Wine Enthusiasts Christmas Gifts…
October 26, 2010
What to get the wine connoisseur or alcoholic wino for Christmas? How about a counter top wine rack?
KTW #1810a
Gen-u-wine Knot Traditional Woodworks wine racks. Produced from local FAS Kiln Dried Alder lumber. (The Forest Stewardship Council is creating sustainable forests worldwide, producing and certifying sustainable lumber for a growing industry of green builders.) The through tenons in the bread board style tops are made from Oregon Black Walnut logs I have dried and milled.
15" x 15" x 14" tall
Further more, I machine parts and hand assemble these wine racks from rips and off cuts, gleaned from the custom upholstered furniture business next door. If I didn’t take it, they would burn it or put in in the dumpster.
I apply three coats of bar top poly-urethane that is stain resistant and virtually water proof. I use a flat sheen so that you can see the natural color of the wood and the grain, not a glossy wet looking finish.
Because my design is modular, I can make four bottle, six bottle and eight bottle racks, that will fit on a counter top or sideboard. I can build them with my miterd tops too… like this four bottle by two shelf model.
KTW #1710
Again, Alder hardwood with Oregon Black Walnut for the feature strip in the top.
23" x 15 1/2" x 14" tall
So many combinations and ways to construct these wine racks. I have some really interesting harwood logs that are drying but not ready to make parts out of yet. I would like to make these from Black Walnut or White Oak eventually too.
If you have some floor space, maybe a unique 36″ tall (counter top height), 20 bottle rack to display your collected wine treasures.
KTW #1610a
The checker board top for this piece was made from some kind of fruit wood, probably apple, for the light squares and Black Walnut.
These legs were milled from a very heavy, hard, dense, tropical wood that a friend of a friend got for me. He works for a lumber importer that was doing inventory and found these big planks buried under dust and debris for years. When they couldn’t identify the planks, didn’t know where they came from, I fortunately ended up with them.
The bread board ends are Sapele, the through tenons are Australian Lacewood and the shelf racks are Alder.
I cut out three of these racks, but only had enough material for two tops, so someday I will come across some nice lumber and make a different top on legs and shelves like these.
KTW #1610b
The top for this piece I made from Alder for the light squares and highly figured Balck Walnut for the dark squares.
23" x 15 1/2" x 36" tall
As much as I try make these in a production fashion, it’s still mostly one offs or two offs like these examples.
I tried to cut boards so that the dark figured grain pattern looks like it runs through lighter squares. My photographs don’t really do it justice.
About the time I get pieces ready to apply a sprayed on finish, I’m already thinking about ways to put the next ones together. There is still time to make some special presents. What is next?
Making Something Out of Nothing. What’s Next?
September 30, 2010
A friend of mine used to say that if there was and easy way, or a hard way, to do something… I will always choose the hard way.
Last fall I decided to try being a vendor at the Portland Saturday Market. Partly just to see if I could actually sell my products, but partly to get feedback about the whole wine rack idea, examples of my design ideas and craftsmanship. I told myself I would give it a year to see how the Market could work for me. If I didn’t try, I wouldn’t really know how it worked.
Above: A piece of fire wood I pulled from a stack. It’s some kind of fruit wood, maybe Apple, but could be from a Plum or Pear tree. Below: I cut some highly figured pieces of Black Walnut, this Apple log and contrasting pieces of Alder. then I cut a tongue and groove with my IPM Machine on a router table with up-cut solid carbide spiral bit.
The red and blue crayon marks are to tell me to route either a tongue or groove.
I tried to organize the pieces so that the grain pattern continues in order through contrasting light/dark pattern.
This experiment in joinery has one more row than the first top I made two months ago. People seeing this first wine rack top said, “Look Honey, we could play chess and drink wine!” I hadn’t even thought of that in terms of it’s graphic representation. I was just trying to make a big top out of small scraps of wood. This time around I added another row to make it look more like a real chess/checker board. I would need two additional rows to actually play a game on it, but this time it looks more like a game board. Because the tops are rectangular, the “squares” wouldn’t turn out square.
It is very time-consuming and tedious to machine parts and glue this up. Adding two more rows so it was a real game board would just add more work.
