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Tackling community issues. Celebrating local voices.
Welcome to Market Watch, a new series where Lookout Eugene-Springfield chats with different vendors at Eugene’s Saturday Market about how they got started and what they’re up to now.
For the first edition, Lookout talks with Frank A. Gosar of Eugene’s Off Center Ceramics, accompanied by his teddy bear booth partner, Umberto (named such because he has bear toes).
Responses have been edited for clarity.
How did you get started with your ceramics?
I bought a used potter’s wheel back in Wisconsin, like 45 years ago. I was teaching an art history class, and one of my students was selling her kick wheel, so I bought it and became addicted. I became an evening and weekend potter, and when pottery started getting in the way of my day job, I quit my day job, came out to Oregon, got a Master of Fine Arts in ceramics, and then, when I didn’t get a teaching job, I slid into making and selling my own pottery.
How long have you been doing ceramics?
I took my first class in 1980. You do the math, I can’t. (It’s about 45 years.) I have been Off Center Ceramics here at Saturday Market for 32 years now.
What are your best-selling items?
Probably these tall mugs. It varies. In June, I sell a lot of bigger pieces for wedding presents. But smaller things — tableware, mugs, tall mugs, soup bowls — always sell very well. There are some shows where I sell a gazillion of these small plates. I don’t know whether they’re going on the table or getting hung up on the wall, because each one is individually hand-painted, so it’s artwork as well as tableware.
Were you always a painter, or is that something you found with pottery?
I’ve been drawing all my life. I started decorating pottery with brush and oxides, doing mostly flowers, but then I did a chicken and a rooster, and they caught on. And people kept asking for new patterns, and I kept saying, “Oh, that sounds fun.” So now I do more than 100 different birds and animals. The flowers are long gone.
Do you have a favorite one to paint?
It’s frequently whatever’s newest. Right now, that would be this ring-necked pheasant. I just started them in the last firing.
What do you wish people knew about this work?
I want them to know that it’s lead-free, food safe, oven, dishwasher-safe, and you can actually use it. The glaze is not going to come off. It’s not like paint on the surface; it’s right in the glass. So put it on the table.
How’s business these days?
Business is really good. Weirdly, after we reopened after COVID lockdown — we were open like every other week — and my sales doubled and then never went back down…