Country Advertising

It has been several weeks since the official opening of the Cornwallville Pottery, besides during the open house we held at the end of June, not one person has stopped by. No one, not even a car slowing down to look.

My impatient self got to thinking that I should do some country advertising. In the simplest terms, I needed to make signs, and lots of them. Our road, Strong Rd. is snuggled between two major thoroughfares that go deep into the Catskills, Rt. 23 and Rt. 145. I knew I had to make a bunch of them for all the twists and turns of the country roads.

It took some thinking about which roads and directions that the signs would be pointing. I drew myself a little map and the number of signs needed and in which direction they should point.

I cut up some plywood from the old cabinets that were in our kitchen before we renovated, and cut posts as well. I screwed them together, and slapped on some white paint.

After they were finally coated, I penciled on them either pottery, or Cornwallville pottery with arrows going in different directions. When they were completed I rested them on the potting shed to dry.

The morning after I could not really sleep in. It was that feeling of having a yard sale or something of the sort. I wanted to put out the signs and see who would show up.
I woke Stephen up around 7:30 in the morning and we hit all the corners of our country roads with the homemade signage.

I would run out of the car to the trunk , whip out a sign and sledgehammer, and post. Jump back in and to the next corner we would go.


Some spots were more difficult than others, due to rocky terrain, but I got those signs in. I was determined to have my little billboards.

When we did our roundabout and got home, I put the final sign up. It was the one right out front of the pottery, a double faced sign that read, pottery.

It looked great on our country road. Simple, sweet, and to the point.

That same morning we retreated to the house to have a late breakfast of poached eggs, and Montreal bagels. As we were about to sit down we got a shocking...HELLO.......GOOD MORNING! It was the first customers.

They were a friendly couple from a nearby hamlet on a bike ride, and spotted the signs. It felt good to have strangers come view the pottery.

Later during the day, Stephen and I viewed several cars basically crawling past the pottery as well as five more visitors of neighbors and passersby.

A long day and several sales later, the country advertising was definitely worth it!