"What is a beautiful girl like that doing way out here in a cow pasture?!"
The comment above was heard circa 1976 from a tourist stepping out of
The Imagination Warehouse which was down by Fantasy Factory in
Scott's Meadow.
Fantasy Factory was the original name for what is now Endico Watercolor
Originals on main street.
The beautiful young woman being described was Susan Slater Tanner who went on
to teach Art History at a number of local universities including SUNY.
At the time of the comment Susan was one of the central forces
of the early Sugar Loaf crafts community and when told what was heard she
chirped, "I'll tell them what I'm doing down here. I am making kites...and a
living."
Susan looked great while Sugar Loaf looked rough, very rough indeed.
It was a place that took a swift and brutal toll on any who would enter as
a start-up business with no clear focus, weeding them from the herd within a
month or two.
Eventually the extreme energies poured into artisan self-guided efforts that
promoted creative people living in
Sugar Loaf allowed such comments to fade into the distant past as it became
obvious why such a creative beauty would be found here.
However, the newly
established shimmer of artistic cachet posed its own problems.
At first Sugar Loaf was nothing more than burnt out shells of broken down buildings.
Only the most rabid and focused of creative artists found it appealing, and
they did so
because it was a workplace without hassles (read: large spaces for rent cheap),
but slowly Sugar Loaf
became a place that even dilettantes found appealing.
The steady publication of group advertising (thank
you Jon) distributed through every available outlet was helping
focus public attention, and it was becoming less of a stigma to say you were
from Sugar Loaf and more of a curiosity.
Monthly if
not weekly events widely promoted the hamlet and it was causing frequent blockage of
local automobile traffic: hence the Kings Highway (County Road 13)
extension/bypass.
I once responded to somebody hoping for a quick fix remedy to the parking
problem by saying, "Sugar Loaf could use all of Orange County for parking, and there
still would not be enough. There is a lot worth coming here for, so people do."
Routine appearances by our local personalities wherever promotional
events were being held elsewhere helped immensely.
I personally put together a display for a booth in a building at the Orange
County Fair, paid for the space, and manned it single handedly for 12 days straight, 9 hours a day.
All the artisans in Sugar Loaf gladly handed me samples of their work saying,
"Great. Take some of my stuff with you."
I spent the whole time talking to everybody who would listen (and some who
wouldn't), handing them brochures for
Sugar Loaf, telling them, "No, none of these things are for sale here. You have to go
to Sugar Loaf. Here is the artist's card and phone number."
The next year the Fair gave Sugar Loaf an entire wing of a building for free
and used us as lead-in to their radio and TV advertising (internationally known
artisans), so others in town joined me along with some from outside town as well.
The constant tap-tap-tap of Joanne Sauer working on pewter mugs, bowls, and
jewelry
drove Jerry Ableman to distraction while he was more quietly assembling wooden toys pre-cut in his Sugar Loaf studio.
Maybe Jerry ended up bringing some power tools to compete with the tap-tap-tap, but I
can't remember.
I do remember that Ray Boswell tried to keep his head in a pot.
My band played as just one more attraction, and I spent that week convincing
Ray Boswell he could do well in Sugar Loaf, "Quit your day job, Ray."
[09/15/15: Today we found out that the final impetus bringing Ray
Boswell to Sugar Loaf
(four years after my conversations with him) was Vickie Stellmack who pro-actively
tracked him down and reported that she had just lost a potter in Scott's Meadow, so an existing
business location was already set up for him.]
By the next year, business was so booming in Sugar Loaf that despite the Fair
Officials expanding the offer to an entire building plus using Sugar Loaf as the
central focus for the Fair's own advertising (they wanted to up their game with
another round of the internationally known artisans), everybody was too busy to take the time off.
Additionally there were the daily self-promoting
conversations forcefully directed by renowned Sugar Loaf counter-culture hippies
(and a musician) in the local diners, delis, and watering holes.
We demurred a Renaissance Fair offer for free booths by stating, "We are not show
people, we are full-time working craftspeople," but we went out of our way to go to
private parties and explain what we were doing.
It all served to cement the hamlet's reputation as a center for the arts, but it also set the stage for a mild decline.
A select type of artisan wannabe was starting to show up.
At one point I witnessed a series of pointless Chamber of Commerce discussions
about the importance of getting highway signage in order to attract people into town.
They totally ignored
the fact that the
local gas stations in Warwick and Chester had already
begun posting signs on their front doors (with an arrow and the words 'Sugar Loaf') just
so people would stop asking directions.
I understood the new businesses were not doing very well, and I could see
why: stop talking, and start making something.
They were oblivious to what the solid businesses in town were doing and
didn't even think to ask why those businesses flourished.
The gentrification had begun.
I stopped going to group meetings, and twelve years later when Sylvia
Margolis (Syms Jewelry: now the location of
Pisces Passions) begged
me to come back to a meeting (to present
this), I heard the exact same conversation
about signs being repeated almost word for word by an even newer group.