I still might try it some day but I need to drop back and punt as they say. For me the game is to design things around “FREE” material. It would be too easy to design beautiful, complicated woodworking ideas and just go to the lumber yard and buy expensive, highly figured exotic materials. In the end, I still need to sell them. That is the trick.
One of my neighbors at the shop gave me a two huge planks of some kind of tropical hardwood. He got it from a friend that works at a big wholesale lumber importer. In an inventory they found three big planks covered in dust at the back of the warehouse. Not knowing where the lumber came from or what it was, the friend gave it to my neighbor, who after a while had no use for it. So, it came to me. It is very hard, heavy and dense beautiful material. I used it for legs and rather than cut up big pieces of material, I used off-cuts and rips of Alder wood from my furniture building neighbors to make the racks.
KTW #1610a
It was a beautiful warm summer Saturday and the Market was pretty packed. Just as I hoped, hundreds of people were sucked into my little experiment! I can’t say it enough… If I had a nickel for every person that rubbed the tops, I wouldn’t have to sell them!!! Literally hundreds of people stopped to look at these two pieces and tell me that my craftsmanship was like art work. Great, just what I don’t need to hear anymore.
KTW #1610b
Above: You can see my first “checker board” top in the back. In close to three months, I still haven’t been able to sell it. Despite being told repeatedly that my prices were “very reasonable” or “too cheap”. I chopped fifty bucks off the price of it this day and still didn’t sell it! I tagged the two new pieces at $175 and reduced the prices of everything else at least $25. Very few folks looked at my other pieces or the checker topped piece in back for $125. I handed out a huge stack of business cards, flyers and talked to more people than I can remember about building them custom racks. Not only did I not sell one thing all day, but I never got a single call or e-mail for custom work.
KTW 1610b detail of top
Above: Traditionally styled bread board ends made from Sapele, and the through tenons are Australian Lacewood.
So, I’m coming up on one year of doing the Portland Saturday Market. What have I learned? Expensive lessons:
#1 The only people who are making money at the PSM is the PSM.
#2 Most of the PSM vendors are barely scraping by and many of vendors I talk to are going to quit.
#3 The public comes to the Portland Saturday Market just for cheap entertainment and the social hang out, not to actually buy anything. The economy in Portland is destroyed. If anybody has a job or any money… they ain’t spending it!!
#4 The people who run the Market have a hard task in trying to deal with a City hall and other public agencies that don’t really care to help the Market out. The Vendors who should care about the future of the Market and Market policy, don’t care at all. Having attended the last two membership members meetings with maybe twenty of the same long time vendors in attendance, and the three or four hundred vendors that show up each week conspicuously absent… apathetic would be a good description.
#5 If participation in the market, got my name/brand out there and worked as an advertising tool, it might be worth paying the monthly membership fee, daily booth fees. But to work all week, then get up early Saturday, set up the booth stand there all day, then pack up and go home for a twelve-hour day after not selling one thing to cover the cost of gas and lunch… I must be insane!
#6 I can’t afford to do the Market any more. The half-assed good Market days I had were off set by three bad days. It doesn’t look like this is the right venue for my endeavour. The PSM organizers don’t really care about me or most of the vendors for that matter. They know that there is no shortage of broke, laid off, out of unemployment insurance fools, that will give the direct marketing thing a shot.
The decision whether I should try to continue doing the Market is made for me. It’s not working for me anyway I slice it. I’m sure that there are other things I can try or do… but what ever it is, it needs to be easier.
Onward…
Custom Wine Rack
August 2, 2010
A few weeks after the Turkey-Rama Experience, I received an E-mail from a couple that had talked to me about needing a wine rack. They joined a wine club and were accumulating bottles just a little faster than they could enjoy them. They liked the idea that I was trying to use recycled, reclaimed or salvaged materials. I explained how my design was modular in nature and could expand in height and width in increments of bottles and racks. After some consideration they sent me dimensions that would fit in a space appropriate for their need to store about fifty bottles. This is not the tallest rack I have produced, but the largest capacity and widest at nine bottles by seven racks for sixty-three bottles.
They also mentioned that it was more for storage and not for formal display. In other words, “It didn’t really have to look as nice as the rest of my stuff”. I began by looking at what kinds of material I had on hand and decided to use Pine for the racks and top, fir for the legs. As I began to mill the parts for the racks I realized that the stretchers were so long they were warping slightly making it hard for me to machine and assemble the racks.
