ACC Atlanta

Are you in or near Atlanta this weekend? Come on down to the Cobb Galleria Center for the American Craft Council show. Saturday 10-6 and Sunday 10-5. I'm here with loads of pots so ce check it out! Cheers!

The road east.

I left Friday evening for the 1500 mile journey east to Baltimore for the ACC show.  The packing, loading, and journey were uneventful and stress-free except for a 5 hour window in Virginia.  There was a nasty snow storm that had me white knuckled.  There were a couple of near disasters but I made it through.  I can count on one hand the number of times I've had to drive in heavy snow in the last 12 years.  I had to dust off the cobwebs and remember my early days of driving in Minnesota.  Anyways, no big deal.  I made it safe and sound.

I made some poor man pedestals, the base is a cardboard box and the top is made from scrap plywood laying around.  They cost about $2.50 each.  And they're gray, not mint, bad lighting.

I took my trailer up to Baltimore but I wasn't too keen on having to pay the labor union to unload it.  The weather was gorgeous so I unloaded it all in the hotel parking lot and reloaded it into my truck.  1 hour of work saved me $280.

Getting set-up, I have a larger space this year, 8x15.  I much prefer the larger space as it gives me room for some pedestals to help show off the larger pieces.  This booth is somewhat modular and I have extra panels to do anything from 10x10 to 10x15.  The display area is only 7 feet deep so I have space in the back for extra pots, packing and other show crap.  Because this spot was only 8 feet deep I brought a panel to the front on the right hand side so I have a little area on the side for storage/packing.

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With the shelves installed.

All set up for the wholesale portion.  I don't offer everything I make for wholesale, so this setup shows all the shapes and patterns available.  I will change it up for the retail days, I'll get a photo of that up hopefully this weekend.

The wholesale days were good this year, I almost doubled the volume of orders over last year.  A few new shops/galleries from the west coast to the east coast. 

If you're in the region come see the show.  I have a couple of free passes left so if you'd like to come shoot me an email.
Friday 10-8
Saturday 10-6
Sunday 10-5

Well, I'm off to get some rest.  Tomorrow is the first day of retail and it's a long 10 hour day.

Cheers!

Grounded

My pots at Schaller were sent to be part of a group show, the only other person I knew that was going to be in the show was Warren Mackenzie, enough for me, I'm in!  The show finally went up today and man am I stoked about the company that I am in.  I'm a hard workin mofo and it's nice to see that paying off. 

In other news I fired off XV today.  It was an erratic firing, the front stack was a little looser than the rest and so it was a fight to keep it from getting too hot.  But, we got a nice little snow fall at the end of firing, it was purdy.  I'll unload on Tuesday.  I'm leaving this Saturday for Baltimore, not sure if I'll be posting again before then.  Gonna be a busy week!

Cheers!

New work at Schaller Gallery

I just sent some of the best work from the January firing up to Schaller Gallery.  This lidded dish was one of my favorites.  Check em out!  The etsy store will come down in a couple days and be down for about the next month as I'll be traveling for the ACC shows.  So this is a good place to pick up some nice pots! 

Cheers!

Firing XIV

I fired off XIV this past Sunday and it was a very good firing.  I met a gal named Anna awhile back who studied ceramics and just graduated this last spring.  She has been doing some work for me from time to time and I decided to let her help me with this firing.  I've never had someone help me and I don't even allow people to come around while I'm firing, too much distraction.  It was nice to have someone who had no experience with wood firing, they have no idea what's going on and are there for the experience of it.  That makes for a much smoother firing.  A friend of mine told me that other potters can be the worst firing partners, backseat drivers and such.  A valid point, if someone were to try and commandeer my firing I'd boot their ass out.  Anna took some photos of the firing and I'll share a few of them here.

The first few hours of the firing can be fairly boring.  I leave a pile of these little blocks of wood to chop as it gives me something to occupy my time. 

Stoking. I'm wearing gloves so this must be sometime after cone 5, that's when the pull bricks start to get too hot for the hands.  Yeah, that's right no gloves, I'm a tough guy.

The coal bed, this is later in the firing, somewhere around cone 7 I think.

Blowholes.  I had that spyhole pulled because it was hot spot, sometimes pulling the spyhole can slow it down a bit.

Test ring.

Obligatory spyhole flame shot.

Good surfaces.  Very pleased with this firing.

This piece was an experiment.  Tile 6 slip over an ochre slip, ash glaze on top.  I am absolutely in love with this.  I'm bummed that I don't have more time before my ACC shows to do some more of this.  You can expect to see more of this type of work in the future.

 

Forgot to wad the bottom of a 15# jar.  F**king amateur hour.

Cheers!

Tools.

I noticed this guy Troy Bungart on etsy a while back was making some nice looking pottery tools, but none of them seemed to be what I was interested in so I had kind of forgotten about it.  Last week I noticed that Kyle Carpenter had snagged a couple and had them custom made and so I contacted Troy about making me a large rib and a paddle.  I've really wanted a longer straight rib for some taller pots, the one I had him make is 7" long.  I sent him a crude MS paint sketch of what I wanted and I had them in my hands in 6 days.  I'm a big fan of do-it-yourself but when there are people like this who do it far better than I can and for very reasonable prices, I would prefer to support them.  The quality is top notch.  I really look forward to using these tools and giving a couple of my ten year old Kempers an honorable retirement. 
http://www.etsy.com/shop/burlchaser

Cheers!

This month on the facebook.

Here is a recap of what's been going on around here for the last month or so.  I had some orders to get out and really wanted to get them out before xmas but I ended up firing off #13 right after new years.

It was a bit chilly so I brought the pots in to wad them.

 I received a call from a builder with some scrap wood right around the time I was getting ready to fire, serendipitous

Grinding shelves and taking names.

Glazing some pots out of the back of my truck, it was beautiful day, so why not?

Ground and washed shelves, and a gnarly wood pile.

 XIIV Partially loaded up.

Rippin off my buddy Scott.

Cone 10, time to eat!

Missed the bucket.  There's a joke about guys and toilets somewhere in here.

Leaf deco, 25# bowl.  

My baby girl trying to get warm.

View from the wheel.

Lidded pots.

 Some stellar pots packed up for a show, stay tuned for that one!

Cheers!