Slightly Off Center

Okay, I admit, we really could use the rain here. But did it have to have come on Saturday?

Actually, most of it fell overnight Friday. It was still misting a little when I left for Market around 7 am, which turned into full-blown showers while I was unloading the van. But by then, the canopy was up, walls down, and everything snug inside. It was a little challenge unpacking boxes--a process I've compared in the past to getting dressed in a sleeping bag--but I had a plastic drop cloth, so was able to leave the boxes covered just outside, and pull them in to empty one at a time. Of course, I had to stack the empties in a corner of the booth, which made the rest of the space very crowded, but on the whole, it worked out.

Clouds continued all morning--we finally had a sun break around 1:50 pm--but they returned on and off the rest of the day. No more rain, though, so everything was dry when I packed up. And the temperature was an improvement over the high 90s of the previous Saturday.

My regular neighbor was away, sort of--she was doing her monthly doggie rescue bus trip to California--but multiple check-engine lights came on around Weed, so they canceled the trip. Her space was still taken by a young woman selling "Cannabis Art": paintings and prints depicting close-ups of various pot flower clusters, identified by cultivar. KInda pretty, in a semi-abstract way, but not really my thing. If she had paintings of cacao pods, on the other hand, I might have been interested...

First sale of the day was to a couple from Northern California who first stopped in because they saw my cardinal pots. Turns out, like me, they miss them from their days in the Midwest, in this case, Wausau, Wisconsin and Winona, Minnesota, within a stone's throw from where I grew up and went to college, respectively.

Not a lot of other memorable visitors, unlike last week, when I saw someone in a tie-dyed axolotl onesie, correctly identified the piranha skeleton tattoo on a customer's arm, and had a conversation about one of my favorite podcasts, Lingthusiasm, with a man in a linguistics conference t-shirt.

Still, I did get a visit from long-time friends and former customers Wilson and Renate, and a surprise visit from former Market manager Bill Goldsmith and wife Pearl Wolfe, along with a handsome young woman who turned out to be their daughter, Rachel, who I'd last seen as a 5-year-old. She was adding to her mug collection, bought one from me, Wayne Lambert, Alex Lanham and Jon King. Former potter and recently retired Corvallis Art Center director Cynthia Spencer also stopped in. Asked if she planned to go back to potting, now that her administrative days are done? Maybe just for fun, she said, she does not miss selling or shows.

Stock is mostly holding out, even as low as it's been since Anacortes. Haven't run out of any patterns of painted mugs, soup bowls or stew mugs. I am, however, critically low on tall mugs, only three left in the restock box, all duplicate patterns, and I only have three pie plates left, period. I'm filling the shelf space with dinner pasta bowls, and debating taking a weekend off or trying to push my September 7 firing up a week.

Both days felt kind of slow, but I still made over $700 in sales both weekends.

That was a... challenging Saturday Market. Started out lovely, sunbeams streaming through the clouds, mild temps. Had some long-time customers stop by and pick up some new works, finally delivered the special order ladybug soup bowl I've been holding since the end of July.

Had another family shopping visit, this time parents and two college-age daughters. Daughters each picked out a piece, parents looked at dinner plates, but couldn't decide on a second pattern. Said they'd come back later; didn't actually. But they did take a card, and we talked about shipping, so I may eventually get an order. You never know.

About ten minutes before opening, a man stopped in, asked if I had an order to pick up for his wife, Jane. You know, Jane? he asked in his Russian accent. In fact, I know both of them, Yev Russian and his wife, Jane, Chinese. I've done some really wonky specialized pots for her over the years, steamer crocks to fit various electric kettles and cookers. The last one was just over a year ago, and I'd left a message on his voicemail, since she wasn't answering my email reminders to come collect her pots.

I guess he doesn't check his messages often; he only just got this one.

I'm used to getting recognized from elsewhere, Empty Bowls, Tsunami Bookstore, Great Harvest Bakery. My work is distinctive and memorable. This time, they came from an unexpected direction: Valley Arts Gallery in Forest Grove.

