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We met a lot of interesting people at the 2010 Philadelphia International Flower Show -- among them, Ellen and Bobbie, who traveled to the show from New Jersey on a bus with others from their retirement community. On a recent visit to Igneous Rock Gallery Ellen reminded me that her purchase was my very first sale at the show! I guess I couldn’t hide my pleasure when she announced her decision to buy a tabletop fountain workshop session, and I thanked her for being my first paying customer at the show! Her friend Bobbie followed suit. More on Ellen and Bobbie later… The prototype tabletop fountain on display at the show had already been sold to Kathy Pressley in the fall of 2009. Kathy had been very patient, having placed a deposit on the prototype before it was ready to go out the door. The best thing about that fountain was all Kathy knew about it when she offered to buy it – how cool it looked sitting on the candle table just inside our showroom doors. I told her she didn’t really want that fountain, but in fact she did! The thing Kathy didn’t know at first glance is that the columns weren’t really attached to anything, that if her cat even looked in their direction the whole thing may just fall apart! The bowl was not really suitable either, but gave us something to experiment with. Kathy recognized that our tabletop fountain idea was a work in progress and expressed her interest in buying that grouping of rocks when it was ready for sale because she just loved that particular arrangement. The biggest hold up was finding the right bowl. It had to have the right look, be stable and strong enough to support the rocks, and accommodate the pump and plumbing without being too bulky for a tabletop application. We considered many types of bowls, searching extensively online, but in the end partnered up with the perpetually sandal clad, local concrete artist extraordinaire, Mark Dorward. We like networking with other starving artist types whose product offerings overlap with and complement ours in some way. This is preferable to buying something mass produced from China. Whenever we can support a local artisan, we do.
When we told Mark the general size and shape of the bowl we had in mind he produced one he had created for a different purpose years ago. Would it work for this application? We hoped it would… It did! So Kathy’s fountain was finally ready just before the Philadelphia International Flower Show. She offered that we could display it at the show if we promised not to sell it out from under her!
Kathy’s little fountain got a lot of attention at the show, most notably from Ellen and Bobbie! I offered that we could create fountains for them in whatever color bowl they choose and ship them, or better yet, they could take a field trip to Igneous Rock Gallery and create their own fountain! They thought it would be a fun excursion and opted for the latter. Having selected their color choices for their concrete bowls from www.daviscolors.com Mark poured the bowls in advance of their visit. In anticipation of their arrival I cleared an eight foot long rolling work table, positioned it in the center of the workshop, locked the wheels and draped it with black fabric. We then set out a selection of various length drilled andesite columns so they could each select three rocks for their fountains. Ellen decisively and efficiently selected three complimentary columns from the table. Bobbie selected a slender piece of andesite with a lot of blue manganese in it, which complimented the blue bowl color she selected. This would be perfect for the tallest column, but we couldn’t find a suitable match for the medium and short columns among the drilled rock we had on hand. That is when I told them about my secret stash of undrilled rock which had been slated as candle holder material. We went out back and sorted through a pallet of undrilled, unwashed columns and found one perfect manganese rich rock, just long enough to cut and make the remaining two columns for Bobbie’s fountain. It was very slender and had a little bend in it – a rock driller’s nightmare. So now the pressure was on! With no apparent substitute I had to drill straight through the thing without breaking it and come out the other end while Ellen and Bobbie looked on. I think the added pressure of having a camera wielding audience actually helped me concentrate. Or maybe I just held my chin in the correct position for drilling, but after twenty minutes or so the column was drilled and the hole was straight and true. Factoring in natural fissures and human error, it doesn’t always work out so well, so I was celebrating inside! OK, I may have even congratulated myself out loud! By lunch time we weren’t quite finished. Ellen, Bobbie, Johnny and I were hungry and decided to have lunch together across the street at Hampden Grille before finishing up. Mark didn’t join us, but we weren’t offended, as he never stops working to eat. To each his own. I work better with a Rueben in my belly. I thoroughly enjoyed the fun we had with Ellen and Bobbie that day. It was nice to facilitate their interest in customizing their own fountains. We always enjoy creating our custom designs and getting feedback from people who appreciate our work and buy our products. But equally enjoyable is a shared experience such as this, where the end product bears the owner’s creative input. In so doing, we are not only facilitating the creation of art by our customers, but also the memory of day well spent.
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4702 Carlisle Pike | Mechanicsburg, PA 17055
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