Penland Weekend

Good day from Penland School!  I came up yesterday to be a visiting artist for Ronan Peterson who is teaching a class here this session.  It was so nice for Ronan to ask me to come up for a couple of days and it's really been fun for me to share some of what I know with his class.

A few early birds in the studio on Sunday morning.

Collaboration in progress between Ronan and me. (Thanks to Mark Errol for suggesting that I do the Rabbit motif and placement on right hand jar)

A few of Ronan's finished pots.

Some of the pots Ronan is working on.

Today we are going out to visit some potter's studios in the area.  I'm looking forward to that, but first Brunch!!  The food here at Penland is always delicious.

More later.

Good Stuff

Loads of new stuff arrived today.  Below is a photo and video.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bc_zhI-yWhU

Pretty cool eh?

I first saw Scott Garrett's work on my pal Matt Grimmitt's blog.  Scott did an illustration that had one of Matt's jugs included in it.

Later on I found my way to Scott's website and then his blog.  Scott is in the first stages of learning to make pots.  I love his illustration style and his sense of humor.  That mustache is pretty cool too.  Scott has an affection for folk pots from the American south. It's pretty cool seeing how someone in England is taken with US pottery much like I am with pots from their country.

Thanks for the prints Scott. I love them and they are going to get framed and put up in the house.

I'm pretty excited about my little self published picture book.  It will be a good asset in the studio.  I'll probably order one for my mom too.  She'd like that.

I'll talk more about the Michael Simon book later on. I've looked through it once and read a bit of it.  It really slowed my mind down today, just thinking about Michael, his pots, the way he works etc.  I met him several times, saw him make pots, went to his and Ron Meyers' pottery sales and even visited him at his home once.  Special memories.

Well, Sarah and I are headed over to Ni Fen for some wine and tapas.  It's been a sunny, beautiful day after a long damp week.  I hope you all have a great weekend.

Working on the Jar Ideas

Below are a couple of videos of me showing some work in progress and talking about moving these pots forward.

It's good to be in this place of not knowing exactly what to do, or setting up some problems to be solved.  I feel like most of this sort of thing gets worked out in the 'doing' as opposed to the 'thinking about it'.  Both ways are valuable, but for me I have to see it in clay to really know what works best.  You'll see I did some sketching in the first video.  That's an okay jumping off point, but honestly I don't sketch pots too much.  If I do it's just to remind me of some idea that I had so that I remember to make it later.  This leads me to more thoughts but I'm saving that for the next blog post.  It will be about risk and ruining pots and so on.

For now here are the videos.

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

 

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-pdlnAXNVqE

Video Tour

Here's a tour of one of our cupboards.  I had fun doing this and I'll do another one soon.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9bASe9h6a60

Sorry I used the word 'nice' so much.  I didn't even notice I was doing it until I got finished and watched the video.

I didn't realize the camera timed out about 2 minutes before I finished. So I just faded out at the end.  You only missed about 3 bowls, I'll get them in next time.

Thanks for watching.  That was fun.

Decoration Day and Loading the Bisque

I had a great day decorating pots.  I am getting ready for my Holiday Sale and the Hen House Sale.

Here is a pic I took when I was getting started this morning.

And a bit of video as I was finishing up.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tIxnYM-UiIQ

I have several boards of plates to go as well as mugs.  Those will be in the next bisque along with those platters.  Okay off for now.  Be sure to check out the Online Store if you haven't in a few days.  There is some nice work on there.

Hope everyone has a good Friday evening.