Turkey-Rama Experience

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

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.