As any follower of this blog is aware, Lowell Hill Pottery has been operating in the former Rowantrees facility since inception. It was always clear that this arrangement would not be permanent, but with this season came word that I will need to relocate by the end of next season.
This is not a bad thing. Plans have been hanging about on the sidelines since the beginning, but now they need to shift into high gear. I will be measuring out the land next to my house on Lowell Hill (the namesake of my fledgling enterprise) to see how large a building it can accommodate. Then I'll talk to the folks at Efficiency Maine to see what sorts of idea they have regarding the most efficient designs. I want a building that is as inexpensive to operate as I can get it, and since I will be starting from scratch, this is the time to start making that happen. Once all that is done, it will be time to talk to contractors to see what they think the costs will be.
Then it's time to talk financing. Gulp...
This is going to happen. And you can follow the whole story right here. I'll be giving you blow by blow accounts of the building project and posting pictures as often as possible.
This is an exciting time for Lowell Hill Pottery. And I will do all I can to bring it to reality. I've come this far and hope you will join me on the ride ahead.
Sunday, July 29, 2012
Friday, July 20, 2012
Remembrance
It's funny how things can jump out at you at odd times. Things that have been right in front of you (literally) for years but that you failed to notice until some random moment when your guard is down.
A lot has changed since Sheila Varnum passed away in April. The house is under renovation with new tenants expected to move in on August 1st. I have made a lot of changes down in the pottery, moving things around and putting up display shelving. People who used to travel through frequently don't do so these days. The energy is different but that was to be expected.
And still, pieces of the past pop up.
When I was working at Rowantrees, Sheila told me about something that employees used to do in decades past.
This rocky ledge can be seen from the window next to my wheel. It was usually the first thing to appear from under the snow cover when spring melting was underway. Employees came to think of it as a harbinger of spring and would make bets on when it would make its appearance.
That practice declined and disappeared for a long time until one day in late winter when Sheila and I decided to make a bet on the ledge. I would have forgotten all about that episode if I hadn't seen this on the wall right in front of her old wheel:
I don't recall what year we made this particular bet, but that's my handwriting.
I think Sheila won.
A lot has changed since Sheila Varnum passed away in April. The house is under renovation with new tenants expected to move in on August 1st. I have made a lot of changes down in the pottery, moving things around and putting up display shelving. People who used to travel through frequently don't do so these days. The energy is different but that was to be expected.
And still, pieces of the past pop up.
When I was working at Rowantrees, Sheila told me about something that employees used to do in decades past.
This rocky ledge can be seen from the window next to my wheel. It was usually the first thing to appear from under the snow cover when spring melting was underway. Employees came to think of it as a harbinger of spring and would make bets on when it would make its appearance.
That practice declined and disappeared for a long time until one day in late winter when Sheila and I decided to make a bet on the ledge. I would have forgotten all about that episode if I hadn't seen this on the wall right in front of her old wheel:
I don't recall what year we made this particular bet, but that's my handwriting.
I think Sheila won.
Monday, July 9, 2012
We're on YouTube!
Lowell Hill Pottery has made it to YouTube. This project was in the works for almost a year and has come to fruition. Many thanks to RBY Productions, Quail Creek Editions and Herbminders of Maine for the parts they all played in making this a reality.
Monday, June 25, 2012
Sign of the Times
Here I present the new sign that now hangs at the end of the driveway into the shop. For decades it stood at the end of the brick pathway and had the Rowantrees sign hanging from it. That sign is now resting in my showroom space although it will probably end up at the Blue Hill Historical Society at some point.
The sign post got lowered somewhat in the move, so the bottom sign is uncomfortably close to the ground, but a new sign bracket will take care of that.
Clay arrives tomorrow. I am glazing madly right now to stock the shelves. Orders have started coming in. It's starting to look like pottery season!
I hope to see you soon!
Tuesday, June 12, 2012
Another Big Change
Some things can be planned on pretty easily. Other things make perfect sense even though they don't occur to you right away or someone else has to point them out.
Another era is coming to an end. Starting in July, customers will no longer be able to follow the brick path to the pottery shop. There will be new residents in the house once occupied by Sheila Varnum and their privacy needs to be respected. The path winds very tightly around the house - and right past many of its windows. I'm pretty sure I wouldn't want complete strangers walking right past my windows and through my yard all day long, so I can't expect someone else to feel differently.
