Thanksgiving Dinner

Check out my Fiesta page for Pots in action for Thanksgiving Day 2011!  

Happy Thanksgiving!

Appalachian Potters Market

I can see the end of the 2011 tunnel.  My last retail show for the year will be at McDowell High School, Marion NC,   The Appalachian Potters Market is a great show with 66 potters on Saturday, December 2.

I'm busy today cranking out a few more cruets, sponge holders and brie bakers to fill in the inventory from the Carolina  Pottery Festival on the 12th Nov.  Didn't get that one posted due to my abundant wholesale orders.  It went well there and it is always wonderful to see old friends after being elbow deep in the basement with clay for months.

Hope to see more of you in Marion.  Starts up at 10AM and over by 4:30 or so.

Valle Country Fair

This Saturday is the Valley Country Fair!  I have attended this fair for at least 27 years now except for 21 yrs ago when Claire was 2 mo old and last year when my dad was dying of a stroke.  Hope to see you there in shoes appropriate for potentially mucky ground as I imagine it has rained there as much as here.  Check out their page here.  http://www.vallecountryfair.org/

Hiddenite Exhibit

My favorite piece:  Mermaid evening gown.

Well, tomorrow I take my 42 pieces to The Hiddenite Center for my largest ever exhibition of one of a kind pieces.   Hopefully the next one won't be quite as stressful.  It wasn't the one woman show I had asked for, but Helen Keever will be showing water color pieces that won't detract from my mostly pedestal pieces. It is so much more work than I imagined, not only creating the 15 or so new, one of a kind, never made them before pieces, but cataloging and documenting everything.  Part of my exhibit is education of how the pieces came to be and who inspired their creation.

I've been wanting to do a full set of dishes in my fiesta inspired pattern

The show will run from maybe Oct 7- 30.  The reception will be on the 30th... why at the end?  Out of my hands in scheduling that.

Sam Chung Pot

Sam and his just finished teapot

His first demonstration: a two piece slab pitcher with a hollow handle.

Several months ago Carolina ClayMatters Guild hosted a workshop with Sam Chung, instructor at Arizona State.  He specializes in slab constructed pieces, most of which have a serious set of pattern pieces.  He started with a simple pitcher design shown below and then went on to create more and more complex pieces like the teapot left.

This thing is an ewer- a pouring vessel with no handle.

 After several months, I finally have a finished and photographed my version of Sam's teapot.  It was much harder than it looked to do, and of course I chose the most complicated piece he did to replicate.  Hadn't really planned to have it look so much the shape of his teapot, but that was what worked.  I made things even more complicated by putting texture on the side panels.

Puzzle Jugs, my style

I have finally finished and photographed the puzzle jugs I did while at Wildacres this summer. 
This bizarre thing was an inspiration from a Doug Fitch and Hannah McAndrew Slipware Workshop I did in Shelby. I found a picture of this one in an English traditional pottery book they brought.  The one in the book was a tower with windows in it, but being the woodsy gal that I am, I decided to make it trees instead.   Pour drink in the top and it goes through the handle to the bottom and out the snake mouth. Pretty wild in action. Had I to do it again the snake would have started at the top of the bottom chamber.  When I poured the glaze in it, the snake projectile vomited it out it's mouth!  Works much better with thinner liquids, but really more of a conversation piece anyway.

Inside the trees is a stump with the squirrel that eats all my pears... eating a pear.

This one is more like the puzzle jug they brought.  Theirs was of course more traditional with a Shelby 2011 written on it.   They usually have a teasing poem about getting the ale out once it is in.  Mine has a door that says "Enter men of mirth."  To drink you must suck through one of the spouts while putting your fingers on all the openings, (except the big holes in the sides, silly!).  It is a puzzle.

Milwaukee Vacation

Bryan Becker Clay Werks Gallery and Studio

 Got back last week from a delivery vacation to the Milwaukee.  Daughter Claire, parrot Petey and I stayed with Bryan Becker at his converted dairy business Bryan Becker Clay Werks.
 

The throwing "room"

  It was quite educational to see how production potters work in other areas of the country, like bisque firing to cone 010 and glazing cone 10 oxidation, (not at all what I see here in NC).  From what I could tell, Bryan's main production items are wedding and housewarming bowls that he sells mostly through catalog sales.

Bryan and Mosely

  The gallery is nicely set up and he has extra studio space and a teaching studio that he rents out to other artists.  I got several good business tips while I was there for sure.

The gallery

Display of my work

Claire and I also visited 2 other accounts- Cedar Creek Pottery in historic Cedarburg, WI and Zig Zag Gallery in Dayton, Ohio.  Cedarburg  is a cool little historic spot on none other than Cedar Creek, duh.  There is a winery there in a converted woolen mill that also houses the pottery gallery and several other unique shops.  We thought it interesting that the public green way trail advertised that you were welcome to walk, cycle, roller blade, or ... cross country ski.

Cheetah and boy examine each other

 We also spent some time in Milwaukee site seeing: went to the zoo, bar hopped and went to the gallery crawl downtown, caught a drag show at the Brady Street Festival and went to a German Fest where we saw a "weiner dog" race.  The winner weiner needed a drug test for steroids!

Ruth the elephant throwing sand on Claire.  I was just reading about how unsafe this habitat is.  She could fall in that moat.

Downtown Milwaukee on the waterfront