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Poll Results. And Wide Feet

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Hey there folks.  Guess what? Most of you reading this are potters! (Just in case you didn't know).  Thanks everyone for taking the poll over the last week.  I had 144 participants.  134 potters.  10  potter lovers/collectors but not makers.  I also had a couple folks notify me that they didn't fit nicely into either category.  So I feel like most of what I am posting here is of some relevance to those who are reading the blog. Which is good.  So thanks for sticking with me and I do appreciate it when you leave comments.

I've not made any yunomi in a while.  Honestly I stopped b/c I wasn't selling that many.  I decided to make 4 yesterday just so I could cut this wide foot on them.  The finished pot there is one of Ron Meyers' from the mid-80's.  It's a small cup, and I use it a lot.  I really love the wide foot on it and wanted to try my hand at a few.



Below is an image of mugs as I was decorating today.  You can see I often pencil in the image.  Really useful in helping me not mess up so many pots.



I met my pals Amy Sanders and Jennifer Mecca for breakfast this morning at Zada Jane's. We had a nice chat.  I had my usual, Bunny Rancheros, eggs over light with chirizo!  I took the camera but forgot the memory card so no pics.  Sorry.

Truck went into the shop today for some body work. So I'm stuck here for the rest of the week.  Good plan to get work done.  Also I have a ton of clay arriving Friday!! Sweet.

Yey Monday!!

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Look at all this work I got made today.  AND thanks to the Internet, I got to attend the NCECA pre-conference at Montgomery Community College.  Nothing like having Ron Meyers, Christa Assad, Andy Brayman and Ellen Shankin working right along side you on the computer all morning!!

A panel discussion with Mary Barringer, Ayumi Horie, Julia Galloway, Lisa Orr, and Allegheny Meadows was held in the afternoon.  Good questions and discussion there, although I had a hard time trying to work and listen.  Hopefully it will be re-broadcast.  My Blog got mentioned which was totally cool!!!

Anyhow Day 2 will be broadcast tomorrow starting at 9am EST.  Here's the link.

Yey Monday!

Earthenware Journey

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It's been just over 2 years since I made the big switch to earthenware.  If you are interested in seeing the progress you can go back in the Archives (right sidebar) to January 2008 and move forward from there.

Just to give you an idea of where I started, here is the  post I made after my first glaze firing. Click HERE.

And here is a platter from that period.



And a recent platter:



There have been some significant steps along the way.  Doug and Hannah have both been very encouraging and have turned me on to loads of great pots.

I have looked at Margaret Brampton's pots for encouragement on using color.

Of course my two weeks at Penland with Ayumi Horie were very influential for me.    I came back from that experience and jumped in feet first into my decoration.  That's been 8 months ago now and while I continue to work with red clay, white slip, clear and colored glazes I feel like my decoration is becoming more and more my own.  I am certainly putting more time than ever into drawing on my pots.  I was fortunate in that I had put many years into working on my forms when I was making salt glaze.  It's nice not to have too many problems to work on at once.

Right after I left Penland I became fascinated with Medieval Majolica from Italy.  Thankfully there are some nice images on the Internet.  See Here for one.

I moved up from that time period to more current Italian majolica,1500, 1600's.   And then on to pots that were made in this country in the 1700 and 1800's.

Thank goodness for the Internet and all it's resources.

When I first thought about making earthenware pots I knew I wanted them to be fun and accessible.  I think I am accomplishing that.  It's neat to see how humorous some of the old English slipware was.

Living out here in the country of NC offers many subjects for my work.  I've spoken before about how we are surrounded by cows and goats, squirrels and rabbits.  Most recently I've started incorporating more flowers and foliage into the decoration.  I imagine that will certainly pick up speed as the honeysuckles begin to flower and the garden takes shape.  I look forward to that.

Well, I just wanted to do a bit of a recap.  It's good for me and I know I could have certainly gone into more depth here on various areas.  For now, I'd best get out to the studio and make some bowls.  I hope you all have a good week.

Here are the new pots...

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httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h2RXuTYlFAQ

I'll try and take a few still photos tomorrow.