The pottery entrance will now be at the back of the building. The sign has been moved to the driveway at the lower end of the property. Drive up that driveway and you will find plenty of parking space and what used to be the employee entrance to Rowantrees.
It's the customer entrance now. It will take some time to reverse almost 80 years of customer habit, but I want to be a good neighbor.
Another era is coming to an end. Starting in July, customers will no longer be able to follow the brick path to the pottery shop. There will be new residents in the house once occupied by Sheila Varnum and their privacy needs to be respected. The path winds very tightly around the house - and right past many of its windows. I'm pretty sure I wouldn't want complete strangers walking right past my windows and through my yard all day long, so I can't expect someone else to feel differently.
The pottery entrance will now be at the back of the building. The sign has been moved to the driveway at the lower end of the property. Drive up that driveway and you will find plenty of parking space and what used to be the employee entrance to Rowantrees.
It's the customer entrance now. It will take some time to reverse almost 80 years of customer habit, but I want to be a good neighbor.
Friday, May 4, 2012
Housekeeping - The Other Kind
April was a busy month, no doubt about it. The studio was a mess from last year's activities, this year's disastrous junk removal antics, and about 75 years of gradual buildup. The net result was a behemoth in sore need of a bath. And a few other things.
I started very early in the month with the clay room and progressed gradually through the rest of the building spending no small amount of time on hands and knees scraping up decades worth of caked on mud, oil (don't ask) and who knows what else, loading junk into trash bins and carting it all off to the dump.
Along the way there were some repairs and maintenance that needed doing. The kiln needed to have its ventilation system rerouted. After two years of venting into the chimney, I made the startling discovery that the chimney actually went nowhere. I don't know when that roof was sealed over, but it took me a couple years to notice it.
Then I decided I needed more show space. That meant shelves. And they had to be built before the cleaning could be completed because all of the pottery in the current show space was covered with wood ash secondary to the above mentioned junk removal fracas.
Add in the passing of Sheila Varnum and the fact that we are once again experiencing a wet, frigid spring, and I have to conclude that April was a...challenge.
But the challenge was met in the end. Here are a couple pictures of the new show area:
The item to the right in the top picture is a potter's wheel that hasn't been used in about 30 years. But there it sits. I intend to remove it and replace it with shelving, but that's a project for another time.
I don't want to gild the lily overmuch, but here are some pictures of the clay room:
You can see the new vent hose slithering up the wall at the far end. The hole was already in the wall thanks to a stove pipe that used to be there. That pipe was intended to remove dust from the area while grinding rock. It never really worked. Now that the rock grinder is gone - thanks to said junk removal fiasco - the pipe could be removed and a new purpose for the hole in the wall realized.
At last the floor is visible. The filter press is long gone. That was supposed to happen. But the table now sits where the pug mill used to be. I am still in mourning for the pug mill. It disappeared during the great junk hoohah despite the fact that the gentleman doing the work was told to leave it alone. Never mind the additional work not having it will create, I had grown attached to that old antique. Only the motor remains. It can be seen in the first clay room picture above behind the right hand end of the table. It's a 3-phase 5 hp motor and despite its age, it still purrs like a kitten. But it's out of a job. Sad.
Maybe I'm being overly sentimental, but that pug mill sat in that one spot since the 1940s and was a work horse right to the day it was dismantled. It deserved a better fate.
And I need a pug mill. But that's an issue for another day.
For now, I await warmer weather. It's May, and despite record breaking heat in March, temperatures have been in full retreat. But the studio is ready and so am I. As soon as it warms up even 10 degrees, I'll be at it again.
I can't wait.
I started very early in the month with the clay room and progressed gradually through the rest of the building spending no small amount of time on hands and knees scraping up decades worth of caked on mud, oil (don't ask) and who knows what else, loading junk into trash bins and carting it all off to the dump.
Along the way there were some repairs and maintenance that needed doing. The kiln needed to have its ventilation system rerouted. After two years of venting into the chimney, I made the startling discovery that the chimney actually went nowhere. I don't know when that roof was sealed over, but it took me a couple years to notice it.
Then I decided I needed more show space. That meant shelves. And they had to be built before the cleaning could be completed because all of the pottery in the current show space was covered with wood ash secondary to the above mentioned junk removal fracas.
Add in the passing of Sheila Varnum and the fact that we are once again experiencing a wet, frigid spring, and I have to conclude that April was a...challenge.
But the challenge was met in the end. Here are a couple pictures of the new show area:
The item to the right in the top picture is a potter's wheel that hasn't been used in about 30 years. But there it sits. I intend to remove it and replace it with shelving, but that's a project for another time.