I have neighbors in a nice big shop that make beautiful, high quality upholstered couches and chairs. John from MAD Furniture caters to the professional interior design trade and goes through stacks of kiln dried Alder hardwood for the frames. He gives me long rips and short off cuts from his milling operations. It is perfect for my needs. So I shelved the parts and started over with Alder for the rack parts.
Once I changed the plan, I used material from some logs I salvaged and dried two years ago. I call them the Bertha Blvd. Logs… because that is where I saw them laying on a sidewalk for a three weeks, after a tree service trimmed trees away from power lines. I’m not sure what kind of trees but my guess was Western Maple. The legs were milled out of some Poplar pallet skids I found years ago and have used on many projects. These were the last pieces of that material.
Some of the Bertha Blvd. logs were pretty clear, but this one had some worm holes and small loose knots, so I decided to distress the top rather than to fill the defects. We weren’t going to apply any finish to the rack when it was just pine and fir, but the Alder racks and Poplar legs planed out so nicely that I left them smooth and only used my distressing tools to gently beat the top, then apply boiled linseed oil.
While some folks don’t like the distressed look others do. I began to experiment with distressing techniques after I worked so hard milling salvaged pine and fir lumber to glean clean clear material for furniture pieces, tediously sanding them smooth… only to have my heart broken when they were dinged, scratched or dented from the slightest knock. I found this hand-made meat tenderizer in a dumpster and I broke out my MIG welder to weld nuts, bolts and washers on a broken ratchet wrench. By gently spinning them over a surface I have instant antiques. I might be sleazy from a fine furniture standpoint… but the customer specified not too nice! I’m no woodworking legend like Sam Maloof or James Krenov, but the pieces are made with power tools to avoid the drudgery and assembled by hand using traditional joinery techniques. Here are breadboard ends with Black Walnut through tenons.
Still, it’s hard for me to not do the best job I can. My roots are in rough carpentry and framers have a saying when a guy is taking to long or doing too nice a job… “Hey, this ain’t no Piano”. No, it’s a 40″ X 40″ X 15″, sixty-three bottle wine rack.
Thanks so much to the Pitkins for supporting my efforts. I glad it went to a good home.
Turkey-Rama Experience
July 28, 2010
July 9th and 10th, I did a street fair in McMinnville, Oregon at the heart of the wine country. They called it Turkey-Rama, because there used to be many turkey farms in the area years ago and they had this get together. The name changed throughout time, but it was changed back and this was the 50th anniversary. I have traveled through that area for years, stopped for a meal once or twice, but never really spent any time there. It is a slice of classic Americana. A small farm town that is growing in fits and starts, trying to come to grips with a changing, state, nation and world.
Friday there were so many people out cruzin’ up and down enjoying the beautiful 95 degree day. But I only talked to two people who even stopped to look. I took a lap up and down the street to see who the other vendors were and noticed that there were more wine bars, tasting rooms and other business that had wine related gifts and gourmet cooking shops, than I have ever seen.
There was DJ set up in the intersection a few hundred feet away who played a pretty nice mix of music. Being a long time musician and music fan, I talked to him. I was going to stay in town overnight and ask if there were any bars or clubs in town that had live music. He said I should have stayed in Portland because that is where the music is happening… there are only three bars in town and only one might have live music. I said isn’t there even a sleazy biker bar with a blues band on the outskirts of town somewhere? He said no, McMinnville is full of yuppie wine sippers. All right, my demographic!
What is funny is, that I closed up the booth early when the light began to fade and wandered down the street in search of the place that might have music… and a cold beer! Lo and behold there is a hot blues band set up on a stage in an intersection two blocks down. I had just seen these guys a week before at the giant Poertland Waterfront Blues Festival over 4th of July and they just tore it up in front of fifteen thousand people. Ty Curtis Band is a young up and coming group from the Salem area that is the future of blues music. I caught the last half hour of a smoking set. I have been following these young cats for a few years and they are the real deal. Hank Shreve is a great blues harp player and the perfect partner in crime for Ty.
