Making Potter At The Bottom Of The Grand Canyon | LeeAnn Dodde

LeeAnn Dodde | Episode 562

LeeAnn Dodde make pots at the bottom of the Grand Canyon. LeeAnn’s greenware is packed up and shipped out on a mule. LeeAnn is transitioning to full time pottery during the summer of 2019.

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What did you do for the last seven years in trying to build a following to be able to have an audience to sell to when you were ready to start selling?

You meet so many people down at the ranch and it’s a huge network that becomes a big family and I couldn’t do it without all of them. The people that I have worked with over seven years, I am definitely one of the longer people that have worked there so I have just come into contact with so many people who have bought my work and showed it to a friend and contacted me that they’ve got friends and friends of friends who are interested. It seems to be going pretty well that way so far.

So a lot of it has been word of mouth is what you are saying.

Yes, and them actually seeing it. When people were more curious and were sitting in the back yard drinking a beer, I would say, Hey, do you want to go see my little studio. And I would bring them into my little room and they would see it and visualizing it definitely peaked their interest a little bit more. The amount of support I have received from near strangers has been really unbelievable.

Since you have left the grand canyon what have you done to launch the new business?

So I just did my first little booths. I have friends who have a German restaurant, they are the fourth generation owners of Kegel’s Inn and it is in Milwaukee,Wisconsin. We have been good friends for over ten years now so when I called to tell my friend Stephanie that I was leaving I originally just wanted to participate in the Oktoberfest and she said, Hey,well I just talked to Julian, her husband and co-owner of the restaurant, and he wants to have a potter here.

How did your first booth sale go?

It went great! Their family is very supportive and wonderful and I have several friends in the Milwaukee area now. And just getting the reactions of random strangers and the number of people that just wanted to stop by and comment to me how beautiful they thought things were. It was really encouraging. It was great and really fun experience.

Why did you think it was a good idea to buy a shuttle bus to work?

I like the shape and look of it. I thought it was so cute. It was actually my boss at the ranch who had been following the grand canyon yard sale Facebook page that I wasn’t a part of. And she came up to me one morning and just showed it to me and said, Hey, wouldn’t that make a cool studio? And I looked at her like she was crazy and the next morning I woke up and I couldn’t stop thinking about it. And just going out on my own I don’t have the resources to build anything and when I went and checked it out and saw how much square footage I could get and not have to deal with the city or permits or anything. My boyfriend had to go up to the auction because I was at the bottom of the Grand Canyon. It was about 100 miles from Prescott. It was in a storage unit that someone didn’t pay on. He drove up to the auction and I got a text message at the bottom of the canyon that morning as I was making beds. It said, Hey, I got you the best one. And I said, Okay, I am going to be Shuttle Bus Studios now.

Is your shuttle bus drive-able?

So there is no engine. It was for extra people. I think they just put it on the back of the buses for spring, summer, fall at the Grand Canyon. So it really is just a trailer. I was down in the canyon and my boyfriend found a buddy with a big diesel truck and I had to buy a pintle hitch and he was able to go pick it up at trucker’s supply. It was near Williams Arizona and they didn’t even need to put air in the tires and they just hooked it up and they hauled it that hundred miles all the way to Prescott. To take it out of my backyard at this point I would have to take down my carport. So it is function-able but it won’t be functioning.

What do you do for temperature control during the summer in Arizona?

So I still have the line in the shuttle that goes ding-ding this is my stop above all the seats on a bus. So I use that as a curtain rod and I just drape some fabric over it and as long as I don’t have direct sunlight it’s not too bad. Down at the ranch it was only a swamp cooler. I just remind myself, I used to cook in 100 degrees and I used to smell like stew at the end of the day. So at least now I am just making pottery in 100 degrees. I just had to adjust how much I could make at once because it dries so fast in that bus. In the winter I have a little space heater and if I keep all the windows closed then the sun really warms it up during the day.