I don't want to gild the lily overmuch, but here are some pictures of the clay room:
You can see the new vent hose slithering up the wall at the far end. The hole was already in the wall thanks to a stove pipe that used to be there. That pipe was intended to remove dust from the area while grinding rock. It never really worked. Now that the rock grinder is gone - thanks to said junk removal fiasco - the pipe could be removed and a new purpose for the hole in the wall realized.
At last the floor is visible. The filter press is long gone. That was supposed to happen. But the table now sits where the pug mill used to be. I am still in mourning for the pug mill. It disappeared during the great junk hoohah despite the fact that the gentleman doing the work was told to leave it alone. Never mind the additional work not having it will create, I had grown attached to that old antique. Only the motor remains. It can be seen in the first clay room picture above behind the right hand end of the table. It's a 3-phase 5 hp motor and despite its age, it still purrs like a kitten. But it's out of a job. Sad.
Maybe I'm being overly sentimental, but that pug mill sat in that one spot since the 1940s and was a work horse right to the day it was dismantled. It deserved a better fate.
And I need a pug mill. But that's an issue for another day.
For now, I await warmer weather. It's May, and despite record breaking heat in March, temperatures have been in full retreat. But the studio is ready and so am I. As soon as it warms up even 10 degrees, I'll be at it again.
I can't wait.
Wednesday, April 18, 2012
Sheila B. Varnum Howard 1925 - 2012
Sheila B. Varnum Howard passed away peacefully at her home in Blue Hill, Maine on Sunday April 15, 2012 with her family at her side.
Although Sheila came to be almost exclusively associated with Rowantrees, she actually lived a rather varied life that included overcoming a dreaded bone disease as a very young child, attending the University of Maine, working on behalf of the war effort in Boston in 1944, running a small store in Brooksville with her first husband, working as a reporter for the local newspaper and being a tireless advocate for human rights.
And yes, she worked at Rowantrees. Her first job there consisted of pasting price labels on the bottom of pots that were to be put up for sale, but eventually she went on to become a "thrower." When Laura Paddock took over the business following the death of its founder, Adelaide Pearson, Sheila became the manager. Following Laura Paddock's death, Sheila became the owner of Rowantrees.
Sheila often told me (and anyone else who listened) that she was never a business person. She far preferred working for the business over running it. But she felt an intense sense of responsibility to both Pearson and Paddock to continue the tradition that they had established. She also instilled that sense of responsibility in the employees she hired to work for her.
Including me.
It's hard to describe Sheila's generosity because it is so rarely found these days. She had the dubious honor of teaching me how to live in the real world as I came to Rowantrees fresh out of college and (despite my opinion to the contrary) inexperienced in such matters. Someone had to point that out and Sheila drew that particular short straw.
As an employer, Sheila was patient to a fault. She was as much a teacher as anything else. When she hired me, she told me that she would put about three years into making a potter out of me. I thought she was crazy.
She wasn't. That's how long it took. And I'm still learning.
In my full-time job, I manage a small ambulance company with a staff of about 25 employees. The manner in which I treat them is always informed by the way Sheila treated me. Do unto others...
I will miss the consultation sessions I had with Sheila after I started Lowell Hill Pottery. I will miss being able to show her my work and get her feedback; how the mugs need to be a little straighter up the sides or how the curve on the inside of that bowl looks good. Or not.
A major influence in my life has taken leave of this world and that's not easy to take in all at once. Walking into the pottery feels different than it did just a few days ago. It's hard to describe.
What isn't difficult to describe is the incredible manner in which Sheila chose to make her exit. Yes, I said 'chose.' She had been in declining health, and when medical treatment could not offer any improvement, she called her family together and informed them that she wanted to cease medications and allow nature to take its course. Her family honored her wishes Sheila spent the next few days holding court as a procession of friends came to say their goodbyes. I spent some time in a final conversation with her and that experience will remain with me for the rest of my life. How often do we get to say goodbye when we know it will be the last time?
We said some wonderful things back and forth. I'll always have that.
Sheila's family took impeccable care of her for seven days, never leaving her side and tending to her comfort. It could not have been easy for any of them, but I marvel at the way in which it all came together. Hospice - a concept I truly believe in - was present as needed and came through beautifully. It was Old New England as few get to experience it.
Sheila, you will be sorely missed, but forever loved. Rest in peace.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)