Dillsboro

Last Saturday was the Western North Carolina Pottery Festival in Dillsboro. My friends Mike and Karen Baum and Laura Davis had booths.Mike had been urging me to go for a while and I'm glad I did. I drove the little motorhome and was allowed to just stay in the parking lot all weekend. It was really nice to have my own little warming station to retreat to.

The day dawned cold with a dusting of snow. Pots has little snowy accents on their rims as I walked thru on my way to coffee.There were 40 booths and every one of them was very high quality.I took pictures as I went but the battery on my camera pooped out early so there are not as many pictures as I would like but you should get the feel of the showfrom them. When the show opened, the crowd surged past the barricades and the frenzy was on. Mike said the crowd was not as big as last year but people came to buy. Dillsboro is very small so most people were from out of town and did not want to go home empty handed.

There were demo's all day, including featured potter Stephen Hill. Where else can you get a Stephen Hill Workshop for a $3 admission? I met many potter's whose work I respect and really enjoyed myself. I particularly liked meeting John Bauman, Joy Tanner, Doc Welty, and Mark Sudlarek. Google them to see more of their work.

Everyone was very hospitable and after I helped Mike and Karen strike their tent and load up, I even got invited to the Potter's Dinner with everyone. My one screw up of the day was watching TV with the generator off. About 3 AM I woke up in a freezing cold camper because the battery for the fan on the furnace ran down and shut down the system.Luckily, the engine has a separate electrical system. I was able to start the bus and head down the road for a couple of hours. This recharged the system so I pulled into a rest area and took a long nap with heat.

I spent Sunday with our daughter Kate in Charlotte and threw clay for 5 hours straight on Monday to demo for her art classes at West Mecklinburg H.S. I needed to get home so after school it was a 9 hr drive to get home by midnight. It was a great trip but as I always say, "No matter where I ramble, No matter where I roam, There is no chair that fits my ass ,Like the one I have at home".A couple of captions did not come through. The picture at the top is Doc Welty, the Crystaline vase is Phil Morgan and the ash bowl is Michael Lalone from the John C. Campbell school. Enjoy the pictures.

P.S. Empty bowls Cincinnati made $32K Sunday. A new record. Wish I could have been in two places at once.

North Carolina

Last Thursday, I loaded up the little motorhome and headed south on a pottery junket. First stop was Tater Knob Pottery near Berea Ky. My friends Sarah Culbreath and Jeff Inge were both in the studio so I had a very nice visit with them and shared what has been going on in our respective parts of the world.Sarah continues to make some of the finest pottery in Ky while Jeff has branched out into doing woodcuts as well.You can see their work at Taterknob.com.

Next was a stop at the Ky Music Hall of Fame for the quick tour, then on to Racoon Valley Campground for the evening. Thursday is Jam night at he campground and anyone is welcome to join their regulars for Old Time and Bluegrass Music.I got my courage up enough to play and actually sing in front of 30 or so people.(Like I said, they let anyone play.) I had a great time but needed to head down the road Friday to the Western North Carolina Pottery Festival in Dillsboro.

Friday I was disappointed to arrive too late for the clay olympics that are held to open the show but ended up having such a fine evening that the heart of the show will have to come in another post later this week.I hooked up with friends Mike and Karen Baum and Bev. O'Daniel from Cincinnati and we headed over to Sylva. Bev and I toured Sylva while the Baums went to check in at their motel.

We found one of the nicest displays of pottery I had ever seen in an antique store. The owner is a pottery collector and had brought in pieces from his stash for the weekend.Beautiful pots, all in great condition.Enough talk. Here are the pictures.Tune back in the end of this week for more from the festival itself.


 

All Screwed Up and the Wife has a Fit

I've been waiting for weeks to use this title. The ceiling panels are all screwed up. As in the last screw has been driven. It's clean, bright, white, and there is insulation behind it. I think this technically completes the construction phase of the new studio. I need to build more shelves and add a heater but that is more furnishing than actual construction. I want to thank my brother Norris, my wife Tina, and Laura, Peggy Anne, and Linda for all their help. You just can't hang a ceiling by yourself.

