[Vision2020] A Great meeting

[Phil Nisbet]

Sorry that some of you could not make the Grange meet tonight.  Thanks to 
those of you who made it.  Joan was there.  Donovan was there.  Roger had to 
be there, because he is the President of the New Moscow Grange.

One of the points that Mike Wendt made at the meeting is something that 
ought to be discussed.  He noted that his on site sales of pottery from his 
out of the way shop in Lewiston, not exactly the best place for tourist 
trade, had a cash register that in a little less than 20 years of operations 
had rung up over 3 million dollars in sales.  That is not from mass produced 
ceramics, but from true hand crafted pottery.

Mike's materials come from right here in Latah County.  We have the raw 
stuff from which to form a high value added art related industry in Moscow's 
backyard.  And its not common clay or low value feldspar and quartz, its 
some of the best porcelain producing material in the world.

We need to encourage the Latah Potters Guild and to help it to grow, give it 
space to highlight the skills and talents in the ceramic arts from our local 
materials that can give us something vibrant that is the Palouse's very own. 
  A handcrafted ceramics industry does not sound like it can be an economic 
engine, but look at places that have done so, like Marshall Texas or even 
Fairbanks Alaska.  Those towns employee hundreds of people in production and 
their activity draws tens of thousands of tourists every year, just to see 
the potters work.  And it means painting and design jobs as well, a near 
full gamut of the arts that would keep some of our talented artists here, 
rather than see them drift down to Arizona or California.

I would just like to see us put arts back into Moscow's motto of Heart of 
the Arts.  We have the materials here in Latah County that could make us as 
important to ceramics as China was from the Kaolin district from which Ming 
porcelain was made.  It would be grand as far as I am concerned to see more 
businesses like Wendt Pottery turning out things of beauty right here in 
Moscow and I hope to convince the list that it’s worth doing as a community.

Phil Nisbet

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