Pink Cheeks Studio Survives!

Hello!  I am Nichol, and I am a doll artist.  I make one-of-a-kind dolls using a variety of fabrics.  I give them teeny tiny details and I write stories for them.  I also make mobiles, wall hangings, and fiber art portraits.  It's a beautiful life I have, and though the margins are razor thin, it's how I make my living.  I sell my pieces online, but a significant part of my income comes from selling my goods at festivals and art markets.  On May 18th, I was set up for the Bayou Boogaloo festival in New Orleans.  It's a three-day festival, requiring $350 up front if you get accepted to participate.  I loooooove festivals.  Being surrounded by other artists, talking with people, sharing my work with them, and watching their faces as they read my stories brings me great joy and sustains me.  At around 3:00, I was all set up.  My booth looked like this:An hour before the festival started, my beautiful New Orleans was hit with a freak storm.  The wind knocked down everyone's art tent.  We were pelted with rain and hail.  It was terrible.  I heard pottery crash to the ground and the fruit of everyone's labor being tossed around by the wind.  My Nikon camera was drenched and will no longer turn on.  My tent collapsed.  My new business cards flew away like scared little birds.  And my dolls.  My dolls were drenched and scattered.  The dye from the  wool felted balls I use throughout my pieces ran after being saturated, staining everything. I salvaged what I could of my work. I am trying to bring some of the little storm survivors back to life, and I will (try to) sell them at a discount.  But the loss of my festival gear and camera hits hard.   This money will help me buy a tent, replace my displays, buy a camera which is essential to selling my work online.  My husband is a painting professor at a small Louisiana college and he doesn't receive paychecks over the summer.  I planned on earning enough at the festival to cushion out our savings and help us get through the the next few months financially.  This was a hard hit for my family. It was a double blow:  not earning anything and also incurring major expenses.  Anything you can spare is much appreciated and would mean a tremendous amount to me.