Somewhere in the early 80s, before the floods of '83, ceramics innovator James Kouretas, had moved back from Laguna Beach after graduating from Cal State Fullerton. He rented a run-down quonset type tin-roofed shed on east side of Sacramento in North Highlands on Madison Avenue and set up shop to manufacture pottery. Along with a fellow ceramicist, Phil Schuster, they built kilns out of brick and sealed them with clay, using wood and gas to fire them to temperatures that would reach a desired temperature according to cones inside. They had access to walk-in types at Sacramento State and those were employed for large vases that James and Phil would eventually begin to create. For the most part, the handmade kilns were used solely for firing small plates, dishes and goblets. I had been with James from the beginning, from the days of the early Sawdust Festivals in late 1960-early 1970 in Laguna Beach.
The Sawdust Festival was originally billed for those who couldn't qualify for the Festival of Arts Pageant across the street at the entrance to Laguna Canyon just on the outskirts of the town. Most of the products featured at the festival were smaller tourist type starving-artist items, such as paintings, jewelry and pottery in the style of Kouretas. In the late 60s, James confined himself to small cups and goblets, not so perfectly designed as on a potter's wheel, but more handcrafted, with glazes that were offbeat, mismatched and often gaudy and ornate. They were innovative at best, unique at worst. He may have had a booth at the Sawdust in 1969, but he certainly had one in 1970; I built it out of driftwood, old sticks and junk that had washed up on the beach. James had taken off for points unknown for a matter of business and left me to run the booth.
There wasn't much to running the booth, do a lot of nothing but play guitar and wait for prospective customers to buy; hardly anything was sold that summer, but it was a place to be and drew as many visitors as the big deal across the canyon boulevard. The festival got its name from the sawdust that was scattered on the ground and there were few elaborate booths in those early days, not like the ones that followed when it was discovered by the local rich crowd that pushed out the starving artists and sold upscale beads and similar overpriced junk. By then, booth space had also become too costly for the pioneers of the enterprise, that included Kouretas.