Feature

by Benjamin Tertin

The Maldonados, ceramic makers profiting from Portland's Saturday Market, have rejected consumerism to develop a natural, self-sufficient way of life in the woods.

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Pottery Crafters Find
Simplicity in a Bus

Parked in their rural Washington 28-acre forest, the Maldonados' 1970 Madsen/Carpenter school bus,
equipped with two solar panels, has been their
home for almost five years.
--Benjamin Tertin, photo

After a rumbling, second-gear climb out of the Klickitat River Valley, I wheeled my Subaru onto the dirt path Vince had described. The tires crunched through pine needles, and the windshield parted a cover of white oak branches until I rolled into a sunny clearing.

There in the woods near Wahkiacus, Wash., I found the home of Vince and Sabrina Maldonado -- a teal-green school bus tucked in the underbrush.

Vince, an eco-conscious philosopher of sorts, known to have dabbled in both skydiving and entrepreneurial business management, held a cat in one arm and waved me in with the other. He had coordinated his tattered blue jeans with a messy gray mop of hair. Dark stubble from a three-day-old beard framed his grin.

His wife, Sabrina, under a yellow straw hat, duplicated Vince's relaxed expression and said, "Come in; come on in," motioning me through the brass-knobbed, red front door.

Up the stairs and past a propane-powered fridge, which has replaced the driver's seat and steering column, I entered the customized 1970 Madsen/Carpenter school bus that previously belonged to a traveling family of six. Its flat tires, however, suggest the once-mobile dwelling travels no more.

I had met the Maldonados, professional potters since 1998, one week earlier in their display booth at Portland's Saturday Market where I learned that the self-sufficient couple lives on profits from Sabrina's leaf-shaped ceramic platters and Vince's thrown goblets and tea bowls. Valuing simplicity and resourcefulness, they make use of the benefits on society's fringe.

The Maldonados live off the grid with no running water and no electricity Ð beyond that produced by two solar panels. They have no bathtub, no sewer or septic, no elaborate art studio, and...actually...no all-sorts-of-stuff. But when Vince talks about his wife and his life with her, he speaks with the pride and confidence of a metropolitan tycoon.

Vince said that after three years at Mt. Hood Community College, he attended Portland State University to study ceramics. "I went into an interview with the head of PSU's art department, and he said, 'So, Vince, what do you want to do with your life?' and I said, 'I want to be a professional potter.'

"He stared at me and started laughing, saying, 'No...no, no. We'll train you to be an artist. We will show you all the wonderful subtleties of creating art and bla blah blahh,'" Vince said.

"So I jumped through the hoops and became an 'artist.' But I won't admit that because I think art is intangible; it's unprovable. I am a craftsman," he said.

In 1991, Vince was sweeping sidewalks and hauling garbage with the Saturday Market site crew when he met a Sabrina, "the tie-dye girl," and within months, the two were inseparable.

Sabrina had studied chemistry and geology in college, receiving her bachelor's degree in general science from PSU. "But," she said, "when I realized that my dream of doing independent oceanographic research would require 20 years of working in a lab, I changed plans and started doing tie-dye."

Starting out together, she and Vince frequented Portland's thrift stores, stocking up on 25-cent used T-shirts and cheap cotton dresses. They cleaned and bleached the clothes before transforming them into wearable art using big tubs of vibrant dye.

"We were just two kids clearing $30,000 to $40,000 per year selling tie-dye at Saturday Market," Vince said. "Our inventory was pretty eclectic, and we didn't work as hard as we could have...but we were drinking the finest wines.

"Still, as cool and groovy as the tie-dye was, it wasn't environmentally friendly. We weren't even so savvy, so eco-friendly back then that we were like, 'Ohh, this is such a grievous sin on my environment.' We just stopped tie-dying because we didn't want to have to deal with a bunch of waste chemicals on our property."

So the Maldonados geared up for the pottery production they're now engaged in. Vince constructed a wood-fired kiln out of brick and began splitting logs for fuel. Using salvaged steel siding and rough-cut timbers, he and Sabrina built a 12-by-16 ceramics studio and other shacks including their outhouse, or, as Vince calls it, "the loo."

Vince said the wood splitting necessary to fire his wood kiln proved overwhelming, so he upgraded to a 30-cubic-foot natural gas kiln. Then, he converted the kiln to propane and built a 15-foot high shack around it.

Now the cluster of shacks, sunken under a sea of Ponderosa pines in the middle of Washington's nowhere, has become Vince and Sabrina's workplace.

Well-worn foot paths create a web in the underbrush and tie together the workplace, bus, loo and other shacks. The Maldonado clearing is truly a campsite-homestead hybrid.

Nothing biodegradable on their property escapes Vince's cedar compost bins. Everything from watermelon rinds, coffee grounds and the couple's personal byproducts, transported via five-gallon pails from the loo to the bins, blends with layers of oak leaves and other organic materials in a composting process too complex to describe.

When I noticed a ceramic jar hiding under a rosebush, I saw another in the background. Then another. I wondered, Why decorate the woods with ornate, valuable pottery?

But then I considered the artwork decorating my own home and realized that, although I was standing outside the bus, I was still in the Maldonado's living room.

Of course, they don't use that part of the living room much when the carpet is 3 feet of snow. In the winter, they don't even plow the path from the road to their bus; they haul everything in by foot, pulling a sled filled with supplies.

Staying warm is no problem, Vince said. A cast-iron wood stove halfway down the bus keeps the couple toasty. The previous owners raised the roof half a foot, insulated the walls and ceiling, and covered the full interior with 3-inch hardwood planks.

Pine shelves and cupboards fill any extra space, and a bed at the back of the bus rests 3 feet off the floor on stilts. Sabrina's ceramic leaves, which she textures by pressing real leaves into the wet clay, weave color into the kitchen's earthy hue. Skillets hanging from the ceiling and a calendar fastened to the wall remind visitors that this surreal bus is indeed a home.

But every crooked nail, every saw-tooth mark and every hammer dent proves that the Maldonados place is also an ever-evolving work of art. Vince would never acknowledge that, though. Its functionality negates such nonsense, he would say.

"Working for other artists, I became a craftsman, and I learned that elements of craft can be brought into art. A true piece of art is like a Chinese tea bowl. It's been designed and thrown by hand--when you use it, it's perfect. It feels good in the mouth, it looks good, it sits well, it doesn't burn your hand.

"I get accused of being an artist all the time, but I'm not. I just want to make the perfect tea bowl."

Vince Maldonado said he runs a bisque (non-glazed) firing twice per month in his 30-cubic-foot kiln.
--Benjamin Tertin, photo

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