About Us!
The story behind PotStickers©
A young fellow was wandering around the Sunriver Art Festival last summer. Just walking around looking at different artists pieces striking up conversations whenever he could, before eventually heading off for his shift at work. And at one point his attention was drawn to one particular artist's booth where the color popped out to him. He admitted he didn’t know much about art, but he sure liked what he saw. The artist was a seasoned art show exhibitor from Boise who had come to Sun River for the 3rd year to sell his colorful and humorous art. It was not his first rodeo.
The young man struck up a conversation and they chatted for a while. At one point, the artist thought, “Here’s a young guy, maybe he’d like my print about pot in Oregon.” I then showed him the famous Haystack rock on Cannon Beach (smoking a doobie) on the coast of Oregon and it was called “Cannabis Beach”. The young man laughed.
Then I showed him the one from Colorado with a similar concept, the Rockies were smoking weed. It was titled “Coloweedo”. And he laughed again. Pot is legal in those states you know. Finally, the artist showed him all the others, there were seven I recall, and the young man laughed at each one.
The artist sensed this young guy had a good head on his shoulders and they got to talking. And the subject came up: how about converting these beautiful and very funny images into stickers? The artist, from another generation, didn’t know squat about stickers other than they were everywhere and young people loved putting them on stuff.
So they agreed to look further into this notion and stay in touch. For a few weeks they both did a bit of research into sticker printers- not a machine but a company specializing in the printing of stickers. And finally, the artist found one who was specializing in the printing of stickers and he sent him the seven files he had, to see what he thought. The printer’s name was Ray. And Ray went ballistic. He said, “These are fantastic, and you will sell a ton of these!”
So, the young man and the artist shook hands (over the internet) and agreed to become partners in this venture. The artist had the creativity and skills to create the imagery and make them funny with engaging titles. And the young man had the knowledge and means to start creating a fabulous website on Shopify and suddenly, they really had something together. Ray printed about 340 of 7 images as a preliminary run. The artist ordered 1000 plastic bags from Uline and all of a sudden, they had “product”.
Dillan Widener is the young man, currently attending Central Oregon Community College. He’s had a rough start in his life and when this “union” happened, it was an opportunity that said, “Go for it!” He lives in LaPine Oregon just outside of Bend with relatives. And his smarts with technology brought a whole new aspect to this partnership. Plus, I suspect he’s having a great time selling to his college buds, he’s even managed to sell plenty to his co-workers!
Jeff Leedy is a fine art humorist, born last century on the east coast, is married to his wife Elaine (no kids but a new puppy). They own their home in Garden City, a suburb of Boise. He is a member of Rotary and is a long-time self-employed artist having done over 450 art festivals, owned 2 of his own art galleries in Sausalito and Mendocino, CA. and sold hundreds of thousands of works of his art. He’s been around. Stickers with my art? Huh?
In some sense they may have needed each other for this new found venture. Once the stickers were delivered, they started to sell. Simply, one sticker for $5. But what made sales start to take off was the color, the imagery, and the humor. Most stickers are simply decorative or have a simple bold message. These stickers were funny, beautiful and were about POT!! And although each different sticker represents a different state, the buyers don’t necessarily buy THEIR state. They buy the ones they love and laugh at the most.
Young people started to grab them from Dillan. He kept records on the website. He made deals. One sticker is $5, Five stickers $22.50, and Seven stickers $26.95. Then Dillan started going to weed shops, vape shops, and art stores. Boom, Dillan got us our first wholesale order for $175. Hey, that’s real money! But we only had 340 so they were going to be depleted quickly. About two weeks went by and we’ve sold off half our stock!
Jeff recently went to weed shops in Ontario (the other side of Oregon) and the response was outstanding- One store was part of a company that had 40 stores and they said, “Hey we’re looking for stuff like this!!”
So, they bit the bullet and ordered 2000 stickers (10 images x 200 stickers) and not just the original seven, Jeff had come up with three more amazing, funny and colorful images. Now they had ten. And all sorts of people loved them.
Jeff designed their logo as Dillan approached more stores. This small business was going to be both retail AND wholesale if they did it right. And so here they are as partners with many many years between them but with a common purpose.
These stickers can be legal in every state since pot is smoked all over, legal or not. And as Jeff says, in the states where it is NOT LEGAL, no one will smoke our stickers. (I hope not anyway).