Ok, I just couldn't resist this teaser either.After hard shopping and tooth and nail bargaining Tina bought a new Honda Fit this week.Thanks for stopping by and if you don't have empty bowls tickets yet, go to http://www.clayalliance.org/ to pick some up. It's a good time for a great cause. Feed hungry kids, help them with their homework, hook them up with needed services.

Ramble and Rant

The pottery schedule has been light this week so my old brain has had time to wander around.I made a mistake by wandering past the election ads on the T.V. Contrary to the lies that are spewing from every corner, there are a few things that I still believe.

Ted Strickland did not singlehandedly put Ohio in the fix we are in. He has brought school funding in line with court orders. His predecessor fought it and studied it to death but never really tried to comply.He has worked to bring both major parties together in the state house and has been effective in doing so.He believes in Law, Education and the strength of Ohio.I have met with Ted several times and feel he is a good guy with out collective best interest at heart.

The State budget does have problems. Guess what, in a worldwide recession people lose jobs. In Ohio that has been lots of jobs. Many of them the manufacturing jobs that have been leaving Ohio for 20 years. When that happens, government's expenses go up and tax revenues go down. No mystery here.If the Republicans had a quick fix, why didn't they tell Arnold so he could fix California where they pay their bills with IOU's and pay state employees minimum wage when they pay them at all?

As CEO wages have  gone through the roof and middle class wages declined, I'm still waiting for Reaganomics to trickle down to me. It didn't work then, it won't work now. The only thing I got was the bill for the tax cuts added to my tab.


For 20 years after WWII auto manufacturing drove our economy and manufacturers made promises to unions that were unsustainable.Then they bought KIAs and Toyotas and sold them as Fords and Chevys.The laid off American workers couldn't buy them and for the workers that made it to retirement, too many of the checks are bouncing.

For 30 years after that, housing values drove the economy.People learned that if they didn't have money for a  car, home improvement, vacation, or to pay off a credit card they could just borrow against their house and get a tax deduction for doing so. When housing crashed, there was no equity to borrow against. Even if you want to sell, most people can't because they owe more than they can sell for. Builders can't build because there is nothing for people to borrow against for home improvements and so it goes.

 Health care reform is not bankrupting America. We already pay for almost all Americans health care, just in high priced ER's instead of lower cost clinics.

Respect for each other and the constitution(all of it if we like it or not) will not bring about the downfall of our nation. Knee jerk reactionaries are a much bigger threat. I don't want to elect someone who says she is just like me (even if she is a witch with super powers). I want someone smarter than me. Well, at least harder working.

No matter what lies are told and what promises are made we are not getting out of this for a while yet.We are not getting out of it until we quit name calling, finger pointing, and ignoring laws just because a loud group of us doesn't "want" some legal activity to go on.I may or may not want a mosque near ground zero(even though there was one in ground zero).Doesn't matter, first amendment trumps what I want. All the noise and hatred makes us look like the noisy haters our enemies make us out to be.We need to return to the idea of consensus, not just majority.

Real Life Gets in the Way

Once again real life has kept me busy this week and prevented me visiting my virtual world in the blogosphere  as soon as I would have liked. The picture at the left is a large platter that I got out of the gas kiln yesterday. You really can't see it online but the ash glaze is shot full of golden crystals. It is about 14" wide and 3" deep. Big enough to say hey look at me but not too big to put away if necessary. It is also one of the few pots that came out exactly as I envisioned it.

Besides working on pots, Studio construction marches on. With the help of friends and family, we got half the ceiling installed and insulated. The metal ceiling looks great, is prefinished and will never need painting. I also added a porch light for those late night trips to the kiln. No pottery tip this week. I have more tips in production but you will have to ask for them if you want them. Let me know.