After getting my soul vaccination I was off in search of that cold beer. I went into the place that I will not name, because it is part of a famous oregon chain of businesses that I have much respect for. I ordered my favorite micro brewed ale and it was served in not only a warm glass but a hot one right out of the dishwasher. I only drink on occasion, and had been looking forward to this all day. What a disappointment!
Saturday was cooler and the crowd was much bigger. I talked to a lot of people and got my usual compliments. Just as I was thinking that I might not even sell anything and paid for a booth fee only to stand in the heat all day to do it… I sold a piece. A little later a couple bought my two nicest Black Walnut wine racks.
Finally I talked to a couple that loved my stuff but had specific space requirements and went home to measure. I never heard back from them but that is usually the way it goes much of the time. However, that is not the end of the story. To be continued…
The Experiment in Direct Marketing Continues
July 28, 2010
When I am a vendor at the Portland Saturday Market, wine festivals or street fairs, I hand out lots of cards and flyers to people who say they are interested in buying one of my wine racks or having a custom rack made for them. Very few of those people ever contact me. For a while there I didn’t know what to think. Maybe this is not the way to go about selling my products.
Possibly wine racks were something too large for purchase from a craft vendor, except that I have sold some of the largest wine racks I have ever produced to people who walked up, said, “Wow these are cool, I have been looking and have never seen anything like this!” Then bang, they whip out a couple hundred bucks cash and take them away.
I believed going into this, setting up a vendors booth at markets was partly to get my products out in front of people and get some feedback about them. Secondly, I might take orders for custom work, or have folks look on-line here at other inventory that I couldn’t bring out to show.
Finally a couple that talked to me at the PSM, e-mailed me and set up an appointment to come to the shop to see what kinds of wine racks I had. They ended up buying one of the larger pieces that got great comments every time I showed it.
There was another piece of furniture in the shop that they liked too. It was the first in a series of tables that I made a few years ago as a design exercise. They bought this one also.
I called them “eighth note” tables because I wanted the legs to look like musical notation. Back in my previous life as a contractor, I worked on a new house doing finish carpentry. The flooring contractors installed pre-finished Brazilian Cherry flooring throughout that house and two others next door. They made a huge pile of off cuts and mistake cuts to haul to the dump. I ask if I could have it. They said it’s all trash and they gave me some opened boxes of material that they couldn’t return also.
I wrapped the entryway columns with specially milled Mahogany
One of the most difficult jobs I ever tackled
You can see a stairway inside the front door. It was metal framed and I fabricated, installed 2″ thick Brazilian Cherry stair treads.
You can see the flooring material, and I salvaged left over material that was used to edge around the stair wells.
I planed the finish off the flooring and laminated pieces together for the legs and stretchers, then I took short off cuts left from the thick stair treads to glue up a laminated butcher block top with the thick edging material as the border.
The shelf was carved with a router jig out of a big piece I had in my lumber stash for many years. I think I got it at an auction.
This table was pretty tall at about 38″.
The second variation was a little shorter at 30″. When all was said and done I think I had something like 90 hours into this one table. Some exercise!
And this was a coffee table, more or less square at about 26″ in height. Once I did one the others were faster… but that is not saying much.
Thank you to Kristy and Deb for supporting my efforts. I’m glad they went to a good home!
Clear vertical Grained Fir and California Redwood with a marble tile top.
Wine Racks Made From Scrap Hardwood
May 18, 2010
About the time I get a piece or project sanded and start to apply the finish, I’m already thinking about the next variation or permutation of my design ideas. The Portland Saturday Market is in one respect, a brutal evaluation of the finished work. I’m too close to the work to have any objectivity and by the time it is done, I have mentally moved beyond. I’m already thinking two or three projects down the road. I’m wondering how I can come across more interesting material so I can try new ideas.
I keep hearing people tell me that I’m an artist. I wish. I’m just a craftsman… on a good day. A long time ago, somebody told me that the art of being an artist is getting paid for it. If that is the criteria, then for sure I ain’t there yet!
Last month, I used my shop time to build a machine that would help me with a woodworking operation, producing joinery at the heart of my wine racks. I have tried many different ways to make this joint and they all had different pluses or minuses.