I first started selling there a decade ago, and did small but steady business, except during the Holiday season. It was always a bother to keep them stocked, though. There's no short route, you have to take the freeway to Portland and then head west through miles of strip malls out into the hinterlands. Alternatively, you can take the winding back roads northwest of Corvallis, which is all lovely and rustic until you get stuck behind a combine harvester going 15 mph.

Still, I kept at it until fall of 2021, when I realized I'd been selling so well elsewhere that I hadn't any extra stock for their holiday sales event. So I told them to keep whatever inventory they still had to sell, but I would no longer restock. Sooner or later, I figured, they'd run out. It still hasn't happened, apparently, since this couple at Market knew my work. (And I also just got a check for the sale of two cookie jars and a canister.) It's a small world, I guess.

Denise did a major restock on greeting cards, and it seems to have paid off. She sold twelve of them, and a pocket journal as well. I sold the usual mix of plates and mugs and bowls, but also my biggest serving bowl, an eight-pound monster with snowy owl pattern for seventy bucks.

Around 2 pm, clouds started rolling in, and the rain began around 2:30. A little after three, Market security came through, warning us that the forecast was predicting 50 mph wind gusts in the next fifteen minutes, and we should secure our booths. I wasn't worried about the booth--25 lb. sandbags on each leg ought to hold up just fine--but I've have pots knocked off the top shelves by wind gusts in the past, so pulled down and packed the cookie jars and pitchers, then the top shelves of mugs on the other side.

By 3:20, the forecast included half-inch hail, so I just kept on packing up pots. Rain was pouring down, thunder and lightning right atop one another, and everyone was closing shop. I got the van down to the curb a little after four and got the boxes in without too much extra moisture, but the walls and roof were soaked, and by the time I'd taken down the shelves and canopy, so was I. Squidged home by way of gas-up at Costco to discover that the Legion's Chicken Barbecue we'd been anticipating for supper had all sold out by 3 pm. Denise braved the rain and got us KFC instead, and once I'd gotten into dry clothes, we had an early supper and crashed on the bed.

We never did get the wind or hail, and sales were nearly at $700, so on the whole it was a successful day. Sunday dawned sunny and breezy, so I was able to get the tarps and canopy dried out again, though the sandbags will probably be waterlogged until next weekend.

Raindrops keep fallin' on my dreads...

I actually thought we'd have better weather this time. Cloudy in the morning, still, but dry, even had the sun starting to burn through while I was setting up. I still put the rain pin* and sides up, kept the empty boxes under cover; I'm no fool. Denise opted to stay home and work on art projects, so with only one stool in the back, my side of the booth was considerably less crowded.

It was a good thing I did. Promptly at 10 o'clock, the rain started. Poured most of the day, with intermittent moments of drizzle, finally let up a little around 3:30. Only to start again just at closing, 4 o'clock.  I took my time packing up, waiting for my neighbors to clear out, and when I was finally ready to load up the van at 4:45, it had stopped raining again. Got all my boxes and display hardware in the van dry (though I had to towel down the shelves), and it only started spitting again as I took down the--thoroughly soaked--canopy. Which I was able to set up and dry Sunday afternoon, so all was good.

It was a surprisingly good day. I sent an octopus cookie jar off to Philadelphia, a piggy bank to L.A. Smaller pieces to college students: tall mug, tumbler, stew mug. Had a couple of nice conversations with student potters, and was able to tell them about my Brushmaking workshop this coming Friday. In all, I took in about two-thirds as much as last week, which was still a really solid day's work.

Posted a bunch of owl pots to Instagram as my Today's Theme Is, but this picture really caught my eye. That's a very nervous looking bunny.

*(The spring-loaded center pole on my canopy is too weak to keep tension on rainy days. To keep from collecting water in the canvas, I've drilled a hole at the right spot where a nail pushed in will keep the roof taut and mostly leak-free.)

