I first saw Sara Davis a week or so again, the scene was familiar to me. The creative, standing behind a table, tent, stand that he or she brought to a fair or a market. I recognize the tricks. Sara was making holiday ribbons, displaying her delicious maple syrup cream and exquisite pottery.

She knows it is bad form to be reading a book or leafing through a magazine when the crowds are thin, it looks as if you have nothing to do. Looking bored is no way to sell pottery.

This way, she is standing up, busy, able to make eye contact with the people passing by. Almost every artist or creative knows the particular experience of watching people pass by all day, looking politely, or looking away, buying or nothing.

Normally, the market is set up outside in the Summer and early Fall. As it gets close to Christmas, the farmers and artists move into a drafty old building in the towns art’s center, Hubbard Hall. Today, it was cold and drafty, and Sara would be making a lot of ribbons.

Creative work is not for the faint of heart. It takes a lot of strength and patience – and hope –  to sell you art this way.

Sara is intuitively good at it. She she has wonderful things to sell. I discovered today that while she doesn’t have a blog, she sells her beautiful work on Etsy.com under the name of Maple Hill Syrup NY and she also has a Facebook Page under that same name.

She is well worth a look, Sara is creative all year-long, a great source of farm-inspired gifts, she makes wreaths, sells maple syrup cream, is a flower designer and sells her pottery, which is original and beautifully made.

We had a long talk about the creative life this morning at the Cambridge Farmer’s Market where she goes every Sunday to stand on her feel all day. I have so much admiration for people like Sara, I hope she never decides to go and get a day job, although it is completely up to her, of course.

People, often prodded by parents or anxious spouses, think a day job is the path to security and retirements funds, I share Joseph Campbell’s view that working only for money is a form of slavery, and the creative people who take day jobs often end up living substitute lives.

When you have a day job, and a weekly check, it is hard for most people to come back. But that is a painful choice. The true creative will always mourn the freedom and loss of his or her passion.

Looking at Sara’s pottery, she seems to me to be  doing what she should be doing. She is creative all year-long, doing skilled work for every season.

So there I was, in the old shed being used as a cold-weather market, giving my blog pitch and urging her to hang on.

I understand why I often make people uncomfortable. I am conscious of not giving people unwanted advice, but I’m happy to give it when it is wanted, especially about the creative life.

Artists have an especially difficult time staying in small rural communities, there are simply not enough people to sustain them. Blogs have liberated so many creative people, myself included, to do their work.

In our culture, we are all pressured to work hard for all of our lives so we can retire with a million dollars in the bank. My therapy work with the aged teaches me this enriches the lives of others, but not always us.

The Mansion residents almost always regret working to make money that is never enough in America for the elderly, looking back they would rather have done what they loved to do.

So the new tools of marketing and creativity matter. My new Iphone X is not a toy for me, it is a powerful connection to my work.

Maria was in the market, and she talked with Sara about the different ways and tools to sell her work, Sara appreciated the support. Every young artist needs encouragement, there are days when there is nothing to keep people going except their own internal faith and conviction.

it is, in fact, often a lonely life. I noticed members of Sara’s family kept coming in to visit her and shore her up.

This morning, a day after it snowed all day, she was not going to sell much pottery.

So I feel the need to push a bit, especially for the  young.

I lost one friend, an artist by urging him to sell his art online – he thought it undignified, and I lost another telling a gifted carpenter the same thing. He was offended, he was much drawn to the idea of the struggle and the drama.

People have to see it for themselves, of course. I’m excited to know Sara and see her work, and Maria is on the case, she’s already signed Sara up to sell her pottery at our next Open House.

Take a look for yourself.