eve Vanderschmidt from New Ramona, who imports the jewelry from Afghanistan I will be selling this fall. Eve is carrying on a business started by her aunt in New York years ago when the fair trade movement was just being formed.

Lunch with Suzanne and the ladies

In between making the rounds at the show, I managed to get in a lunch with my friend Suzanne Ellis who was the head of merchandising at Red Envelope where we worked together for two years. She now has her own business, Luna and Stella, selling mothers’ birthstone jewelry. Suzanne has been great sharing tips about her website and shipping methods, etc. She chose a trendy restaurant, Cookshop, not far from the show, that was deserted when we arrived and packed when we left, with the ladies luncheon crowd. I felt so posh.

After the show I took the subway up to Harlem to see my photographer friends Ann Stratton and her husband Ruedi Hofmann. I took the wrong train and wound up lost on 122nd Street in the 100 degree heat. Anne came and rescued me in her air-conditioned car and her husband cooked us a fabulous pasta dinner while we caught up with a few glasses of wine. Anne and Ruedi have just finished restoring thier old brownstone and we sat in their new kitchen and watched an amazing thunderstorm light up their back yard.

Shuttle ride to JFK

I left New York the next morning feeling very good about the products I have chosen for my website launch and the artisan groups who are making them. I had the most harrowing shuttle ride to the airport – worse than the cabs in Lima Peru and that’s saying something. My fellow passengers and I weren’t sure we’d get to the airport in time, let alone in one piece. Our driver was from Srilanka and didn’t stop his running comedic dialog as he drove up on sidewalks and cut off traffic along the way. In my much less dramatic shuttle ride home in San Francisco, I met a young woman just returning from Peru, where she worked with incarcerated women making crafts. She is starting a non-profit business to help them sell their products in this country and was so happy to meet me, as I was her. What are the chances of that, or is something happening here? Gifts come in many different forms and often when they’re least expected.

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I had my first photo shoot for my artisan website 12 Small Things last week, which was both very exciting and exhausting. Luckily I was able to assemble my dream team from the Red Envelope days, who I feel very comfortable with, and am so grateful to for their help.

Laurie and Sarah

Laurie Frankel is a wonderful person and beautiful photographer with lots of experience shooting retail catalogs and magazine editorial. She and her kick-butt assistants, Rob and Michelle, worked with the location, models and lighting to create settings that made my products literally glow.   Glenn Jenkins, stylist extraordinaire, brought his wonderful sensibility and collection of props to help set the stage. Brynn Doering was thankfully available to do hair and makeup for the great models Jeffery Hasseler recommended from Look.

Ashley with Meredith

Fortunately I had my guardian angels with me to make sure I didn’t screw up. Meredith Peck, my graphic designer who worked with me at Red Envelope, and my daughter Johanna, were both there propping me up, ensuring the models looked great and the shots resonated with them, my younger audience. Meredith is the designer for my website, along with J. Grant Gray and Trevor Sterns, who have worked on the UI and coding. The three of them have really pushed me to stay connected to social networking and keep my site simple but innovative, to compete in today’s challenging economy. Stay true, stay real. Kind of a different departure from some of the mass marketing approaches of my former employers, Esprit, Gap and Williams-Sonoma.

I thought a lot about what makes a great photo before the shoot. How to capture the essence of a moment or feeling, that is associated with a person or a thing. I observed a mom pick blackberries with her son on Bernal Hill; I watched my daughters ride horses at Moss Beach Ranch and saw baby bunnies dart across their paths. I saw the fog clear along Highway 1 and surfers peel off their wetsuits as the sun burned through to the coast. I tried capturing these moments on my camera for posterity. For some reason or other the feeling doesn’t always come through. Although, sometimes, when you’re feeling lucky, it does.

Laurie, Meredith and Molly

I know some things that help; talented people you like working with, a great location via Jim Baldwin who found Jeff and Amanda Marcus’s home in San Anselmo, and plentiful yummy food. Another thing that helps is a sense of humor. My daughter Johanna observed how drop dead funny Glenn and Brynn’s conversations were, that I often missed while anticipating the next shot. I watched in admiration as Meredith snapped photos on her phone and sent them to Facebook before our first shot. Most impressive, was Laurie’s wooing of 4 year old Molly, who wasn’t sure she wanted to model. Laurie showed her an iPhone game with a hamster that repeated her words in chipmunk launguage. Molly’s fears turned into giggles and I got the shot I thought I’d lost. Now that’s talent. Thanks everyone.

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Road trip with Olivia

My 12-year-old Olivia wanted to take a road trip to Los Angeles to see Hollywood, window shop on Rodeo Drive and go to Disneyland. Since her older sister is in Europe and her dad was busy at work, what excuse did I have? It was our turn to bond at amusement parks, while shopping without money, during miles and miles of driving in traffic.

