Waiting for Cake

One of the things that Nancy said she wanted from the very first time she saw one, was Kristen Kieffer's cake plates. We ordered this from Kristen back when we were planning our vow renewal ceremony. As we got closer to our tenth anniversary, we both realized that the money we had planned to spend on the event was better used for other more practical things (lawyers, surgeons, etc).  We just celebrated our 11th anniversary, which traditionally is associated with gifts of steel. I would much rather have pottery any day of the week.

Kristen's pottery is top notch, in every way. So often potters are either mud-people, fire-people or they want to paint but are afraid of a big canvas. Kristen eschews those stereotypes, aiming straight into the heart of the traditions of decoration. Finding inspiration in everything from English silver teaware, to needlework, to gardening to wallpaper prints... Kristen manages to combine so many different cultures and aesthetics into a cohesive body of work that just begs to be used and displayed for everyone to enjoy.

Living With Pots

This soup mug was made by Ashley Kim. Not sure if you can make out the detail, but there is a line of red stitching around the waistline of this soup mug. Amazing feel in the hand. The recurved handle fits so incredibly well.  Ashley is having her holiday studio sale right now, so grab some pots before they are gone!

This next mug was made by Lynne Hobaica. My friend Sabra bought it for Aurora when she and I visited the Genessee Pottery in Rochester back at the end of Summer. Fantastic show! Just wish we had been there opening night so we could get more pots!

This last pot is one of my earliest bowls. Probably hadn't made two dozen bowls at this time. I thought of this as a BIG bowl when I made it. I had my daily lunch of ramen noodles in this through my second year of college. It travelled with me across the country so many times. It made the trip to WA state, to Florida, back to MA. Eventually out to UT for a long time. Finally it made it's home back here. The strangest thing about this bowl is its boring color. Honey Clear was a glaze I picked up from Vince Pitelka when I was at UMASS/amherst. It is a very VERY matte magnesium based glaze, but by adding 15% manganese dioxide to the glaze, it becomes a wonderful satin matte, with a gorgeous honey color. It feels almost like silk. Unfortunately the anemic color really killed sales. Nancy says it is quite possibly her least favorite glaze she has ever seen me use.

The other novel thing about this bowl is that is has red slate powder wedged into the claybody. A friend dug some up from the running track at Smith College... in hopes of making an oil spot glaze based on recipes from Nigel Wood. His glazes never worked out, but I used some of his red slate powder in my claybody. Shredded my fingers while trying to throw the stuff. Imagine glass in your claybody... slate is sharper! ouch.

Quick images from NCECA

For those of you who might never have heard of NCECA (National Council on Education in the Ceramic Arts), it is hard to imagine the overwhelming nature of a national clay gathering. It was a ZOO! 5000 potters, teachers, professors, engineers, geeks and mudslingers of every shape and size converged on Philly from Wednesday through Saturday of last week.




We traveled to Philadelphia with our apprentice Hannah and Mary Ellen Salmon. Thursday we were joined by Douglas who rounded our group out in the best way. Whether as a gang of five or as pairs or off on our own, NCECA was a blast!



We saw more pots than imaginable. We ate fantastic food. We saw and heard great presentations, workshops and demonstrations. For Nancy and I, the most important aspect of NCECA will always remain the reconnection with our friends. I wish I could say that I brought my dSLR on this trip, but it stayed home in the interest of saving weight. As it was, hauling our minimal gear from pillar to post was plenty hard enough. I think we walked 4-5 miles each day (at least, that's what our feet were yelling at us at the end of the day!).







What else can I say?