Auld Lang Sign
Sep. 16th, 2014 05:53 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
offcntrFrom the Off Center website, September 2007.
It's really Kathy Lee's fault. The yellow bear, that is .
We shared a Saturday Market booth, our first few years trying to sell pottery. Her booth, actually, and her tables, chairs, table covers. I provided the sign.
It was a hand-painted wooden sign, five-sided, cut to fit neatly in the peak of the roof. One side said "Off Center Ceramics," with a painting of a cat bank; the other, "Useful Pots" (Kathy's business name) with a yellow teddy bear, holding a honey pot. (Pooh bear, of course. "It's a useful pot," said Pooh, "It's for putting things in.")
After three years trying to interest the stroll-by public in her tiny, exquisitely crafted pots, Kathy gave up on Market in favor of galleries and holiday studio sales. I inherited the booth frame, built some shelves to go with it. Kathy kept the sign, but I kept the bear.
I thought he was awfully cute, you see, a good match for the "Whimsical" in "Whimsical & Functional Stoneware." Besides, we'd already started bringing teddy bears with us to Saturday and Holiday Markets, so when I painted a new sign for Off Center Ceramics, the bear stayed. Holding a cat bank.
Fast forward ten years to 2007, a Thursday afternoon in Seattle. We're setting up for our third out-of-state show in as many weekends. We're very tired, kinda cranky, and have gotten really bored with that particular stretch of Interstate 5. And I can't find my sign.
It makes no sense. That sign never leaves the van. The farthest it ever goes is when I put it on the roof so I can rearrange the boxes inside the van…
Oh-oh.
Well, the whole weekend went about as you'd expect, with that kind of beginning. We felt naked without our sign, anonymous. Customers were few and far between, and it rained most of Sunday. It was an omen, I tell you, a sign of the craft gods' displeasure.
Now that we're back in Eugene, I've retraced my route from our driveway to the point where Beltline joins I-5, over in Springfield. No sign of my sign. I'm very much afraid that it's been crushed to flinders out on the blacktop somewhere.
Fortunately for me, I still had the template for the lettering stencil on my computer. The University of Oregon Craft Center had some nice half-inch birch plywood in my price range, and let me cut a new oval on their very nice bandsaw. Paintbrushes were on sale at the UO Bookstore, and wonder of wonders, I had half a can of primer and all the paints I needed.
So late on Friday evening, barely a week after that disastrous Seattle show, I was down in my studio putting finishing touches on my brand new Off Center Ceramics sign. You can see it at the top of this page. It still has a bear on it. [ed. note--though I took off the cat bank, for some reason.]
And if you're reading this website from somewhere on the north I-5 corridor, and you've seen an oval wooden sign that says "Off Center Ceramics, Whimsical & Functional Stoneware" with a yellow bear, get in touch. Unless it bounced off your windshield at 65 mph, in which case I'd rather not know.
It's really Kathy Lee's fault. The yellow bear, that is .
We shared a Saturday Market booth, our first few years trying to sell pottery. Her booth, actually, and her tables, chairs, table covers. I provided the sign.
It was a hand-painted wooden sign, five-sided, cut to fit neatly in the peak of the roof. One side said "Off Center Ceramics," with a painting of a cat bank; the other, "Useful Pots" (Kathy's business name) with a yellow teddy bear, holding a honey pot. (Pooh bear, of course. "It's a useful pot," said Pooh, "It's for putting things in.")
After three years trying to interest the stroll-by public in her tiny, exquisitely crafted pots, Kathy gave up on Market in favor of galleries and holiday studio sales. I inherited the booth frame, built some shelves to go with it. Kathy kept the sign, but I kept the bear.
I thought he was awfully cute, you see, a good match for the "Whimsical" in "Whimsical & Functional Stoneware." Besides, we'd already started bringing teddy bears with us to Saturday and Holiday Markets, so when I painted a new sign for Off Center Ceramics, the bear stayed. Holding a cat bank.
Fast forward ten years to 2007, a Thursday afternoon in Seattle. We're setting up for our third out-of-state show in as many weekends. We're very tired, kinda cranky, and have gotten really bored with that particular stretch of Interstate 5. And I can't find my sign.
It makes no sense. That sign never leaves the van. The farthest it ever goes is when I put it on the roof so I can rearrange the boxes inside the van…
Oh-oh.
Well, the whole weekend went about as you'd expect, with that kind of beginning. We felt naked without our sign, anonymous. Customers were few and far between, and it rained most of Sunday. It was an omen, I tell you, a sign of the craft gods' displeasure.
Now that we're back in Eugene, I've retraced my route from our driveway to the point where Beltline joins I-5, over in Springfield. No sign of my sign. I'm very much afraid that it's been crushed to flinders out on the blacktop somewhere.
Fortunately for me, I still had the template for the lettering stencil on my computer. The University of Oregon Craft Center had some nice half-inch birch plywood in my price range, and let me cut a new oval on their very nice bandsaw. Paintbrushes were on sale at the UO Bookstore, and wonder of wonders, I had half a can of primer and all the paints I needed.
So late on Friday evening, barely a week after that disastrous Seattle show, I was down in my studio putting finishing touches on my brand new Off Center Ceramics sign. You can see it at the top of this page. It still has a bear on it. [ed. note--though I took off the cat bank, for some reason.]
And if you're reading this website from somewhere on the north I-5 corridor, and you've seen an oval wooden sign that says "Off Center Ceramics, Whimsical & Functional Stoneware" with a yellow bear, get in touch. Unless it bounced off your windshield at 65 mph, in which case I'd rather not know.