Sparklers in Napa

We began the trip on the 4^th of July weekend in Napa Valley with our good friends from college, Jim Hall and Anne Moses, co-owners and winemakers at Patz and Hall. Jim and Anne host a rocking good 4^th, complete with a roasted pig, fireworks, great friends and of course, fabulous wine.

Our next stop was Santa Cruz to visit another college friend, Denise, and hit the Boardwalk and downtown mall. After a terrifying ride on the Big Dipper, I realized Olivia was going to need to bring a friend with her to ride the attractions at Disneyland. Liv and I took the coast route down to Santa Barbara, which she couldn’t handle due to carsickness, and spent the time lying down staring at the blue, panoramic sky.

Karen, Oliver and me

We spent the night with my friend Karen Gibbs who is my merchandise consultant for 12 Small Things. I met Karen in New York three years ago at the Aid to Artisans Market Readiness Program, held at the gift show each year. Karen was their marketing director at the time and totally impressed me with her knowledge of fair trade products and artisan communities in need around the world. Karen and I kept in touch over the years and now are working together on my website.

Olivia and I headed to Los Angeles the next morning and hit our first shopping destination, The Grove, in time for lunch at the Farmer’s Market. While the Grove itself was full of air-conditioned chain stores and restaurants, the farmers market, established during the depression in 1934, is a charming outdoor collection of food, vendors and shops with great, old-town, mom and pop charm.

Waiting for Michael's star

Fortified with food, we ventured to Hollywood Boulevard to join the fans visiting Michael Jackson’s star on the day of his memorial service. It was quite a well-behaved scene of adoring fans, opportunistic street vendors, including film characters that pose for tips, along with television cameras and curious tourists. We made friends with the two young women on either side of us in line to see Michael’s star, who had traveled many miles to be in attendance. They had both signed Michael’s wall at the Staple’s Center the night before. Olivia bought a commemorative Michael Jackson t-shirt and posed with Jack Sparrow and Willy Wonka for $1 each. There were also programs from the memorial service for $50 that one lucky attendee managed to grab for resale, plus Michael ribbons for a $1 that one could wear on their lapel, like the breast cancer and AIDS ribbons. What a business dying can be.

Rodeo Drive

The next day our destination was the shopping mecca for the stars, Rodeo Drive. The Jackson family had been there after the service for lunch at one of the hotel restaurants. Usher, who had also attended the service, apparently had the Louis Vuitton store shut down for a little private shopping, according to a local source. Many of the salespeople we encountered didn’t speak to us at all, even though we were the only visitors in their store during this economic downturn. I guess that’s the difference, we were visitors, not customers. Was it that obvious?

While most of the staff and the stores themselves were cold and imposing, the designer clothing we saw was amazingly inspiring, from the fabrics and color to the design and concept. My favorite experience was to watch the designer’s runway shows, “store TV”, and then find the garments on the display mannequins. This was not mass-produced-stuff; these were elevated works, almost like art at a museum.

Mannequin display

These clothes shouldn’t even be for sale, as who can afford them? Can you imagine what that same money could do for some of the artisan communities I’m working with? And when these same inspirational garments are copied by inexpensive imitators, selling for mere dollars each at the discount chain stores that most Americans can afford, what are the workers who are making them getting paid? My head and feet ached equally. It was time to move on.

Stephen and Olivia at Disneyland

We’re going to Disneyland! Thank goodness Olivia had a friend in town visiting his grandparents, who was ready and willing to accompany Liv on the roller-coaster rides at Anaheim’s finest. After navigating the crazy maze of freeways to pick-up Stephen and cross over to the 101 and then 10 and then 5 South, we were finally on our way, with the rest of  Southern California. I must say, for an entertainment giant like Disney, they have a few things down. Signage and parking and trams to the parks, no problem. Tickets for entry, smooth. Food, marginal and over-priced. Rides, fabulous and fun and crowd-thoughtful. I revisited my childhood on  Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride, Peter Pan and It’s a Small World while the kids were off at Space Mountain, Thunder Mountain, Indiana Jones and The Matterhorn. They joined me for the Haunted House and Pirates of the Caribbean. You’d think from my website that “It’s A Small World” would have been my favorite, but the sight of a perfectly cloned Johnny Depp in Pirates of the Caribbean, peering out from behind women’s mannequins and beer kegs, left me breathless.

Satisfied overall with our LA experience, we couldn’t resist a little shopping in the Disney Arcade for souvenirs from our journey. Stephen bought Olivia an OLIVIA beaded bracelet. They’re just friends. Olivia and I on the other hand, are family, bonded by pedicures, window-shopping, Michael, Mickey and miles.

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