Craig Martell on sat 10 jul 99
Hi:
I've been meaning to send this in for a bit but I've been busy making pots
and trying to figger out why my salt kiln doesn't work like I want it to. I
figgered it out OK but that's a whole other volume.
I wrote a comment about Professional Orgs a few weeks ago and mentioned the
Oregon Potter's Assoc and a gentleman from Canada asked for some more info.
Sorry, I lost the original post when I reformatted my hard drive. Yes,
that's another volume as well.
My point in the other post was that these organizations are very hard
pressed to exert any influence or come to a consensus about stuff that
affects peoples incomes such as juried shows, galleries, stuff like that.
So what is it that I value about the Oregon Potter's Assoc.?
I am one of the original members. I wasn't a founder, but I joined at the
first meeting. The OPA was started in the mind of a guy named Bert McDowell
who was an ex trauma surgeon from Phoenix, who had started making pots.
Bert and potter Ellen Currans and her husband Tom Currans really started the
whole shebang. The idea was to get potters together to make large material
buys and save money because of the volume price breaks. We did this for
many years and it worked well. But it took cooperation from those who were
buying. You had to fork over the dough on time and show up to unload the
truck. The truck belonged to Tom Currans and he made many a run in that old
beast. When I think of the early days of OPA, then known as The Oregon
Potter's Cooperative, I see Tom in his polka dot ballcap on top of piles of
bags handing them off to dusty potters.
Another reason for starting this organization was a social one. Bert wanted
to see folks with similar interests get together and socialize and exchange
ideas and help each other. This happened. One of the first things I
noticed that came of this organization was the loss of professional distance
from one another as we got to know each other as people. Well I should be
forthright and say that in some cases the distance increased. Professional
jealousies waned a bit and sometimes a lot. We worked together on all sorts
of projects and this fosters a more tolerant attitude in regard to who makes
what kinda pots.
This is going to be too long so I'll just sumarize. Now we work together to
put on a large clay only show every spring in Portland Oregon. Ceramic
Showcase. It's all OPA members and everything is done by us. Setup,
publicity, bookeeping, gallery, etc. This now seems to be OPA's main focus
although there are many other pursuits. Education, empty bowls, workshops.
When a member is found to be in trouble there is always a request for aid.
The request is never ignored to my knowledge.
It's not a utopian organization. People get pissed off. We fall asleep in
meetings after we eat more than our fair share of the cookies but usually we
all remain friends or at least civil, and find some way to finish what we
are working on.
I've probably left out a lotta pertinent stuff but that's what I do. There
are others on the list who may want to set the record straighter.
Craig Martell in Oregon
Jim Bozeman on sun 11 jul 99
I was a member of O.P.A. for several years when I lived in Portland. I sold
a fair amount of pottery at the Ceramic Showcase. But I found selling at
Portland Saturday Market to be a real grind. You never could rely on it for
a steady income. I'm now making pretty good money selling my work in the
Atlanta markets. Jim in Athens, GA
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