So Saturday was lovely right up until 4 pm, at which point it started raining. I'd seen the clouds rolling in, so got my boxes under cover before it hit. Brandy, my neighbor, also packed up hurriedly, got everything out to the car where her husband was double-parked, through the showers, in ten minutes flat. There is of course no way I can pack up all my pottery in that amount of time.

At 4:15, the sun came out. By 4:20, the rain had stopped. By the time I started packing up the van at 5, everything, even my roof canopy, got in dry.

I feel there's a moral in here somewhere.

...living in a rain forest!

I know I've complained about all the rainy Saturdays since Market opened, but this weekend was the first time I actually had to set up in the rain. Previously, I'd roll in, set up, and have everything safely under cover before the inevitable shower/downpour/hailstorm began. It's not so bad, snug and dry in the booth while the weather unrolls around you.

This time, I was anything but dry. Getting the tent up is priority, then the furniture, then hurry boxes of pots in as fast as possible, to minimize the amount of rain that gets in through the flip-top lids. Wait to pull down the walls until after I've hand-trucked the pottery boxes, bring in the handmade paper last. About two loads of boxes in, I realize I've missed a step: I've put up the raked shelf mug/bowl display uprights, but not the shelves themselves, so I grab the bowl shelves and set them up, then back to moving pottery. It's only after I've parked the van in the Overpark and am half-way through setting out pots that I realize that I've left the painted mug shelves in the van, so I traipse up to the parking structure and carry them back. Much rain; no brain. And since I've foolishly worn Birkies and cotton socks, and not brought a dry change of raincoat, I'm freezing most of the day. Eventually, I take out the little wool blanket Denise got from one of her charities, fold it into a pad, and put it under my wet jacket, over my--also wet--flannel, where it makes a toasty warm spot for the rest of the day.

I also discover that somehow, despite it have a three-quarter charge at the end of last week, and then being plugged in, my fancy wireless card reader is dead. No lights, no nothing. Fortunately, before I have to go back to Magstripe reading, my neighbors come to my rescue: Chere has a spare charging cord, and Teri always brings a back-up power pack. I'm able to plug in and take payments, despite being at 1% power. By early afternoon, I'm up to 40%, and can unplug and return the equipment. Still not sure what happened, but I suspect the cat has chewed on the power cord, creating a short circuit, so instead of recharging, it was discharging. Live and learn.

I know I'll have at least a few sales guaranteed, people picking up commissions, but for a long while, it looks like that's all I'll get. There's a big track meet in town, and graduation is Monday, so parents visiting, but I doesn't look like many of them are braving the rain to come out. I give out a bunch of cards to folks with no room in their luggage, might get a few mail orders, and eventually make enough sales to get me over $400. Then, in the last ten minutes, a man comes in, picks out the $70 tiger serving bowl and a $55 grizzly bowl, tries to buy the stands as well (I say no; I don't have access to the Craft Center wood shop to replace them any more, but suggest he take pics and show them to a garage shop woodworker back home.), and asks if I can ship them. I'm so grateful for the large last-minute bump that I offer to ship them free.

Pack up still very wet, though it's down to a fine mist by the time I get to loading the pottery boxes into the van. Monday it's partly cloudy, only 20% chance of rain, so I set out the tent in the front yard to dry.

And it promptly gets rained on again.

Definitely duck weather this morning; pouring rain all the way down Delta Highway and through downtown. I came in early, arriving at 7 am, hoping to beat the rain predicted later in the morning. Apparently, clouds don't read online weather reports.

Was tempted to not come in at all. I hate setting up in the rain, hate feeling wet and clammy all day. The only reason I did show up was because the women who ordered the giant-size mixing bowls were coming down from Corvallis to pick them up, making a day of it at Saturday Market.

