Steve Dalton doesn’t really bagpipe, unless you count scaring the coyotes away.
And he doesn’t do any Scottish jigs either.
But he is Scottish, does wear a kilt – just about all the time – and does answer to the name “The Crazy Potter.”
It’s not so much the kilt-wearing that makes him crazy, though that does turn a head or two. It’s the screaming.
“Five years ago when sales were kind of stagnating at about 1 p.m. and I was restocking and realized, I only had half my stock left,” Dalton recalled. “So I looked around and saw there were not that many people around, so I said, ‘Let’s have some fun.’ “
Dalton started yelling about slashing prices, everything must go, whatever he could think of. And then he got out some paper and started putting up “Crazy Potter Sale.”
And so, The Crazy Potter was born.
The Crazy Potter will be back again this weekend in Mukilteo for the Artists Garage Sale at Rosehill Community Center.
The event is the 13th annual for the Arts Council of Snohomish County, which has lined up artists from photographers to potters to jewelry-makers and glass blowers who want to sell their seconds, their experiments gone awry, their old stock of art work to appreciating art patrons at reduced prices.
Dalton has done about nine Artist Garage Sales and his reputation has gotten around. Last year, a couple asked him when he was going to go into his Crazy Potter routine. Dalton, who likes to keep the timing a surprise, said the couple bought $200 worth of his pottery to inspire him to do the schtick. When Dalton finally did, the couple came back and bought another $100 worth of his work.
“I love it,” Dalton, 38, said of the garage sale. “It’s one great way to off-load my old stock and failed experiments that I didn’t really like or care for.”
Dalton has sold out twice at the garage sale and another year came close to selling out. But it hasn’t always been easy to make a living as a potter.
Dalton started throwing pots in 1993. He was an auto mechanic who worked at Sears and then Les Schwab before they started downsizing.
So Dalton decided to go back to school and chose Everett Community College for a design degree. There, teacher Mar Hudson suggested Dalton try ceramics. At first, he blanched.
“I told him I was bad at ceramics in high school,” Dalton said. “And I mean bad. Things would explode.”
But by the fifth quarter, Dalton was firing up the kilns for the classes.
In a 20- by 24-foot studio at his Snohomish home, Dalton produces functional pottery based on the influences of early American colonial potters and early British studio potters.
Since the studio was built 10 years ago, Dalton said he has outgrown it with his production tripling because of increased sales, word of mouth and shows like the Artists Garage Sale.
Dalton said the garage sale introduces about 20 new people to his work and those people become fans and follow him around to other shows and farmer’s markets.
“It’s been a really hard long road,” Dalton said. “One thing is I strive to produce a high quality product that people will enjoy using and not put on a shelf.”
Arts writer Theresa Goffredo: 425-339-3424 or goffredo@heraldnet.com.
Steve “The Crazy Potter” Dalton and some of his creations.
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