Ukiah was among California cities hardest hit by the pottery craze of the 1970s.
Ukiah suffered crippling waves of pottery fevers until they lessened and broke circa 1985. Smaller, less toxic crafts-borne plagues were reported as late as the mid-90s.
Artistic delusions that erupted during the era included weavers, decoupage and macrame practitioners, leather doodad makers, embroiderers, beads, jewelry wrought from deer antlers, pukka shells and spoon handles remade into ugly rings. Most were harmless diversions, but the area’s disproportionate number of self-described artists remains a hangover from those long ago pottery follies.
The trend would have expired from natural causes had Mendocino College not kept those pottery wheels a-spinnin’ many years too many. Students who might have benefited from a history class or a semester in Auto Repair 101 were instead steered into producing handmade clay objets d’art.
This is understandable. Young minds are easily filled, and fooled, with artistic pretensions, and pottery isn’t the worst of it.
There’s poetry, for instance.
But pottery is to blame for the ongoing nuisance of elderly county residents believing themselves blessed with artsy talents and who further think their clumsy works ought to be displayed in public places. And far too often, they are.
I was reminded of all this on a recent aimless stroll that brought me to a yard sale. Beyond the mounds of children’s clothing, past a clock radio and boxes of paperbacks and old plastic Christmas ornaments, I encountered crude ceramic relics from bygone days. I’ll not describe them in detail because I plan to surprise my wife on Christmas morning.
Any amateur yard sale archaeologist might unearth similar prizes. Scores of Ukiah garages hold shabby bowls and misshapen plates, survivors since the day some anonymous craftsperson rose from a stool, having “thrown a pot” on a “wheel.” After being “fired” in some special oven, the sad lumpy thing was coated in special paint, usually brown.
Half a century later those plates, cups, bowls and ashtrays can be yours at a yard sale for just a dollar. Uhh, 50 cents?
We must ask ourselves if such a series of artistic catastrophes could have occurred minus the outsized number of migrants who washed up here 50 years ago. And the answer is: Of Course Not.
The pottery epidemic was a backfired byproduct of the back-to-the-land invasion. An assembly line of newcomers morally opposed to working for a living but who found the strain of living the utopian dream on a commune on a hillside on a ranch on a remote parcel among bossy sociopaths up Low Gap Road too exhausting, quickly returned to the comforts of middle class life. Yet cling they did to a lifestyle vision as free spirits and a self-image decidedly un-middle-class.
Hence, delusions of artistic talent. Next stop: pottery classes.
Thus came a city full of dull, silly art. Examples today include murals disgracing downtown buildings reflecting back-to-the-land nonsense in simplistic slogans and goo-goo imagery of nature as a playground and semi-naked hippies frolicking along riverbanks. Oh yes. Note the west side of the deadbeat dad social services building across from the brew pub. Many other murals, some worse, are within blocks.
Similar sentiments reverberate at Grace Hudson Museum’s vacant lot, charitably described as a “garden” paying tribute to Native American culture. (Question: How many Native Americans a week, or year, visit the Hudson Museum to marvel at the historically accurate re-creation of their ancestral lands, right down to genuine authentic dirt, rocks and weeds just like the rocks and weeds their ancestors once ignored?)
Of course there will always be craftspeople churning out goods, mostly harmless trifles like afghan sofa throws, or “dreamcatcher” yarn contraptions once prominently on display in teenager bedrooms in the 1980s.
Some enterprising person or group ought to diligently search out and acquire as much of this debris as possible and donate it to the county museum up in Willits. The day will come when visitors will come from far away to stand gawking at tables made from stolen PG&E wooden spools and coated in polyurethane. Old worn out Frye Boots and Birkenstock sandals will make a captivating display.
Long lines will assemble for the chance to see a traveling wardrobe collection featuring homemade “granny” dresses sewn from old curtains and embroidered with signs of the Zodiac, plus headbands made from used neckties and gypsy-inspired scalp coverings fashioned out of old kerchiefs and hankies.
Hit those yard sales now and start filling your garage with ‘70s-era pottery, handmade marijuana pipes, beaded roach clips, leather vests and other valuable memorabilia. Their past can be your future.
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