As it turned out, set-up wasn't terrible. Sure, it rained all the while I put up the tent and assembled the shelves, but stopped promptly at 7:15, just as I was about to bring boxes out of the van, and stayed dry and sunny the rest of the morning and some of the afternoon (between occasional cloudbursts and sun showers--a typical Oregon spring day). It also began raining again right at 4 pm, but again for only 15 minutes, after which I was able to move boxes into the van dry. Of course, just as I started to take down the tent, it opened up again. Such a weird symmetry to the weather today.

Had some interesting conversations, both sparked by Denise's watercolor cards. They're actually a collaboration, copies from my watercolor sketchbooks mounted on her handmade paper. The first was with a woman from Texas, asking if I ever did any Texas-type animals on my pottery. I allowed as a how I might have done an armadillo once, but would be willing to try something new--I'm always willing to try something new. Then remembered we had a watercolor card with a longhorn on it, from the Lane County Fair, so I pulled it out to show her. That's great, she said, Could you paint it on this? (A tall mug.)

I said I certainly could, and told her my next firing was in mid-June. And then she asked me what the wholesale price would be.

Oops, we're not on the same page at all. I thought she was ordering a single, custom mug. She wants to order Texas mugs in quantity for a business, with Texas flags and longhorns and armadillos. Nope. Nope nope nope nope nope. I am not taking on new wholesale orders, particularly for tall mugs. I had seventy of them in my last firing, of which fifty were already committed, consigned to the bookstore or wholesaled to a gallery. I'm already having trouble keeping up with my retail customers without throwing this into the mix. Sorry ma'am, not gonna happen.

The second conversation ended on a more positive note. Had a young man and middle-age woman stop in to see the banks; he tells her his mother would love them, especially the faces, but he doesn't think he could get them to her safely. Where is she? I ask. Minnesota.

I'm curious, of course, so ask where. He says in Minneapolis, so I press for details. My sister and her wife live in Nordeast, and my friend lydamorehouse lives in St. Paul. Oh, so you know the area, he says, delighted. Have you been to the Minnesota State Fair? I grew up about two blocks from there. I immediately go rooting through the cards box again. One of the cards, called "Sleeping Beauty," features a grand-champion Duroc boar drawn from life at the Minnesota State Fair.

He's immediately taken with it, wants to know if I have another. Turns out his great-grandfather was a livestock judge in the Swine division at the fair, being a hog buyer for Hormel. He wound up buying both as mother/grandmother's day cards, plus one of my mother's bird feeder for his other grandmother, and one of a sow and piglets from the Lane County Fair for himself. Meanwhile, his companion has also been going through the box, and picks out cat and bunny cards for herself.

I almost lost a bear today. A little girl and her mom came in the booth just as little asked if she could put her coat on, as she was getting cold. You can't, says Mom, Don't you remember, we left it in the car. Sympathetic, I offer to let her hug my teddy bear, Bigfoot, for warmth, so she carries him around while Mom browses, and then announces that maybe she should take him down to the lady who makes stuffies, around the corner and up the stairs. Mom and I briefly stumble over each other's arguments before she admits she was joking. She hugs him goodbye and gives him back to me, his closest call since the neighboring vendor's two-year-old did a snatch-and-run back in, oh, 1994.

Lots of people in town for the Marathon tomorrow, some of whom pick up souvenirs. Others are return customers, like the Dad who bought a couple of bowls at Empty Bowls, then daughter got him a third, and son admired them, so he decided to buy five more, to make a set of four for himself and four to give to son. And so I become family potter to another generation.

Weird weather and bear-napping notwithstanding, it turns out a really successful day. As my potter friend Cheri (just returned to Market after a two-year pandemic hiatus) puts it, I came out a thousand-aire.

Favorite exchange of the day: the man who tells me, I eat my cereal out of one of your bowls every day. What a coincidence, I reply, So do I.

Saturday Market's motto is "Every Saturday from 10 'til 4, rain or shine." This last weekend, we definitely hit the "rain."

