Laps and Faces, Yup!

My mother-in-law had a large lapboard with a Pennsylvania theme to its design. One Christmas I decided to hand-craft several others similar to it to give to our children and a few other family members. They were duly appreciated. End of story? Not quite.

About the same time I was agonizing over the fact that Wally G., my husband, wanted to sell our ranch home in Oregon and move to the Seattle area. The ranch life had not been so idyllic to him, yet I loved the place so much the mere thought of giving it up was almost like giving up a loved one. I could not let it go.

“Well, we could keep the ranch and rent it for a while,” he said. Then added, “If we could come up with an idea to cash in on something else.” The ranch had appreciated in value since we’d bought it and he wanted to settle down to a life of leisure, travel and enjoyment of the perks that nest egg could afford us. Then he tossed out a challenge to me. “You come up with an idea that pays off and we’ll "buy" the ranch at today’s market price, hire a caretaker and maybe go back now and then.” 

I grasped at that straw and struggled to come up with an idea. Ah Ha! Lapboards! It was a new/old idea then. I designed a sleek shape with a finger hole for easy carrying, painted several images reflecting Oregon’s natural beauties for vinyl tops, added a verse appropriate to laps, hired a cabinet maker to craft them out of choice plywood and a silk screen artist to do the tops. Bottoms were laminated with thin cork to keep them from slipping off the lap. The results were great. A chain of stores featuring Oregon crafters bought several for their outlets and I was in business. I called my product LapMaker, had the logo design on each one and sat back to start raking in the profits.

But how do you get a really good idea to catch on? I soon found out. At the same time I was getting started someone else got the same idea. He (or she?) had made a simple rectangle plastic top outfitted with a cushion underneath and mass produced them to sell for a fraction the price of mine. Barnes & Noble, all the big box stores had them. My sales didn’t even make up my investment. It was a huge disappointment and a rude introduction to the marketing world for a country ranch wife who was destined not to succeed. We bade farewell to the ranch and in retrospect I am not sorry now. End off story? No, not yet.

It would be fun to excel in something before I leave this world and for many years I’ve known I have a talent for sculpting faces out of clay. I’m self-taught except for my own research in books but what I do is quite good, I think, and I’m not alone. It’s so easy I maintain anyone can do it, but most don’t buy that. I’m afraid if I try to sell my faces there will not be much of a market either. People are fascinated but the faces, (all ages and genders), are so real looking, unless one seems the spitting image of someone they know, they will simply look, admire and walk on without getting out the wallet.

Well, at the moment I don’t need the money and am in the strange position of loving these little faces so much I don’t want to part with them anyway. I’m toying with the idea of getting molds for making bronzes of them, but that could be expensive and again, who would buy?

When I get to working with a ball of clay I am enveloped in a bubble of timeless bliss. When at last the face is done I love it. Why? Because it came to life out of a lump of clay. I know each one could tell a story. It’s like he or she has found a way to transcend time and space, a way to come into being something again, some one.

I haven’t decided for sure what to call my faces. They are so diverse it’s hard to give them a blanket family name. I’ve thought of  “The Who’s.” or I could call them simply “Faces in Time.” I might try to sell them at an art fair or I may just keep on making them until there will be no more space on my walls to hang them. What is an old lady to do with the time she has left? Does she really want to make a fortune, become famous, or simply be alive in her own little house alongside a burbling creek with a name no one will know except a few?

If you’ve read this far you will be one of a very few, but you do have a face. Would you like a museum to show it, say in the year 3,000 AD? The work of a sculptor who doesn't even know you? Heck, you could become a collector’s item! And I? I will be long gone. I’ll have left the ranch, even my little creek. Where will I be? Maybe aboard a ship to some distant planet. They say if you travel the speed of light you don’t age. Now that's an idea! But will my Faces market well? Maybe. Maybe not. If I could make a lot of money I might just buy a ticket to Mars. Or, on second thought, I think I'll settle for whatever other surprise the Infinite has in Mind for me. Yup!