My mom once worked in a restaurant where she had to do her work right in front of people walking in. I then volunteered in a museum where the paleo lab was lined with windows so people could watch them from the dinosaur exhibit.
There’s a bit of fascination in watching people work. In a way, we enjoy it because we feel like we’re being let in on the secret. We get to see how it’s all done. Then again, for certain professions, it really ruins the mystery.
Most days, I feel that way about jewelry design. I spent a couple of months as a demonstrator for a craft store. Twice a week, I sat behind a box of crates and made jewelry. Not the worst way to pick up some extra bucks, but being on display like that made me feel more like a performance artist and less like a jewelry designer.
It was great to watch people marvel at pieces I’d completed, or to have them ask me about the various pieces on my table. But someone would invariably walk in right as I forgot how to do something, and there I’d be with my nose stuck in a book. Sadly, rather than seeing me as a resourceful woman who wasn’t afraid to rely on a book now and then, they would ask me in a rather disdainful tone how long I’d been making jewelry.
Honestly, they had no business looking down their nose at me for looking up the answer to a question when they couldn’t even string a bead onto string; and I had no business feeling guilty for showing off my status as a learner when I needed to know how to do something. Truth be told, we’re all learners, regardless of how long we’ve done something, or how proficiently we do it. The master has as much to learn as the novice, especially in light of trying to stay current or to be innovative in the field.
It’s hard to be the one being watched…but there’s so much to learn as both the watched and the watching.