It started out optimistic. No, I lie. It started out pitch dark, black overcast skies as I drove in at 7 am. I set up the first half hour by street light, though by 7:30, the clouds had mostly cleared to the east and the sky was lightening up. I actually got everything into the booth, set up, and the van parked still dry, and thought I might go down to Farmers Market, when the sky opened up. Drenching downpour, while I ran around in the rain, pulling down and anchoring the sides of my booth. Wind was whipping the velcro straps loose, so I got out some heavy spring clamps to reinforce. I was soaked through my raincoat by the time I finished, but the rain let up a little, and I was able to go get my produce only slightly more moistened.

Around lunchtime, the rain stopped and the sun actually came out. I pinned up the front corners of the booth to let in the light, and so I could see my neighbors, not that there were many. Four of us on our stretch, none on the east lawn, only a couple dozen on the rest of East block. And only three on West Block. I was seriously wondering whether I should have come at all.

But I had special orders out of the kiln, and four of them were picking up at Market, so I knew I'd have at least some business. And the inside of booth and boxes was dry, and I'd brought a dry coat to change into, so I figured I'd be fine.

As it turned out, I did better than fine. Best Saturday on Park Blocks ever. I sold a dozen painted mugs alone, stew mugs, tall mugs, some pies and a serving bowl. Plus the orders, it added up to over $1200 for the day.

Got to see a couple of my old colleagues from the radio station: Pete Lavelle, who hosted The Back Porch, and Rachel McDonald, former reporter and now News Director. I also had a guy ask me "Aren't you doing your radio show this morning?" and had to tell him that, no, I quit doing that in 2015. He admitted he might not be such a regular listener anymore.

Had a nice chat with a fellow who was actually visiting my neighbor, the tie-dye seller. He was talking pottery, specifically Seagrove NC, and I stepped over to chat. He'd done some slab-building back in the day, though never mastered centering. I commiserated, telling my own slow-learning story (I finally mastered centering late in my second semester in college, after being banished back to hand-building because I
was stressing out myself and my professor.) I offered him my card as he was leaving, and he said "Gosar? Where do I know that name?"

I allowed as how if he'd been in town for a while, I'd had a radio show for 25 years on the NPR station. Nope, recent arrivee. So I had to point out that I shared the name--but no family connection, thankfully--with a particularly horrible politician from Arizona. He grimaced and admitted that was where he'd heard it, and apologized for bringing it up.

Mid-afternoon, we had rain and shine: sunshowers, I had to un-pin the wall panels again. By quarter till closing, it had stopped, and I considered taking my walls down to get a head start on packing up, but noticed a parking spot open across the street, so brought down my van instead. Good thing, as it happens: Clouds blew in and rain started again right at 4 o'clock. I backed up to the curb, so I could pack a few boxes inside, dash them to the van, repeat. Got the pottery out mostly dry, and it let up enough to let me get the shelving stowed, but the booth and sides were soaking. Took them out today and got them dry enough that, hopefully, they won't mildew over winter.

Next week is the last outdoor Market of 2021, but I won't be there. I'm taking a bookbinding class with Denise over at Maude Kerns Art Center. The week after that, it's indoors at the Fairgrounds for Holiday Market.

I was bopping back and forth to the computer all day yesterday, checking my email. I'd gotten two inquiries about purchases, but was still waiting on final decisions so I could pick out and pack the pots. In particular, a customer from Portland wanted two soup bowls, patterns chosen, but hadn't made a decision on which Christmas ornament to come with. (I no longer make them, but still have some stock in the shed. Was waiting to learn which dog ornament he wanted.) 

Finally heard from him by phone, around 4:30 pm. Told him I had to pack and weigh it to determine postage, would call back in an hour for payment.

I had the perfect size box, got the whole order bubble-wrapped and boxed and shipping label bought in half an hour. Quick check online showed the local UPS store open 'til six, so I had an hour to get it there.

Now, it had been raining all day yesterday. And the day before. I bundled up, grabbed the box, and went out the door, headed for the car... when I noticed the rain had stopped. So I made the first of several bad choices.

