Old Tricks
Sep. 10th, 2015 10:58 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
offcntrI haven't always been a potter.
I did the usual mix of sumer jobs as a student--house painter, factory worker (La Crosse Garment Company making sleeping bags for the army, and thank God I wasn't in the feather room). Dishwasher, for four days one time before my ankle gave out.
But much of my pre-pottery career was in the same field: graphic artist. Keyliner. Design, layout and paste-up.
I got my first freelance job, assembling a catalog for a paper supply company, the summer of my junior year in college. Two more catalogs paid the rent and groceries through senior year before I handed off the fourth and final one to another art student on graduating.
After graduation, I was hired by my college fine arts center for a limited run, designing and producing their season program. When that job ended, I moved across the street to take the artist's spot in the publicity office. After a couple of years there, I left to take an opening at a four-color printer, where I stayed until a brief layoff, combined with the expansion of my ceramics hobby into all my available free time convinced me it was time to look at graduate programs.
Even after I enrolled at the UO, I couldn't leave the business behind, designing flyers on work-study for the Alternative Education program. And my first GTF (Graduate Teaching Fellowship, what the UO calls TAs) didn't involve teaching at all. I produced--writing, photography, design, layout and paste-up--the Fine Arts departmental magazine, Artifact.
That's where I was introduced to digital--though we called it desktop back then--publishing. UO was an early adopter of digital design and animation, and a beta-testing site for Aldus (later Adobe) Pagemaker 1.5. So I literally got in on the ground floor.
I don't do graphic design for hire anymore, I'm relieved to say, but I still keep my hand in. I design business cards and publicity material for Off Center Ceramics, and for a couple of pottery shows I'm involved with. I'm particularly proud of the posters and mailers I've done for Clay Fest over the past 15 years. Here's this year's poster that I picked up from the printer this afternoon.
You might not be able to teach an old dog new tricks, but the old tricks are still worth keeping in practice sometimes.
I did the usual mix of sumer jobs as a student--house painter, factory worker (La Crosse Garment Company making sleeping bags for the army, and thank God I wasn't in the feather room). Dishwasher, for four days one time before my ankle gave out.
But much of my pre-pottery career was in the same field: graphic artist. Keyliner. Design, layout and paste-up.
I got my first freelance job, assembling a catalog for a paper supply company, the summer of my junior year in college. Two more catalogs paid the rent and groceries through senior year before I handed off the fourth and final one to another art student on graduating.
After graduation, I was hired by my college fine arts center for a limited run, designing and producing their season program. When that job ended, I moved across the street to take the artist's spot in the publicity office. After a couple of years there, I left to take an opening at a four-color printer, where I stayed until a brief layoff, combined with the expansion of my ceramics hobby into all my available free time convinced me it was time to look at graduate programs.
Even after I enrolled at the UO, I couldn't leave the business behind, designing flyers on work-study for the Alternative Education program. And my first GTF (Graduate Teaching Fellowship, what the UO calls TAs) didn't involve teaching at all. I produced--writing, photography, design, layout and paste-up--the Fine Arts departmental magazine, Artifact.
That's where I was introduced to digital--though we called it desktop back then--publishing. UO was an early adopter of digital design and animation, and a beta-testing site for Aldus (later Adobe) Pagemaker 1.5. So I literally got in on the ground floor.
I don't do graphic design for hire anymore, I'm relieved to say, but I still keep my hand in. I design business cards and publicity material for Off Center Ceramics, and for a couple of pottery shows I'm involved with. I'm particularly proud of the posters and mailers I've done for Clay Fest over the past 15 years. Here's this year's poster that I picked up from the printer this afternoon.
You might not be able to teach an old dog new tricks, but the old tricks are still worth keeping in practice sometimes.