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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.

 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.

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.

   

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.

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.

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.

            

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, startedStudio 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”.

 

      

 

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.

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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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.   

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.

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’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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

   

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.

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.

   

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.

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.