MACEF International Home Show: Buying From the Right Side of the Brain

By: Nancy Krabill

I’ve got a new attitude. Yesterday I began by searching for new products for the store with a migrane-like tunnel vision. Later, I pulled back and focused less on the products themselves and more on the skills and intent behind them. I skipped over booths with cute, but mass-produced goods (after all, it’s a shorter, less expensive distance from China directly to the US than from China to Italy to the US).

Instead, I visited a hall dedicated to “Made in Italy” and did a little “right brain” shopping. (For those of you who weren’t around or aware in the ’80’s, Ned Hermann came up with a popular theory that said our brain has an analytical “left” side and a creative “right” side, with the idea that the more we integrate the two thought styles, the better off we are.) I looked at the products as art, rather than evaluating in the context of whether they would fit in our store. I met the producers and owners, who were mostly here at the show, practiced my Italian while they practiced their English, and learned their stories.

This is working for me, right now, in this time. Thinking back on our “killer app” (to borrow a term from my tech days) products that we’ve had in the store, the ones that sold out quickly, they were all surprises. Two good examples are The Wine Clip and Lazy Susans from Vintage at Heart. We didn’t find them in the usual places, they didn’t really “fit”, but we tried them out and they continue to be strong sellers today.

So, in this moment, here and now, I’m taking a step back and opening my mind to the creativity on display here. I’m stopping to visit the exhibits intentionally assembled by MACEF to help new young designers and artisans. And maybe, just maybe, if I don’t think about it too hard, out of the corner of my eye, I’ll catch a glimpse of something really special.

Pictured above: Left, handpainted scarves and “barberi” (wooden balls used to choose who’s up first at the Palio) from Siena. Right, a jeweler from Sardegna crafts tiny villages piece from piece out of rock, and decorates with silver jewels.