GARDENING : A Pottery Wonderland Lives On : Past and present merge at a whimsical San Fernando lawn ornament shop.
Garden ornaments are as old as Pompeii, as traditional as Japanese pagodas and English corn crib stones. By comparison, the concrete rabbits and birdbaths at Mary Macchio’s San Fernando pottery shop were born yesterday, though Macchio has been selling such things for half a century.
Her present stock--arrayed on dusty plank shelves under fluorescent lights that probably haven’t been turned on since 1975--is an American folk-style gathering of deer, ducks, frogs and not-quite-humans: little gnomes with sky-blue, smiling eyes and red pointed caps. They smoke pipes, they carry baskets, they perch on toadstools, and they come cheap--from $19.20 to $40.80, or 10% to 20% off retail, like everything else Macchio sells.
Her prices, her mix of merchandise and her sheer persistence in staying around for so long have made Oleander Pottery and Gift Shop a Valley institution--one that customers’ children and even grandchildren tend to revisit. However, few who come for Macchio’s gnomes or garden pots, religious icons or discount dinnerware remember the neighborhood as she does--as “nothing but farms, one gas station for trucks and a little restaurant called ‘the Three Pigs.’ ”
But the location where she and her late husband set up shop in 1938 was a lucky one. Though they were too poor to start the fish market they wanted, their $200 investment in pottery caught the attention of passing tourists, who, in those days, used San Fernando Road as a route to San Francisco. Soon, they were selling not only dishware but loads of ashtrays, knickknacks and the garden items that eventually became their business staples.
“All the movie studios came here for what they needed,” Macchio says. “Even the newspapers bought our pitchers for their printing solutions.”
In 1971, the Sylmar earthquake destroyed most of the Macchios’ stock, and they had to start their operation again, almost from scratch. Eight years ago, Macchio’s husband died. And although it’s been hard running things alone, especially with so much competition from warehouse-type building supply companies, Macchio, 80, hasn’t considered retiring. “I feel about 20 inside, till I look in the mirror,” she says. “This shop is my therapy.”
In the afternoon heat, she presides over her establishment as if she were home, greeting customers hospitably in English or Spanish, offering them fruit from her own trees (lemons, 10 cents; kumquats, 60 cents a pound) and guiding them among the cluttered aisles to find things.
People drift in and out. A couple comes looking for a statue of Jesus for their car. A woman asks for a concrete dove to replace one that fell off her birdbath. But they stop to linger over other things: terra cotta wall planters ($6.98), Mexican oil jars ($5.98 and $10), discontinued dinner plates from Metlox ($2.50 and up), a pink ceramic rocking horse suitable for a house plant ($2). “That’s old,” Macchio murmurs. “I don’t know . . . 30 years?”
This is the kind of place where past and present get all mixed up, where old macrame plant holders (“Machine washable nylon, fits any shape pot”) share space with Italian red clay pots (69 cents-$14.50) and the sort of cast-concrete column ($38.40) that would dignify any perennial border. Behind the shop, there’s a yard full of pottery from Mexico ($1.98-$29.98), and behind the counter, a catalogue from which an extensive array of fountains and other garden objects may be ordered.
Otherwise, it’s just fun to wander around breathing the dust, fingering salt-and-pepper shakers shaped like seals and discovering--in and among the ancient greeting cards and odd saucers--a single blue-flowered vase from Ecuador ($13.99).
As for Macchio--”As long as I’m in good health,” she says, “I’ll be here.”
Where and When
Location: Oleander Pottery Gift Shop, 1332 San Fernando Road, San Fernando.
Hours: 10:30 a.m.-5 p.m. most days except Sunday; call ahead to confirm hours.
Price: Cash or checks only.
Call: (818) 361-3720.
