The arrival of this month’s issue of Arizona Highways magazine brought back a memory chuckle from the late 1970’s. It seems like the “wins” in those days were too far apart, and even a small one always felt good.
We had a good customer who was particularly demanding that any sculpture we cast for him turn out to look exactly as he had envisioned, and we strived to accomplish exactly that. We had just completed one of his pieces and phoned him that it was ready to pick up.
The patina (coloration) he had specifically ordered for this piece was “turquoise.” I was pleased with the result we had achieved, and was looking forward to his response.
His reaction, however, was initially disheartening. “TURQUOISE!” he exclaimed. “John, I told you TURQUOISE!”
I quickly moved past the shock of his rejection as I remembered the source of our choice of coloration. Retrieving our copy of the January 1974 edition of Arizona Highways, headlined “Focus on Turquoise,” I opened it to a page that featured a turquoise stone that was a drop-dead match to the color of his sculpture.
What could he do? He smiled and mumbled as he flipped through the magazine and selected a different colored turquoise stone that he would like his next patina to resemble.
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