This is the place to see and buy my pottery.
Last week’s kiln opening revealed some pretty nice pots (smile) and some duds (shrug). Had to throw away one mug (bad handle) and will have to re-glaze some other mugs (rescue mission?). These photos — if I can get them to line up properly — show a few of the better pieces. [click on photo to get a much bigger view]
pie plate
large bowl
four yunomi
large vase
berry bowl
Yunomi are Japanese tea bowls, like the ones pictured here.
Three Yunomi
I have always liked the shape, but had never made any. I bought a nice one recently from Wisconsin potter Steve Rolf and use it for red wine (I don’t drink tea). I finally threw a set of four last week, but they probably won’t be glazed for another month or so (takes me a while to get a full kiln load). It was fun. Pictures coming sometime this Spring!
In an undergraduate film-making class, I played a character in another student’s film. The character was in jail and kept pleading through his cell bars, “Hello, out there…” in a kind of pathetic way. I think it was based on a Clifford Odets play. (I’ll have to look that up.) Anyway, posting on this here web site feels a little like that.
I unloaded the kiln this morning and most of the stuff turned out well. Here are a few pictures….[click to embiggen]
Four squared mugs
A couple small faceted pots
Two of eight tumblers
One of two berry bowls
Some stuff for a November kiln load
You’ll see in the photo at left a few sets of pots — four squarish mugs, eight small tumblers, two plates with Kanji characters on them (one symbolizes peace or harmony, the other spring), and two small bowls that will become ‘berry bowls.’ I’m also fooling around with lidded forms that will (I hope) have wooden handles. A word or two about each of these:
Mugs: I’m getting better at handles, and folks who run the local consignment shops (at the Northfield Arts Guild and the Paradise Center for the Arts) tell me that my mugs sell well. But I didn’t want to crank out a bunch of ho-hum round mugs. The squared-off thrown forms were fun.
Tumblers: These are made of B-Clay and have been modified by smooshing them a little between thumb and forefinger below the middle, forming what I think will be a comfortable handhold. I’m told that it has become chic to serve red wine in small clay tumblers. Bohemian, perhaps? Anyway, these seem to be popular so, what the heck, I will shamelessly cater to the hot consumer trends just to sell a few pots!
Plates: I really like making plates, and will say immodestly that I’m getting pretty good at it. Two of these have Kanji characters (traditional Chinese characters adapted by Japanese calligraphers) on them, using paper resist and colored slips. If these turn out, maybe I’ll make a set with the four seasons. Or something.
Berry bowls: This summer, I made a couple of small colanders. At least I thought they were small colanders. Customers who visited my booth at Riverwalk Market Fair said “Oh, what nice berry bowls!” Being, as always, just a bit behind the curve, I hadn’t heard of berry bowls. They are, I gather, small colanders, often with a matching small plate or saucer, intended to wash, drain, and serve fresh berries. So, aiming for next spring’s local blueberry, raspberry, and strawberry harvests, I’m working on berry bowls.
Lidded forms with wooden handles: Fuller (you know who you are) gave me a box full exotic wood pen blanks (used by wood turners to make barrels for pens) a couple of years ago. I haven’t found a really effective way to attach wooden handles to clay pots, but a friend gave me some ideas that I will try out. We shall see.
Repetition — making the same (or almost the same) form over and over, as in a set of mugs or bowls or plates — is too confining for some potters. It feels too much like work. But I kind of enjoy the challenge and discipline involved. I also like to make wholly original stuff; true one-of-a-kind pieces. And, from a business standpoint (as If I had any business acumen at all, which I don’t), there is a market for both. The point, I guess, is that I’m not doctrinaire about any of this. Just trying to have fun and get better and sell a few pots.
Visited Guillermo Cuellar’s pottery studio this weekend and bought a lovely bowl (similar to the one shown at left). Cuellar studied at Cornell College with Doug Hanson years ago. Our son Daniel graduated this year from Cornell College, where he took a sculpture class from Doug Hanson. We had a nice chat with Guillermo and his wife about the Cornell connection. Another potter was there, too — Will Swanson — who does beautiful work and who was friends with the late Charles Halling, a Northfield potter who influenced me a lot.
My goal: produce work half as good as Halling, Swanson, and Cuellar.
Sept 2011 glaze load
Most of these pieces used glazes or techniques that are new to me, including:
All in all, a fairly successful firing. Half of these are already spoken for, but the others will go on sale at the River Walk Market Fair on Saturday (9/24) — assuming I can get them priced and inventoried and packed…
Thanks for visiting. [To view a frighteningly large version of the photo, just click on it.]
The next load...
It has taken almost the entire summer, but I have a load of new stuff ready for the kiln (in a week or so, that is). It includes two very small commissions. One for a friend who wants four ‘doodle’ mugs for a family gift exchange. The other for the Arts Guild shop, where my B-clay tumblers have apparently gained a following. Most of the local potters with whom I’m acquainted dislike commissions because it requires more repetition (read: drudgery) and less spontaneity. I kind of view these small commissions as a challenge. Moreover, the folks who commission these sets do not expect exactness — indeed, they appreciate and enjoy the subtle differences in each piece. They know that if they want uniformity, they can just go to Target or Pottery Barn. [Click on the photo for a jumbo version]
Yesterday was my fourth or fifth Saturday at the Riverwalk Market Fair in Northfield, trying to sell some pots. A few of the other vendors and I were chatting, trying to figure out why some weeks have been good and some not. Most of us had assumed that good weather would bring people out, which was true, but did not correlate to sales. We also had guessed that other events in town, like college alumni weekends, bike races, motorcycle rallies, car shows, soccer tournaments, and the like would bring people out. Also true, but that didn’t correlate to sales. Yesterday, for example, was a beautiful day — sunny and warm. There was the annual “Outlaw Run” starting in downtown Northfield, which is an odd mixture of bikers and history. The event starts with a re-enactment of the infamous raid by the James-Younger gang on the First National Bank of Northfield (1876), then turns into a motorcycle rally in which great mobs of bikers follow the route that Jesse James used to escape capture after the failed bank robbery. I think they go to Millersburg, MN (where Jesse allegedly got fresh mounts by stealing them) and then on to Waterville, MN, where one of the gang was captured (but not Jesse).
Anyway, there were hundreds of folks in town for that event and plenty of townies out to watch the visitors. Lots of foot traffic along the Riverwalk. Here’s the thing, though: Weren’t nobody buyin’ nuthin’! I sold one pot in 5 hours, and that one the cheapest of the lot. Weird.