Most of the stuff I used here was salvaged out of dumpsters. The motor is a nice old GE capacitor start, 1/6 HP unit, that came from a forced air furnace. The black metal frame came from a debris box at the back of a contract office furniture business a couple blocks away. The only things I had to buy were the bit on the right… a plug cutter that could also be used to cut round tenons… and, a 3″ pulley and three 1/2″ ID, ball bearing races, that mate with the shank of the cutter.
I had some scraps of Delrin in my stash of junk that I call my “Magic Bucket”. It is thirty year collection of weird pieces and parts you could never buy in a hardware store or supplier. I made two pillow blocks to house the bearings and mounted them on the board.
I saved these two pieces of junk years ago hoping that some day I might be able to build a thickness sander. The thing on the left is from an old Kodak photo enlarger and on the right is a crank from a cheap Delta bench top table saw I burned out.
I had no real plan other than in the end, I knew what I wanted it to do. I was making it up as I went along. I cut down the bracket holding the saw crank and re drilled holes so it was more compact.
I mounted a small table with a fence to hold parts. The crank in front moves the fence back and forth. The big knob moves the table up and down. Now I can cut accurate round tenons for my rack parts very quickly. The rack parts may be different dimensions, but it is easy to change the set-up for different sizes.
I’m always trying to build the parts for my wine racks with big pieces of material. It is easy to take small pieces of inferior lumber and glue them up into bigger pieces. But in the purest sense of wood working, big pieces simply look like what they are. Of course, many times big pieces of solid wood are hard to come by or more expensive. For production furniture factories, lamination or veneering give the appearance of big piece of wood. It is a cheap way to say that the pieces are still made from solid wood. One way around this for me, is to use joinery to make small pieces into big ones. Then there is no need to make excuses for the lamination, as it is on purpose and part of the design, not just a device to build products cheaply and efficiently as possible.
I had some chunks of Apple wood that I got from a dried stack of fire wood. I also had some odd nice pieces of Black Walnut. Look at the bottom right corner and there are some sample blocks I ran through the router table to make a tongue and groove joint.
It’s hard to see, but I cut a groove in the “bread board” ends of Black Walnut and the ends of the “field”. Then I glued a floating tenon of a contrasting colored wood into each to join them. I left the end of the floating tenon a little long so it stands proud of the table top. I’m trying to say, “look at the joints”, not ,”I don’t have any big pieces of lumber to use”.
On another note, with my new “Pencil Sharpener” machine, I can produce rack parts of different dimensions so much faster, that I changed the size of the cleats in the rack. In talking to wine makers, I found that bottle manufacturers are selling Champagne bottles cheaply. Many producers of Chardonnay and Pinot Noir are using these bottles. The glass is thicker even thought the inside volume is the same, it makes the outside dimension larger. My rack dimensions have worked for 90% of all the bottles I have come across, but these big bottles touch and it bothers me. So by making the cleats an 1/8″ of an inch wider, they fit easily without touching. It makes the racks look a little more substantial too. I like a substantial look. I’m still in the middle of my substantial look period, ha, ha, ha.
The frame and racks for this piece were made of Alder scraps gleaned from my neighbors who build really high quality upholstered furniture. Market goers see this checker board top from thirty feet away and gravitate right toward it.
I sit at the Market all day and every minute, I hear people walking by comment on how nice my stuff looks. Like I’ve said before, If I had a nickel for every person that rubbed the finished top of this piece and said, “Beautiful work man, you are an artist”, I wouldn’t have to sell this stuff.
I dropped my prices by a third to one half, just to see what would happen. Out of every three people who say, what a unique product, or what beautiful wood, great workmanship… one person will say, “…And your prices are very reasonable or even too cheap”. Many PSM vendors have told me to double my prices and then they would sell like hot cakes.
So, I sold a couple of pieces. It covered my vendor fees. I don’t think that prices have any thing to do with selling them or not. The market segment is a small one and only wine aficionados are the buyers. Thanks to those people, enjoy them.
“Free Wood”… Money Grows on Trees!
March 31, 2010
Somebody at the Portland Saturday Market, ask me, “What kind of wood is this wine rack was made from”. Sorry, sometimes I’m a wise guy. I said, free. But of course, while money does grow on trees, it is very time consuming and dirty hard work to turn them into lumber.
I started building these smaller wine racks, eighteen inches tall, to sit on top of kitchen counters. I didn’t think at the time, it would be easier for me to source material, because the parts would be smaller. If I can’t lift the log into my truck by myself, I can’t really deal with it right now.
