wasmi.net

There are two vending areas, one for Arts and Crafts (perceived higher status)and a vendor "buy/sell" area, which is for vendors who don't make the goods that they sell (perceived lower status.) There are some buy/sell vendors who try to get into the Arts and Crafts show by embellishing goods that they purchase wholesale. There is a lady who buys sunglasses and who will put your initials on them for you, or paint a tiny design in a corner of the lens. She wants to be in the Arts and Crafts show. There is another woman who buys plastic cases, fills them with dollar store art supplies for kids, and paints a design on top of the plastic case. She wants to be in the Arts and Crafts Show.
I said no to them both, but this year the case lady was very persistant. She mailed in an application. I looked at it in July, showed it to two fellow JCs who were at the meeting, and we decided that it belonged in the "buy/sell" area, so I handed the application along to the mail deliver JC who promised to deliver it to the chairperson of that area. A month goes by. I'm at another meeting right before the festival, and another JC hands me back the same application. Since I was then sitting next to the "buy/sell" chair, I handed it to her.
I thought that would be the end of it, but no! Two days before the festival, I got a list of phone messages from the person who answers the phone for the JCs (the same JC who is in charge of buy/sell.) I didn't know that one of the numbers listed as people who who had a question was the plastic case lady. She returned a call I made to her, and wanted to know if she was in the show, as she had been told by "someone" a month ago that she was in the Arts and Crafts Show, but hadn't received comfirmation or a vendor packet. I told her that she was not in the show, but that she could go into the other vendor area. She didn't want to be in the other vendor area, so she told me to just mail her check back to her. I called the buy/sell chair, who had the application, and left her that message.
Late that evening, I returned home to find a message from the festival co-chair on my machine. The plastic case woman had called her to complain about not being in the show(I'm sure after having called the JC hotline first and speaking to the buy/sell chairperson.) The festival co-chair actually wanted me to tell the plastic case lady that she was in the show.
I think we need a refresher course in the way a juried art show works, or on the way "rules" in general work. Or even just the way chains of command work.