Tales of a Retail Nothing

I studied fine arts in school, specifically I have a BFA in Fine Arts, I also have about a third of a film degree. There are many stops and starts in between that story and the one I ended up living, but I will save you my drama and trade you some stories.

Out of college I worked at a small business that sold camera things. That was in 2016, shit was getting really weird in the United States at the time for some reason.

After that I got a job as a framer at a big box craft store, we'll call it Mitchell's. I actually really loved my job at Mitchell's, it was physical, I got to work with art all the time. I got to exercise creative muscles that I wasn't taught in school. I met a lot of really cool people.

I also became an extremely good framer, and therefore sales person. I joke that I'm excellent with customers, I'm not so good with people. Outside of writing, for some (ahem neurodivergent) reason I don't make a good first impression.

I'm going to put some work examples in here that showcase that because I never get to show my framing work and this is my blog dammit!

I was the frame shop manager for about two years, and I worked as a full time framer for about three years before. Then some spectacular burnout happened and I had to step down.

Now I work at a local reptile place which probably has the most bizarre stories, but since I'm still there I'll save them for when I move on.

Working retail is like the Wild West, as we are a community of writers I'm assuming there's other retail or former retail workers on the site. I have some insane stories and this is going to be the start of a little series I'm going to do along side my series of talking about fine art. It's kind of an exercise for me to process some stuff, and then I genuinely think there's some hilarious and horrifying stories that will be entertaining. Also I'd like to share some stories of some really beautiful moments that I got to experience with people. My retail experience has made me a better person, and it's made me a better artist.

There is a part of me that feels like I'm wasting my life not working in art because that's what I studied, that's what I'm good at. So this is my attempt to merge the two.

So I'm going to start you off with a soft one and probably the weirdest from Mitchell's, and we'll go from there. The area that I worked at my first store in was an extremely wealthy area. There was a lot of entitlement, this was the weirdest experience of entitlement I ever experienced.

I had a regular who was always a problem, she parked her large suv in the emergency zone because she didn't want to park and walk, she would show up ten minutes before we closed to do a framing order which typically takes about a half hour if not more.

One night she brought her baby in, she then proceeded to change the child on my counter, where people put their precious artwork and then leave the diaper there for one of us to throw away. She still continued to come in after that, and to be honest the complete confusion that overtook my brain actually outweighed how mad I was.

Now of course I had regulars that I loved, and to balance this piece out I'm going to tell you about one of the sweetest men I've ever met. I also want to show how working retail made me learn to slow down when I'm judging someone. This man was a Vietnam vet and a widower, he was kind of rough around the edges he always had an army cap on. He would get things framed with us once or twice a month.

The odd thing was they were always old pinups and sometimes very cheeky ones. At first we had the initial impression that he was creepy, we have had guys bring in nudes or other inappropriate things to make us squirm. Don't get me wrong, I went to art school I love a tasteful nude. It's different.

I started noticing though that every time he brought his pieces in he wanted to talk about the fashion with me, and he wanted the matting to make the clothes pop or the woman's makeup so we could pick up a detail.

Now these were genuinely beautiful pieces, I don't think I have any because I had some policy's about which pieces I can put in a portfolio or not just because I didn't own the art. If you haven't seen early pinups from the 50's I recommend you look them up. They are beautiful.

I realized over time that this man really just wanted to talk about clothes, he loved fashion. It's possible he only felt comfortable talking about it with me and my framers because we understood the use of color and design. We understood the beauty in the art that he obviously loved so much. He even told me he had to rotate the frames by season because he had so many.

Then, when covid hit, the very first week we were back, he asked at the counter for me and my framers and he said "I'm sorry I don't have any work for you right now, but I wanted to make sure you all made it out okay". This was the worst time to be a retail worker, people were mean and traumatized and desperate to be out of the house. This beautiful man decided that he wanted to check on his people.

So follow for more retail adventures.

With love

river

Part Two:

Note: this series is dedicated to Carolann Solebello an incredibly talented singer/songwriter, and a dear friend. She was the first person to pledge for me, and has supported my art for years, both my writing and my visual art. She has always wanted me to write about my time in retail because she listened to hours of my adventure over time. She often pointed out the true absurdity when I was telling her about my day. Take some time to check her out she's amazing, and if you ever get the chance to see her live it is a treat.

https://www.carolannsolebello.com/