Sir CC’s hat & gloves – Cleveland Cavaliers |
making mascots
Biz, Blessings & a Martini
I started AvantGarb in my Berkeley, California garage when my youngest daughter was about 3 months old.
From the start, AvantGarb has been profitable and the dollars have increased through the years. AvantGarb is a real, ongoing operation.
Even though we have been making money, and AvantGarb has been paying mortgages & rent for me and my employees for years. We have been buying shoes, clothing children, sending them to college getting our hair done and toes painted, I still sometimes think, it could be over tomorrow.
This is crazy thinking.
When I am sitting with a curved needle, stitching fleece onto fur on the latest mascot head, I’ve taken to counting my blessings.
Here are some of them:
- I have a really grand family. They keep me involved and interested in their lives. My husband is funny, handsome and sexy. My daughters are gorgeous and glorious.
- I love my biz – making fuzzy critters that add a great dollop of fun to the landscape.
- I’ve traveled everywhere–okay, not everywhere, but a lot of places – Kenya, India, China, Mexico, Mexico, Mexico, Taiwan, Egypt, and oh yeah, Europe. I feel fluent in the world. I like to be places where I can’t speak the language.
- … however, I can speak Spanish, stutter through French and be polite in Swahili
- I love going to church on Sundays, singing hymns w/ the congregation, listening to the sermon and being blessed for the coming week with the benediction.
- I love reading the New York Times and napping on couch on Sunday afternoons.
- I have gotten bit of fame for doing what I do.
- …and right now I’m listening to the general chatter in the studio as Joseph drafts patterns for a very buff mascot, Mike finishes the electronics for a ventilation fan in a Giant’s head and Anne finishes 3 pairs of really big mascot shoes for 3 very different mascots – a Griffin, a Tomato & a Parrot!
- Every Monday I look forward to the week ahead.
- Every Friday I come home to a really good martini with my husband
I have imagined my life, and it became real.
I suspect the story of other small biz people is similar.
Mascots and Community
Where does community spontaneously happen?
Where do we bump shoulders with strangers?
Where do we just get silly!
When we’re in the presence of a mascot, that’s where!
Where mascots are, community emerges, people gather.
It doesn’t take great talent, superior intellect or an educated eye to joke, to have fun and to pass the time of day in the presence of a mascot. When a mascot is around we have a reason to connect.
A mascot is the perfect, goofy and generous host.
While we may think a mascot is merely a marketing tool, really, a mascot is a hand extended in community.
Organizations that put in the long hours of imaginative, strategic planning, design collaboration and dollars into a mascot program is really holding out their hand in joy, trust and community.