Besides Gary, there’s one other critical person associated with my business — my occasional business partner Andrea, of Four Tails Lampwork. Although we have separate online businesses, we team up to do shows, and that works out VERY well for us.
One reason is that our styles of work are complimentary but not copy-cat; she works mostly in soft glass and I work mostly in boro, and we both exploit the characteristics of our chosen glass as much as possible.
Having a second person there to “share the load,” so to speak, makes doing shows when both of you have a full-time Sort-of-Day Job possible. At our last show, Andrea’s job actually got seriously in the way to the point that on both Friday and Saturday she couldn’t get to the show until mid-afternoon. Without the partnership she would have had to cancel, but with two of us I could handle things (with help, of course, from Gary) until she got there. In return, I got to sleep in a bit on Sunday, which I muchly needed! It also makes it possible to make a bathroom run without worrying, or to take a walk around to peruse and schmooze the other vendors.
We also have complimentary strengths and weaknesses. She’s better than I am at the schmoozing; I’m better with the numbers. So Andrea does the bulk of the meet-and-greet and I handle the accounting, and we’re both happy.
Of course, we get along very well! If we didn’t, none of the above would matter at all because we wouldn’t be able to work together!
