Everything old

[offcntr]

A long, long time ago, in the before times--well, before Off Center Ceramics, anyway--I was working and teaching at the Craft Center for half-time pay, free firings, and all the recycled clay I could eat. I was married, Denise was job hunting, and I tried a lot of things to make up the difference between what I got paid, and what we needed to survive. (And no, eating clay wasn't really an option.)

I took a bunch of custom and commemorative jobs: KLCC pledge premium mugs. Mugs for Marist High School and the Newman Center, the Environmental Law conference, 5-year Employee Appreciation mugs for the city of Eugene.

Some of these were one-shots; some continued for a while; I'm still doing City mugs, averaging two or three a year. A few, I had the good sense to turn down. (The FabTrol troll logo still haunts my nightmares.)

One of them literally changed my life. It was after we'd started Off Center, but were still struggling to make a go of it, wondering if I should be giving up and looking for a full-time job. The St. Vincent de Paul Society was planning their regional convention, and things weren't going well. The Portland organizing committee dropped the ball, and it looked like the whole thing might fall apart when the Eugene volunteers stepped up and took over.

One of the long-time Eugene stalwarts was a farmer, with strong ideas about food justice. He'd always thought the idea of poverty advocates meeting over a big banquet was weird and inappropriate, and lobbied hard for a simple bread and soup supper. And he got his way, almost. It wasn't the keynote dinner, as he'd wanted, but it was on the program. West Brothers, a local BBQ joint, provided the soup. The bread came from local bakeries. The table centerpieces were mason jars full of flowers tucked into orphan shoes from St. Vincent's thrift stores, and the cutting boards and bread knives were a motley assortment from the same source.

And the soup bowls were from me. They commissioned two hundred soup bowls, wholesale at ten bucks apiece, with the SVdP logo stamped into the bottom. Two thousand dollars, at a time when we desperately needed it, was a huge thing.

But even more important, they invited us to the dinner. Not just because it was a free meal, but because we came in first, and I got to sit and watch two hundred people excitedly going through stacks of my bowls, comparing their choices, each sure they'd found the best one. At a time when we were struggling at Market, wondering if anyone would ever like our work, it was an enormous encouragement.

Twenty-odd years later, I'm established. I know people like my work, because they buy it. They tell me how many pieces they have, how much their friends and family love it. I get emails and orders from all over. It's all I can do to keep up.

A few months back, I let slip to someone on that original organizing committee that I still had the SVdP stamp, and word got back to Terry McDonald, the head of our local St. Vincent's. He approached Denise at Clay Fest, said they'd really like another 200 bowls, no set deadline.

I really shouldn't. I have so much other work to make. But they were there for me when I needed them most, and I can't ever forget that. So I've dusted off the stamp, weighed out the recycled clay--some things never change--and started throwing. Fifty so far; 150 to go.

Comments

[chefxh]

This gives me feels on the Empty Bowls level. I have volunteered in the fight against hunger in practically every place I have ever lived. Frank, you're amazing.