Circus time

The other thing I did with my time between January 18-30, which I forgot to post about in the last blog entry, was attend two Performers' Showcases. Every year libraries all over the United States do Summer Reading Club for their child patrons (and some for teens), and in Southern California we have a couple of Performers' Showcases so that people who have "acts" for children can come, put on a five-minute demonstration of the contents of their "show," and be booked for performances by librarians.

The biggest one is in Orange County, and attracts maybe 75 acts and probably about 150 librarians. It's held at the Yorba Linda Community Center in their big auditorium, this year on January 23rd.

When I was a teen librarian, I attended these for the first couple of years and then realized that they are almost exclusively aimed at younger children, with the plethora of magicians, storytellers, musical groups, puppets, and such-like, and quit hoping to find teen programming there. Instead, I turned my focus to creating my own, which leads to the reason why I was at the showcases.

I decided that, as a summer side hustle, I would teach art and crafts workshops for teens. So I put together a series of postcards advertising such activities as contour drawing, beginning watercolor, T-shirt stenciling, and suminagashi (paper marbling), and I signed up for the showcases. At the Yorba Linda one I didn't get to present, but did have my own table (well a third of a table, like everyone else) where I could talk to passing librarians in the morning, at breaks, and during lunch, hand out my postcards and business cards, and solicit business. It was somewhat passive soliciting, since the majority of the librarians who attend are children's librarians and I had to rely on their good will to take the postcards back to their teen librarians at their branches. And some libraries sadly don't do teen summer reading programs. But I passed out at least 50 postcards at that venue, and am hopeful of some results.

On January 31st, I drove in the opposite direction, to the Ventura County Performers' Showcase at the Camarillo Library. This one was much smaller, with maybe 30 librarians and 30 performers, but at this one I got to stand up front and present my classes by talking about what I do and showing a powerpoint of some of the features of each workshop. Again, I passed out a lot of postcards, and am waiting for the results.

I was fortunate, a couple of months ago, to become one of the featured presenters of workshops for Los Angeles Public Library's year-long "L.A. Made" program, so I have already taught a few workshops at LAPL and  have about 12 bookings scheduled between July and October of this year (and even a couple for next winter and spring). But I'm hoping that these showcases will yield even more opportunities to teach and earn.

At the Yorba Linda showcase, you spend a lot of time sitting at your table waiting for people to come by, or biding your time during other people's performances, so I pulled out my sketchbook and captured a few images of the performers around me (above right, and below). The fact that most people have their noses in their cell phones makes it both easier and more boring! I drew a couple of their puppets, too, for comic relief.

More portraits are forthcoming!