The Indian take out was amazing. (see previous post)  I hung out at the bar while I waited on my food. Things seemed to be going better than when we were there over the weekend.  There's hope Shelby! There's hope.

Updated Events Page

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Hi there folks. Hope you all are well wherever you are.  I have updated my Events Page (right sidebar)  Just wanted to let you know so you can mark your calendars for upcoming or future sales and shows.  I haven't pinned down dates for my Summer or Fall Sales here at the pottery, but I will soon and will let ya know.



So I had planned on going up to see my pal Michael Kline today, but things didn't line up right for me so I had to cancel.  Bummer. Looks like MK had a good firing so get over to Sawdust and Dirt to check it out.

I am impatiently waiting for my kiln to cool. Staring at it doesn't seem to be helping. Guess I'll get it unloaded after supper.

We have a new restaurant in town. Bombay Indian Restaurant.  I am heading over to get some takeout soon.  Sarah and I ate there over the weekend and it was soooo good.  I fear it may not last though.  The servers were pretty clueless and rushing around like mad.  They seemed to have little or no experience.  Not a good way to start off if you are a restaurant owner.  The owner seemed nice, but he should have been cracking the whip.  I'm not complaining because the service was terrible, I just want the owner to hire a good manager and good servers so his place will stay in business and I can go over there to eat as much as possible!!  I want him to succeed.  We need good food in this town!

Well come back later and I'll tell you how my dinner was and you may get to see some pots too.

Bring out the Bubble Wrap

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I am packing up my pots to send to the NC Crafts Gallery in Carrboro, NC .  I have this big box plus another one that I have yet to start on.  The kiln is cooling  with the animal jars inside.  I guess I'm sending about 30 pots total.  Maybe 32.  It should be a really nice show.  I am looking forward to going down for the opening on April 9th.  If you are in the area I'd love for you to be there.  See the gallery's website HERE.

Karma is happy to play with almost anything.  She's had this piece of firewood for 2 1/2 years.  You can see she's rounded off most of the edges by now.  Yes, we do buy her some nice doggie toys but this piece of wood seems to have really lasted.  Maybe I should market it and start selling it at PetSmart.


Which reminds me of THIS!

WikiClay

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Simon Levin and Lloyd Cledwyn have launched a new resource for
ceramic artists.   Wikiclay.com can become a great resource full of useful information that we, the ceramic community build and maintain.  Who better for the job?
I hope you'll make your way over there and contribute, add new information, refine articles or just browse the site.  I'm working on my Artist page now and will add more to it  soon. I also hope to help in some other way by sharing my knowledge or experience.

In addition to Simon and Lloyd, Kristen Kieffer is on board as a moderator.   Help spread the word to others by posting about WikiClay on your Facebook page, website or blog.

Tuesday's Post

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Karma and I just got back from a nice walk.  The birds are out chirping away, we saw a flock of geese fly over and we went by the livestock barn to visit the cows. (Last visitors they'll have before transport to slaughter I'm afraid) (Such happy thoughts here on my blog. Ha. Sorry).


Anyhow, I have a bisque cooling and freshly slipped cups drying in the studio.  It's been a busy day of photographing pots for my Etsy Shop and working in the studio.

Please take the poll over in the right side bar if you haven't yet.  It seems like most everyone that reads my blog is a potter.  No surprise there really, and I'm thrilled to have you all.  Thanks for continuing to visit.  I'm wanting to make some improvements to this site soon and knowing who the audience is will help.  It helps me to put the right content out there too.

I'm looking forward to making a special trip on Thursday. Stay tuned for that, hopefully I'll have a bit of film to share on Friday.

Cheers!

Please Take This Weeks Poll

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Hey folks,
I'm doing a little research to see who's reading my blog.  I know who some of you all are but there's a lot I do not know.  So if you don't mind please take a moment to take my poll over in the right sidebar.  This is just for my benefit, to help me get to know my audience a little better so that I can post things that are relevant and enjoyable to those that come here.  I'll do some more polling in the future, maybe some that are fun, like who's your favorite Stooge or something.  Who knows?  Anyhow, thanks for participating and please feel free to comment anytime.

