January Adventures

I've been working on making some pieces with hearts instead of birds stuck on. Here's a picture of a small group of them:

I made these for the Blackbird shop in Almonte. I figured with Valentine's Day approaching, I could indulge my liking for hearts!

I also made more Bird pieces, including a salad set I rather like. It's not easy to design a series of pieces that work together as a 'line'. I want the shapes to be consistent and the design to work on the different items. In this case, the birds work fine on the flat pieces and the open pieces but I'm darned if I can see how to use them on, say, a teapot or a sugar bowl! Maybe inspiration will strike one of these days....

Everything was ready last Wednesday, but delivering them was another story. First I realized that Thursday morning was my eye doctor appointment. I have been waiting close to three months for this, having broken my glasses back in October, so I wasn't about to miss that. Unfortunately, in the morning there was freezing rain with snow forecast. Since I hate being late for things, I left the house early and thank goodness I did because the roads were dreadful. What would usually be a 35 minute drive took over an hour. My new 'specs will be ready tomorrow or Friday, hurray! (No more going out in public with glasses held together with that old white adhesive tape. A young fellow at the eye doctor's, also waiting, told me how he and his brothers so often had to tape their glasses like that when they were young. I tried to suggest to the waiting room that white tape was a new fashion accessory but I don't think anybody was buying it.)
Thursday afternoon it was just too icy to venture out again.

Friday morning it snowed and snowed..... but I thought I'd try it and of course got the truck totally stuck. I was doing quite well, out of my parking spot and starting down the driveway, and then, in a blink, slid sideways off the driveway into a foot of icy white stuff.

Saturday it took an hour of shoveling and the door mat pushed under the spinning tire to get out.

Good thing I like winter.

Be It Resolved:

Yes, New Year's resolutions can be deadly. Especially other people's. But I can't resist. In the interest of making 2012 the best it can be, I hereby declare that:

1. From now on, 3 or 4 weeks behind will be the 'new normal'.

2. I will stop feeling embarassed and looking around to see if anybody noticed when I run over a curb in one of those parking lots designed for Mickey Mouse cars. I am driving an intermediate-size pickup, darn it. I will instead look like I'm proud to have turned so tight a corner.

3. First Husband is retiring this summer. He is going to have plenty of time to pursue interests he never knew he had: cooking, shopping, laundry......

4. I will stop procrastinating. If you think I've already failed on that one, go back and read #1.

5. I'll finally make that bowl with the cut-down rim for Siobhan. Her broken one has been sitting on the shelf in the Studio for (yikes) 3 years now. She did say 'no hurry'.

6. I am going to teach Kip (First Dog) to enjoy riding in the truck. I don't know how because it is impossible to drive with a large Border Collie trying to sit on your head, but I'll think of something.Maybe First Husband will have to come along. Then Kip will only be trying to sit on my head half the time, and I can drive the other half of the time. Wherever we go, we'll get halfway there.

7. I am going to finish off some of the multitudinous buckets of random glaze that are clogging up the space under the counters in the Studio. I used some last year for vases, planters and so on, but then didn't I go mix up more new ones. Super Helper is getting really tired of mixing up buckets of glaze just so I can dip one bowl. Any customer who asks for a colour I don't have will be persuaded that she would really rather have it in blue.

8. I will blog regularly. 'Way more fun than housework.

9. No more doing the crazy woman dance when the recycling truck barrels on by just as I get to the end of my driveway. I will be calm. I will calmly look around at the scenery. I will calmly turn the truck around and calmly drive back to the house. I will calmly put the recycling back in the garage. Then I will NOT kick First Dog, yell at First Husband or otherwise show my true colours. I will remember #1 above.


Yes, 2012 will be a good year!


Hope yours is too!

'Tis the Season

To have a Merry Christmas!

And, for the New Year:

May all your runny glazes run
   and all your non-runny ones not run.

May all (or at least, most of) your lids fit.

May all your pinks fire up pink
   and your reds fire red.

May your greens be green,
  and your glaze tests surprise you (in a good way).

May your customers snap up your work,
   your students admire you,
   and your mother brag about you to her friends.


In other words, Have a Great 2012!

Gak!!! No Title!

That's because I am having a holiday. Yes, you heard right. No potting. No puttering, very little plotting. Just resting, cleaning house, a little shoppin', a little, actually a lot, of getting caught up on the computer. It always seems that whatever I work on, everything else falls behind. If I work hard in the Studio, the house falls apart. If I work on the house and other personal responsibilities, then the pottery doesn't get made. Why can't I be well-balanced like other people?

Come to think of it, I was told I wasn't well balanced back in my school days. Oops.

On the other hand, a maid would solve a lot of problems and nobody would notice that I'm not well-balanced, so it's not my fault.

More seriously, I'm doing some re-evaluating of my work. It's been a tough year for selling handmade pots. People didn't want to spend much, so I more and more made small items. That worked to some extent, but I had to make a lot of them to earn my pay! It takes a lot of $5-$10 items to buy groceries. Not to mention that they are B O R I N G! My Red Fox Watching designs didn't sell. My Pansy designs didn't sell. Oddly enough, plain blue spongeware sold well , as did my new Bird line.

