Screen print image of Miranda Davis
It was a five-day shipwreck on an island off the Biloxi, Miss., coast that led John Sawyer and Miranda Davis to re-examine their lives.
After the scary experience in which an unexpected storm blew up, sending their large teak sailboat off-course and abandoning them on a small island, they decided to put down roots somewhere a bit safer.
The couple packed up their Asheville, North Carolina home when Davis, a Connecticut native, heard about an opportunity to buy an established screen printing and design business, Now and Then Design. The couple took on Davis’ dad, Jeff Davis, as a partner and bought a large home in Bethel where they could convert the 1,000 square-foot ground floor into a full design shop with a printer, t-shirt silk screen printer, darkroom, screen room and more.
Taking over a business such as this wasn’t a blind whim however. Miranda has a background as a graphic designer while Sawyer has done creative design work from building movie sets to creating posters for Disney.
Though they already have many established clients from various school groups to local police – who need everything from t-shirts to stickers to magnets – they also have a roster of artist clients from across the country who have limited-edition prints made of their work or have their pieces screen printed onto t-shirts to sell at their shows or through their websites. Sawyer and Davis seem to like this more creative work best.
One thing that hasn’t changed since they took over Now and Then about four months ago is the prices. “We are keeping the prices the same as they were. I think we are the lowest in the area,” Sawyer said.
Though the couple spent time in the last year boating off the country’s southern coast and working for Habitat for Humanity in New Orleans, their home was in the artsy community of Asheville. They were pleased when they relocated to Bethel and realized that this area also had a vibrant community of artists and musicians. They hope to make some of those folks into clients. “We are still trying to figure out our direction,” Sawyer said. “We want to grow and to do creative things,” he said. When not working for clients, Sawyer uses the professional shop to pursue his own artwork – mostly manipulated photography with other techniques used over the pictures.
Now and Then Design can provide full-scale design and consulting services as well as executing fully-designed projects that are brought to them.
Sawyer has worked on many well-known television shows and movies. He designed sets for 1980s television drama 21 Jump Street and later went on to collaborate with Johnny Depp on several other projects. He worked on several Chuck Norris films and the movies Long Walk Home and Big Fish.
From the wealthy contacts he made on movie sets he was able to parlay a healthy side business in interior designing homes, music venues and nightclubs for clients who crave dramatic surroundings. That was something he could easily do between movie projects.
When asked if silk screening t-shirts and printing stickers is boring after working on movie sets, he said “No. It’s challenging and the hours are more regular,” he said, noting that on movie sets you often work from 3 a.m. until late the next night, every day for six months. “After that, you never see those people again and it’s sad. I got tired of that. So I hired a bunch of my friends away and we started making homes. I liked that a lot but then I started to think about doing something else. So I went to work for National Geographic,” he recalled, relaying days as a lightening technician when he’d have to swim into underwater caves carrying all the equipment needed to get the awe- inspiring photos the magazine is famous for.
Above all, Sawyer seems to have an unquenchable sense of wanderlust. About Now and Then Design he said, “My plan is to give this eight years.”