Drawing Day.

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You can see I've penciled in the designs on these platters.  I finished etching them in and also a group of plates.  All in the bisque now warming up nice and slowly.


I just spoke to Tess at MADE Shop in Kutztown, PA.  I'll be sending them some pots very, very soon.  If you're in that area please visit MADE, it's a very unique shop.  Owners Tess Doran And David Jones will make you feel right and home and show off their offerings.  I'll post again when I send out the pots to PA.  Should be soon.

Homebrewed Cider!

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A couple of days ago a box arrived from Fredericksburg, Virginia.  I knew it had to be from Dan Finnegan! Inside was a bottle of Dan's homebrewed apple cider.  Dan had read here on the blog about how much I loved the cider we had in England and that I was having a hard time finding any in the States that measured up.  Well Dan's is quite fine and even better in the fact that it's hand crafted.  Sarah and I split the bottle and really enjoyed every drop.  Cheers Dan.  Maybe I'll make it up your way in the near future and enjoy another bottle!!

(Yes my laptop is really filthy.)

Good Things

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I was happy to get these jars out from under plastic today and put the animals on them.  The critters will get colored glazes after the bisque.  These are for my show at the NC Crafts Gallery in April.




Thank goodness some things are getting smaller.  I like these cute little 7.5 fl oz Cokes.



I had some small plates at the Sale and they were a big hit. These are 8" in diameter. I had one person buy a small plate and bowl as a place setting for his daughter.  That was a great idea and one I hadn't thought of.  (Note to my marketing department)



I'll be photographing pots for Etsy this week as well as getting my pots packed up for the NC Crafts Gallery show.  I also hope to head up to Bakersville in the next week and deliver pots to Crimson Laurel Gallery.


Successful Spring Sale

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This corner shot of the showroom is a small representation of the great pots that Jennifer Mecca and I had here yesterday.

We had a fine turnout and a beautiful day.  Thanks to everyone who came.  We had a lot of folks that drove from quite a distance.  It means so much that they would come so far to see and buy our work.

Jen and I had fun spending the day together and visiting with everyone.  I expect we will do something together again in the future whether it be another show or maybe even a workshop.

So this week I'll be back to work and blogging will resume it's usual format of what's happening in the workshop and what's going on in my head.  I know there were quite a few posts about the Sale over the past week and that may have gotten old for some of you.  So thanks for sticking with me.

I'm a Happy Potter

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Okay folks here are some of the pots just out of the kiln and I think they are pretty awesome!   This first platter is about 16" in diameter.  I'm gonna start making these bigger next week.  I'm digging the deco. Yes that's pink!  I'm totally cool with that!



This next one is 14" in diameter.  I really love those thick wipes around the edges. More of that in the future.



This bowl is deeper but hard to tell in this photo. It's a nice size serving dish, 12" diameter.



If you remember this post from way back you will see I finally got around to making a similar pot.




There were a few more pots in the kiln but these are the eye catchers.  Come on out to the Spring Sale on Saturday and one of these beauties can be yours.  (If I can let go of them by then, I do like them a lot! Ha.)

A Couple of Bisque Pots

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I unloaded a bisque this morning of platters/shallow dishes.  I was going to wait until after the glaze firing to post any images but I had to show one of these off even if it was just a bisque dish.  I am so excited about these!  Just look at all those lines.  I would have never dreamed I'd be doing deco like this.  Hopefully it will keep getting better and better, but for now I'm super proud of my pots.  I should have some glazed pics by early Friday b/c I glazed and loaded today.

Oh okay here's one more....

Quick Preview

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Click for larger more complete image.

I'm pretty excited to see all these pots.  I think this is the most I've ever decorated any load of pots! Crazy!

Jars

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Threw these jars today.  They are for my show at the NC Crafts Gallery in Carrboro, NC .  The  show runs through the month of April with the opening on the 9th from 5 till 9 pm . I'll be there!


I'll finish these guys up tomorrow and get some animals up on the peaks.  Check out videos HERE and HERE if you'd like to know how these are made.


Thanks for checking in.