Portland General Electric the local utility, contracts with tree services to trim trees away from their power lines. About a year and a half ago, they trimmed a dozen trees on SW Bertha Blvd., across from the bus stop behind the Burlingame Fred Meyer store at the intersection of Barbur Blvd. They chipped all the small stuff and left some logs. I drove by them for a couple weeks thinking they would come to get them or else someone would snag them for fire wood. Finally I stopped and dragged them into my utility trailer.
Here is a typical evolution of one of my pieces:
I think these were Western Maple but I’m only guessing. It is pretty hard but it dried very fast and is not that dense as material goes. When the logs began to check, I split them with a maul and hammer, along the natural crack.
Next, I plane flat surfaces and try to square the logs up on the jointer.
I try to decide how to make the trade off between a high yield and clear or figured material. Then I start to slice them up on the band saw.
Ah, some clear pieces with some figure! Enough for a book matched top.
I usually cut pieces a little bigger and let them dry some more for a few days. Air drying is a black art. Wood is always retaining and releasing moisture depending on the humidity and temperature. Every time you cut a new surface the material dries further and usually warps some more as the cells collapse and give up moisture. Here are parts for the racks, ” relaxing” until I run them through the thickness planer for rack parts.
I glue up the book matched top.
I laminate some Black Walnut strips to the edge banding.
I use these jigs to make the “cheek cuts” for the tenon joints on the racks… they will mate with round mortices I bore into the legs with a Forstner bit on a drill press. Here I remove material on the router table with the same jigs:
I use my second table saw with a fixture mounted so it that holds the rack parts ninety degrees from the router table, making an eight sided tenon. It’s not quite round, but fits tightly and allows glue to squeeze out making assembly quick and accurate.
I bore the round mortices in the rack stretchers.
Finished top with three coats of polyurethane.
“Bertha Boulevard Wine Table: KTW #2309″
McMinnville Wine & Food Classic
March 16, 2010
It was a lot of work but it was fun too. I met so many people and had some great conversations. I can’t say enough about the SIP Festival staff and volunteers . Very professional and competent throughout and they went out of their way to help me with my truck problems on Saturday night. The festival seemed well attended and there was a good party atmosphere. I met quite a few folks from out of state and at least as many people from the Portland area as locals.
The Evergreen Avation & Space Museum was an amazing setting. I had a chance to walk around the Space building all by myself before it was open to the public. I talked with a guide that had been an engineer. His knowledge of the history and how politics and events influenced the development of the space program was a great insight. I need to go back and spend time reading through all the exhibits and then go next door to the Aviation building and see the Spruce Goose.
Friday Morning was a little wet.
There was a spectacular array of wineries and the arts and crafts vendors and food vendors were very good too. I wish I would have had some time to walk around and maybe have a glass. I did get a sip of what my neighbors the Duke Family Vinyards, 2006 Pinot Noir was like… and I mean this as a compliment… it tasted like Kool Aid. It was so good and drinkable. One could drink a lot of this. I don’t know how to talk about wine and I would rather drink beer. Nevertheless, it was great experience. Then Dukes 2007 Pinot Noir was very different. From grapes grown twenty miles away from the ’06. Much more tannin, a little more bite and earthiness. It made me want a thick grilled steak.
Home of KTW fro 3 days, My neighbors the Dukes Family Vinyards
I got a minute to talk to my new buddy, Wende at Willamette Valley Vineyards and had a sip of 2008 Pinot. Great, great wine. I wish I had the vocabulary to express, but very rich and elegant. I only drink anything at all occasionally, so it is a real treat to taste these wines.
I was too busy to get to a friend I have known from high school. Ken Slusser of KathKen Vinyards in West Salem. I am planning on going to a couple of the concerts in the series they will be having at their vineyard this summer. Then I will have a proper chance to sample their wines. Ken said he makes a Port I would be interested in. It was great to be able to talk to him for a few minutes in passing. We were kind of working after all.
Saturday and Sunday were sunny spring days.
I had an OK weekend. I sold enough to cover the cost of the booth fee and a tank of gas. I got lots and lots of encouraging feed back about the work. I hope maybe one or two of the many people that ask or talked to me about custom work will follow through. The path of least resistance would be for me to put piece from my portfolio back into the rotation to build it for them when I can source some materials.
