Meet The Potters

Meet The Potters in Brattleboro was a very fun event. Not quite sales worthy, at least for me, but it was worth it to go up and connect with all the local potters. It was held in the River Garden, a great place to show - right downtown, with skylights and plenty of room for all. We had two local acoustic bands play during the afternoon and coffee was always right there.

Here's my little setup:

I did get to trade a piece with one of my favorite Brattleboro artists: Natalie Blake. She was able to set up her stuff but had to leave to catch a plane. Her mom Mary sat the entire show. I traded one of the tokkuri's for one of her carved wall tiles - spectacular!

Also, it is always great to talk to Eric and Noelle of ZPots - so cool and hip and Vermonty...

One of my other favorite potters was there as well: Maya Zelkin. She woodfires some beautiful pots - clean lines, perfect proportions, sturdy yet loveable...

Pots in Action!

The kiln is still a little wet so that even though it is not raining today, it feels like the proper thing to do is give it the day to dry out completely and fire tomorrow. It HAS to happen tomorrow as Friday I leave for a whirlwind tour of the Philly area: woodfiring in southern NJ with Bruce Dehnert, then a two-day conference entitled Making Through Living - Living Through Making: Studio Pottery in 2010. Finally, on to NCECA for Wed, Thu, Fri - my first conference!

I was making dinner for the family last night and had just shown Trish the new plates I purchased from Sam Taylor and Mary Barringer (see earlier posts on the show). Decided to put them to use for the meal and thought it might be fun to see Pots in Action. So I issue this challenge, to all three of you out there, put up some images of pots you have collected that you use on a regular basis. It would be great to see some wonderful pieces being used as they were meant to be used:

Here is our morning coffee set-up: Todd Wahlstrom for Trish on the right (half and half, no sugar), Jennifer Allen for me (everything in it), Barbara Knutson sugar bowl...

The aforementioned Mary dish, Sam plate, and old friend Makoto Yabe for the kids...

St. Earth and GreenFire

Did anyone else read St. Earth's blog about bilateral and trilateral symmetry? Jeepers, it was a good post. First, Three Is A Magic Number is definitely my favorite School House Rock song. Second (or should I make this the third point?), I am a big fan of trilateral symmetry and often think about numbers when determining how many I should make of something. Third, I love the discussion of history, culture, science, and mathematics that permeated the blog. It was invigorating to read and the only bummer I could find is that I couldn't easily leave a comment. Anyone see how to do this?

Yesterday, we fired GreenFire. 14 hours total. I write a little bit more technical stuff on the GreenFire blog. It was a beautiful day to fire and the first that Nora and I did on our own. It was a little nerve racking in the beginning to get the thing off the ground - the last time we fired, we had a huge crew on hand, everyone fighting for time at the stoking area, or time to ask Kusakabe a question, or cooking, or eating, or whatever. It was exciting and crazy and energizing. This time it was super quiet, with just the two of us firing. We brought it up slow (worried about dampness from the winter) but it climbed beautifully and reached temp in about 11 hours. We side stoked for two hours and then monitored cooling for another hour before shutting it down. We'll unload tomorrow. If the work turns out well, it will be so exciting to have dialed in this part of the process. Now, just to make some interesting work...