Chicago Sun-Times columnist and longtime roadie Dave Hoekstra was asked to create a blue plate special.
The term “blue plate special” came from the low-cost meals served by Fred Harvey Restaurants starting in the 1890s. But no, Hoekstra wasn’t asked to fix dinner in the kitchen. He was one of nearly 50 Chicago residents who were asked to create their own blue plates for Marya Veeck‘s August House Studio for an exhibit through Dec. 21.
There’s Jamie Ceaser’s plate of President-elect Obama, and Paul Sierra’s “Coy Fish,” a blue depiction of a beautiful goldfish. The plates are priced between $65-$475.
I was asked to do a plate. Hey, my last two pieces of art (both bird houses) have sold at August House. Veeck asked that I theme my plate around Route 66, the historic Depression-era path from Chicago to Los Angeles, Calif., that I traveled in 1991.
I chose Will Rogers as my theme. People today don’t know much about the Oklahoma-born humorist. He never met a man he didn’t like — just like me. Only a handful or roadies realize that Route 66 is known as “The Will Rogers Highway.” And the Fred Harvey Co. created America’s first interstate restaurant chain. During the early 20th century the firm built Harvey Houses along railway lines in the Southwest.
My plate may have come out better if I had begun working on it during the early 20th century. These things take time.
I found a black-and-white photo of Rogers, and snapshots of Route 66 signage from my old scrapbooks. I cut up the pictures and transferred them on the plate with a No. 2 graphite pencil. Over and over again. Mistakes could be removed with Q-tip and water. A few weeks later I returned to do more detailed tracing. Over and over.
The plates are fired in a 2,000-degree kiln. Apparently the blue color in the images becomes even more vivid in the finished product.
“Glazed Expression had been doing this for 15 years,” Smillie said. “They were stunned at the depth of color. If it had been any other color (than blue) we wouldn’t be able to get this kind of definition. There’s a certain kind of alchemy that happens in the kelve that surprises even the experienced ceramicist. Sometimes you go ‘Whoa!.’ Othertimes you go, ‘Oh.’ We’ve had mostly ‘Whoas!’ here.”
In case the baseball fans out there are wondering, Marya Veeck is indeed the daughter of the late Bill Veeck, the former owner of the Cleveland Indians, St. Louis Browns and Chicago White Sox and a member of the Baseball Hall of Fame. (For Cubs fans, Bill Veeck was the one who planted the ivy next to the outfield walls of Wrigley Field in 1937.)