It was like
something from the Land of the Lost.
Now there are highway signs, so too bad those people are already gone and
missed seeing how the signs would not help them at all.
Signs, banners, gee-gaws, meetings: how 'bout some product, people!
The standard three month period that earlier Sugar Loaf circumstances
would grant to the unwary (yet hopeful) had expanded to many months in which someone could remain here without having to
face the fact they had no true interest in being an artisan, nor in making anything,
nor in developing the ability to deal with the more than full-time commitment required to succeed.
The primo reputation of The Loaf had become too much of a good thing.
Although the rigors of success had not lessened any, the attraction to be
part of it had grown exponentially.
It had become a feather in the hat to show up to a party somewhere (didn't
have to be local) and
casually mention, "I have a shop in Sugar Loaf."
I remember slumping in disbelief as a local Home Owner's Insurance Rep began
a quote by checking off their rate sheet mumbling:
Type of Neighborhood - Upper Class
I just stared at them blankly and thought, "Upper class? What fucking Sugar Loaf are
you talking about!?"
Thus continued the steady growth of people coming into the village hoping to share the reputation without
even a rudimentary understanding of what it means to be a working artisan.
Soon the newer shop owners were taking the gloss of the promotions at face value, feeling
the need to maintain an ongoing list of events but for
the sake of the event itself (and the bragging rights being part of it), not
for the goal of encouraging high quality work while reinforcing the fact that a
living could be made (a good one) by doing such work.
The quality of events and the items in them dropped
off as if in a race of skydivers.
It got so bad a would-be glass artist accused their blown glass teacher of
hiding secrets from them (as if the craft did not demand years of careful work
and study), and they made the comment while sitting outside the Barnsider smoking
cigarettes and complaining their husband (feverishly hanging sheetrock alone in
full view directly across
the street) was failing to finish the build of their
shop in a timely manner.
That wish-I-was-an-artisan glass blower then took over the town advertising and mashed it into a farce.
They never produced a single piece of blown glass.
The faux artist lasted much longer than they should have, certainly far
longer than they could have in earlier times, but their leaving (two husbands
later) only cleared space for the next of
their kind and another.
The earlier massively ubiquitous volunteer work and promotions had rewarded
Sugar Loaf with a shining image, and it was now drawing individuals to live in town who brought enough money with
them so they never had to face the fact they had
absolutely no desire to be an artisan, nor a shopkeeper, nor really much of
anything.
Except they did a pretty loud job of proclaiming they were part of an arts
community, whatever that meant to them.
Due to the fact I only knew about
the police shooting through stories, I
found it easy to feel this shallow takeover of events was worse.
A number of those types still strive to control the advertising and obviously have done
their homework regarding how commonplace strip malls and trendy
shops everywhere promote themselves.
The true artisan shops are merely a footnote aside and rarely mentioned.
Or at least that is how it must seem to a casual observer who lacks
understanding that our quiet enduring robust little engines of artisan commerce set the stage in
Sugar Loaf by providing an attraction on a level which anywhere else in the world
could only be provided by an entrance into a National Forest, or Historical
Monument, or one of the Wonders of the World.
Happily, the earlier brutal requirements of commerce were tempered by
the extreme frugality with which property owners accepted very low rents as
being adequate: so the cheap rents back in the day acted as counterpoint to the
harsh realities of commerce allowing a group of extremely competent
businesses to start poor and grow their gardens to a size and quality found
nowhere else.
A number of artisans built sea worthy business vessels strong enough to weather the ensuing sad
sideshow of storms.
If not for the existence of these full-time unique shops with the types of product and service
they provide, Sugar Loaf would truly be nothing more than just another strip mall
(good luck making that work way out here in a cow pasture).
Unfortunately many people who benefit directly from the presence of the artisan shops have no understanding how any of it works.
Just as a Cheetah needs no knowledge of mechanics in
order to run faster than any other creature in the world, the local regular businesses
do not have to know anything about the artisan community they thrive amongst in order
to profit from it.
Likewise the artisan shops do not need the slightest recognition
or support from those who are thriving around them by virtue of their presence, because the artisans are doing their work for
its own intrinsic reward, and the fact they have built solid lucrative
businesses (which are also a boon to those around them) is just a byproduct.
In any case, things are a lot better in town.
Now that much of the noxious counterproductive rind has been sloughed off, an insane number of
people are revealed who do understand and continue to pile accolades, and a
living, onto the artisans.
It has always been that way.
I guess that explains why I am the only one among them who feels
(and only mildly) that there should be at least this one tiny review and explanation provided by the
Sugar Loaf Guild website.
But after all, I am Sugar Loaf 's writer and historian: it is what I do.
To the rest of the world I can only say, "Do yourself a favor.
Shop Sugar
Loaf."