I ducked back inside, grabbed my helmet, and unlocked the trike.

My Schwinn Meridian has a big wire cargo basket in back. Oregon being Oregon, I've slipped a 12x18" flip top plastic tub inside to protect cargo from rain and road splatter. The box fit nicely inside, with the lid just about closed. I took off the bike chain and slid it into the basket, but outside the tub, and pedaled off, lights and flashers going.

Of course, it started to rain again, spatters at first, but by the time I'd gone six blocks, it was a steady shower. Somewhere along halfway there I heard a weird, metallic schwinnggg noise and coasted for a bit, afraid I'd lost the chain (this used to happen regularly before I fixed a sprocket attachment). But we kept moving when I resumed pedaling, so I concluded I'd just caught a branch in the wheel spokes, and kept going.

Got to the UPS store and discovered my bike chain was missing. That noise? The sound of a reinforced cable lock sliding through the holes in a wire-frame basket. Feeling worried, I left my trike unsecured at the bike stand and took my package inside.

There was a line, of course. I stood fidgeting, glancing back over my shoulder to see if trike was still there. Finally got to the counter, gave them the box--Drop off, already paid, don't need a receipt, thanks!--and dashed back outside.

At this point, it's pouring. Pissing down in buckets. I'm wearing wool sox in Birkies, jeans, denim jacket and wool hat. No part of me is not sodden, and I can't just bike home, I have to go home, turn around, and go back, looking for my lock. Between the rain and fogged lenses, I can barely see, and my bike headlight is at the wrong angle to actually illuminate the pavement in front of me. Streetlights aren't a lot of help; as I pass beneath one, it flickers and goes out, like something in a horror novel.

I do find the chain, eventually, about a block north of Walgreens, in the dark zone of the dead streetlight but backlit by oncoming headlights. I throw it in the tub, turn around and ride home on the sidewalk, traffic rules be damned. Squelch into the house and call the customer to get his payment.

Weather continues weird and unpredictable. Friday became surprisingly sunny by mid-day, though occasional grey, cold fronts blew through. Saturday,  predicted sunny, was overcast all day, and turned to rain for several hours around supper. Today looks to be grey most of the day, though chance of actual rain is supposedly small.

And that's the other problem. The forecast changes from hour to hour, and from forecaster to forecaster. Everyone has a favorite source, sites or app, and none of them agree. Worse, the weather changes drastically in the five miles between our motel and the fair. Microclimates.

We have a lovely bunch of neighbors this year, unlike last time, when we had to listen to a pair of vendors complaining through the back of the booth all weekend. Only problem is that all of them--with the exception of the porcelain jewelry lady to our right--are art objects. Paintings, mural landscape photography, silk scarves, high-end fused glass. Harder to sell than painted pottery, especially when the potter has a head start--120 postcards and e-cards sent to previous customers before the fair started. I've said before how much I rely on repeat custom, and that was really evident on Friday, when I had a very good day while everyone else was dragging. Saturday picked up for them, thankfully, and while I had fewer customers, individual sales were slightly larger, so I ended up within $30 of Friday's total.

It's tricky having a good sale while your neighbors aren't. You want to feel good, celebrate it, but you don't want to be that guy, the one who brags about his success when everyone else is failing. So you go all Midwestern. Oh, we're doing okay. Not bad, y'know. Can't complain.

Hopefully, Sunday will bring sale to everybody. Us included...

Corvallis Fall Festival starts tomorrow, and weather is predicted to be nice for the whole weekend. Right now, however, I'm looking out my window at the rain, and hoping it stops by lunchtime, as set-up begins at 1 pm. And set-up is always miserable in the rain...

ETA: Well, that wasn't so bad. Rain tapered down to occasional mist and/or sunshowers, and the big tree that gave me such nice shade last year kept all my boxes completely dry underneath its canopy. And sunshine predicted for the rest of the weekend!