Thanks to all who bought wine racks from me. They went to good homes!
The view from my corner of the building...
Dukes Family pouring away...
There was pretty good live entertainment all weekend and way better that a lame Muzak track or something. Saturday evening Ellen Whyte sounded great from where I was and she played a long time I think. Love ya Ellen! Wish I could have been up close to see you, you are the real deal.
The old Datsun pressed into service for the Sunday retreat back to Portland...
Sip! 2010 – McMinnville Wine & Food Classic
March 11, 2010
The experiment in direct marketing continues this weekend; Sip – The 17th Annual McMinnville Wine & Food Classic – will be held at the Evergreen Space Museum, in the heart of Oregon Wine Country.
I’m looking forward to seeing the Spruce Goose again. I used to go to Long Beach for the Formula One and IndyCar races every year and I toured it once. A wooden airplane, my kind of aircraft!
Looking at the event schedule, I see that local pianist Tom Grant is not listed anymore, but Ellen Whyte is playing with a trio on Saturday evening. Tom was scheduled to play on Sunday, something must have happened. I was looking forward to seeing him but Ellen on the line up was a surprise. I have been following Ellen’s bands for a dozen years. She had a fifteen piece big band at the Portland Waterfront Blues Festival this last July and played arrangement from her new CD. It was one of the best performances in the whole week and she also did a duo performance with local tenor sax player Renato Curanto that killed.
It has just started to pour down rain and they are saying that this storm is one of those slow-moving tropical systems that might bring us up to normal rainfall for the year. It hasn’t rained that much so far this year, and I saw on the news that we are only at 87% or normal for the snow pack. Good thing it’s inside. Now if I can just get all my stuff down there with out being drenched.
Portland Saturday Market
March 10, 2010
This last weekend was the beginning of the “World Famous” Portland Saturday Market season. While Spring is still a couple weeks away, it has been sunny and warm as much as it has been rainy and cold. Not your typical Portland winter. Some of the market weekends in November and December were pretty brutal with rain, sleet, snow and hurricane force winds. Even clear, dry, beautiful, winter market days were frozen solid. So, this last weekend was the first day in recent memory when it was T-Shirt weather.
Both days of the Market were crowded but not as packed solid as the Saturday after Thanksgiving. There were local news crews doing live remote broadcasts and it was the place to see and be seen… the Portland Hang.
After talking to a bunch of vendors Sunday evening, the results seemed mixed. Some vendors did really well and had a better day that any last year and one said they have only sold better once in seven years. Most of the vendors near me thought that the food vendors were the ones that rally did well and were glad that they at least sold enough to cover their Market fees.
I did not sell one piece all weekend. I handed out a lot of cards and flyers so I never know what might happen. About one in ten people that show interest in my work ever contact me and only a very few of them ever actually follow through to have me custom make anything or buy a piece that they looked at. It seems like people will see my stuff two or even three times before they buy something. For the most part, when I have done festivals or markets, buyers will see something and have to have it right away.
I am encouraged by what I hear as the hours go by. Usually groups of people walking by will make comments like; Wow! Great idea!… Look at the wine racks, nice! One couple remarked, Look honey there are the wine tables we saw at the Seafood Festival. Some guys will come up and check out the pieces very carefully, looking at the mitre joints and laminations in the tops. I always ask if they are wine drinkers or carpenters. More often that not they say both and tell me that the work looks good. I had a lady look at one of the butcher block tops and tell me that it was a work of art. I have to say that it’s not really, but that I am only a craftsman and the work is far from art.
I put two of my coolest looking Black Walnut counter top wine racks right in front so they are the first pieces that people see. Every other minute someone will rub their hand on the top to feel the finish. One young guy was amazed that I cut these pieces from logs. He just stood there repeating, “That’s awesome!” If I had a nickel for every time somebody rubbed the tops… I wouldn’t have to sell them.
One of my neighbors that has been doing the Saturday Market for many years, said that there were lots of people, but that he didn’t sell very well at all. He said things will pick up as the people that really support the vendors come out through the spring and summer months.
We will see…
http://www.portlandsaturdaymarket.com/