Red Fox Watching

Pansy Design on a plate

Bird design plates, bowl and mug

Guess I'll downscale Red Fox and Elisabeth's Wild Garden (which the Pansies are part of), make more Birds and try a few new ideas I have......

And plan on making a lot of magnets, spoonrests, small mugs, soap dishes and other small things.

How have you found it this year? I'd love to hear how you other potters did in 2011. Did your selling patterns change? What did you find worked, what did not? Any ideas for 2012 that you are willing to share?

Bump.....

Some days are just not meant to be good for your self-esteem.

The phone rang early this morning. A small shop in a neighbouring village. Back in about August, she had asked me to show her some pots to possibly display in her store. I brought a selection and put them out for her to look at but she was in a big rush. The Red Fox pattern she dismissed immediately, 'nobody likes brown'. The Wild Garden designs she ignored. She liked the blue-and-white spongeware. We agreed I would fill up a maple hutch with b&w stuff.

I did.

Now she tells me she hasn't sold anything, nobody likes spongeware, too 'country', they want something more 'upscale' and 'with it'. She wants Red Fox.

Ok. Rewind.

Then a sweet young mom with two impossibly cute little girls came to pick up her Bird design hors d'oevres platter. 'Oh', she says, 'it was supposed to be fish-shaped.' Rapid memory scan. Nope. She never mentioned that. I sent her a picture of the finished platter, she did not email back that it was supposed to be a fish..... She had asked about my fish platters (saw them on my website) but I never connected the two. Luckily, she said she'd be back in February so I can still do it. A fish-shaped platter with black birds on it. Could be fun!

It's only 7 pm. What else is going to whap me upside the head today?

Urban Craft

It's an unfortunate truism that when you aren't busy, there is nothing to write about, and when you are, you don't have time to write.

The last two months have been a bit hectic. I won't bore you with the details but here's a summary: sales at my regular booth at the Farmers' Market were dismal. I had to make and sell a lot of $5 and $10 items. People just aren't spending this year. My local art show, Expressions of Art went very well but my sales were disappointing. I had made platters and shallow bowls with designs of Ravens on them, and they didn't sell. After the Show, I got two calls from people ordering Raven bowls and I found out that they didn't like the ones at the Show because they didn't like the orange leaves! I had done what I hoped were swirly autumn leaves, and was so pleased to be able to use a new food-safe orange stain. Sigh. Then early this month I did a new little craft sale called Handmade Harvest and did very well. I made only Bird stuff and Sheep stuff.... all small items, nothing over $25. This one is interesting - it's a new thing called Urban Craft. Hard to describe, but it's somewhat the twitter approach to crafts. One of the potters on Clayart has this to say about Urban Craft:

"My students ... think it's cool....Personal, handmade objects made with creativity and a sense of fun. The handmade aspect isn't so important to a lot of Urban Craft fans, I think, as the idea that it's not made by some sweatshop worker in the third world, or sold by some faceless marketing conglomerate, or mass-produced in lots of zillions. They like to feel they're making a statement by making or even buying this stuff. Things made from recycled or eco-friendly materials are a big hit, too. ... I don't think that more traditional art and craft fairs even hit their radar very much.

"From their perspective, a lot of traditional(ish) craft has gotten either stuffy and highfalutin', or else holds true to hippie roots that seem irrelevant to most younger folks.... This new stuff isn't necessarily all good or well-made, but it connects with a lot of cultural currents that traditional craft either ignores or disses. It ain't your granny's knitting...."

I think that says it very well. Thank you, Snail!

I'm not sure Urban Craft will displace traditional Craft, but I must say doing this Show was a breath of fresh air. I loved the creativity shown by the various vendors, and even though some things weren't really practical, I found them very appealing. OK, baby bibs made out of felt aren't going to work, and neither are necklaces made out of (mostly) wool roving.... but the designs were so much fun! And imagine this: this craft sale did not have 6 pages of rules for vendors. I felt so free!

Now the Studio is full of pots for the upcoming Christmas Market. After that I'm having my annual half-price sale (with two guests, both painters) so it's busy, busy, busy.

And it's going to snow tonight.

Bowls: Done!!

The bowls are done, the bowls are done! Yay, hurrah, cheer, fist-pump, happy dance!!!!

Yes, I know 200 soup bowls is hardly a career. But for me, a small studio potter, it was a big job. It took over the Studio for several weeks. I enjoyed making them; allowing myself to play with shapes and colours was great fun, but I kept having to push thoughts of the orders I wasn't working on to the background. Never mind, the BOWLS ARE DONE and next week cometh!

Next project: a series of platters and mugs showing Raven in the Autumn..... oy. They have to be done for the West Carleton Arts Society annual Show, Expressions of Art, October 8-9.

Another challenge!