Getting by with a Little Help from My Friends

Once again I have been letting the old blog slide for too long but there really hasn't been that much to write home about. After the NC Potters Conference I came home inspired and made some pots. My back started hurting. I bought a used wheel and moved it out of a basement, back hurt a little more. I go in a rush to finish pots for Springfair. Sitting on the stool and throwing wasn't bad but straightening up afterwards was an ordeal. Life marches on. Last week I packed and loaded. That didn't feel too good either but I took my time and it was mostly ok. PS. The ammo boxes are my weights. They are full of gravel and work very well. Don't look bad either.

I had been asked to post some booth shots and frankly I took some quick shots during set up and got nothing of the booth after I stocked it. Life got hectic. The shelf units all have a single brace about a foot wide that attach to the uprights with a carriage bolt and a wingnut. The mug board is attached to the table behind with a strap and the foot hidden under the table will take some weight if needed. Everything is very stiff, light and quick to set up too.

6:30 Saturday morning found me pulling up to my booth. I got just a little help then the person who was helping me got called away and I finished by myself. I parked the van walked back up the street and started putting the booth together. I worked slowly and by 10 it was basically together. Time for coffee and a treat then stare at and reshuffle. We opened at 11 but there were plenty of people at 10:30. I had the corner booth right where most people came into the show. In that spot it usually takes a while to make the first sale. It was almost 11:30 when I did but it was over $100 so I was off to a good start. The crowd got bigger, I sold stuff and I wasn't doing it all $20 at a time either. The day before Mother's Day moves some nice BIG bowls and bakeware( the gift that keeps giving back)

 By about 1 pm it was going well but I had bent over too many times and started having back spasms. I had stashed a couple of Vicodin that I saved from my last major injury and taking one helped. People kept coming, and buying. Robin ( one of my regulars) had wanted small plates last fall so I made 10 "on spec" in her glaze. She showed up and bought all 10!!! That helped a bunch. I saw a friend who said she was volunteering but would be done in a little bit. I had a brainstorm and hired her to help me pack. Nikki came back at 5 , I took my last Vicodin and we set to work packing up. She is a very hard worker and a multi talented artist in her own right but is great at following instruction when need be. We had everything boxed in 45 minutes ! At that point other friends, both exhibitors and volunteers descended on my booth and told me to get the van while they knocked everything down. I pulled up, told them how the big jigsaw puzzle went together and by 6:15 I was driving off the lot. Nikki, Lauren, Jeanette, David and Trish will never know how much I appreciate them. Without their help I would have been loading at 9 o'clock.

This was a club show and all the vendors know each other to varying degrees so it is always fun to do. I was happy that everyone was saying that they did well. I had no idea how much I had sold but I knew it was good because I ran out of wrap and was down to my last couple of bags,( always a good sign.) When I got home, I was too tired to count the money so I asked Tina to do it. I was shocked at the total. Just the cash was a couple hundred less than my total receipts last year. When I added in the square I was floored. This ended up being my best show ever by a solid margin. Sunday was spent taking pain killers and sitting with a heating pad on my back but today is a lot better as long as I don't do anything crazy like put on my socks or tie my shoes!

A Little More From North Carolina

Here we go into the last round from NC Potter's Conf. and the influence that I brought home. Sunshine Cobb works in a very meticulous manner. She does some thrown work with really nice textures rouletted onto them but mainly, she makes coiled pots. The coiling and pinching gives her work an exquisite sensual surface which she then pierces and cuts pieces out of. It is delicate work but she just keeps at it in a very straightforward workwoman like manner. After firing with commercial glazes, she even goes so far as to sandblast them to soften the surface.

I love Paintings on the sides of buildings, especially if they have a working headlight !

Saturday night, we went to visit the home of a local collector. who has literally thousands of pots in his house. I'm not going to give out his name but he is elderly and has been collecting for decades. EVERY nook and Cranny in his rambling home is crammed full of pots to die for and he has already give 1000 to a university collection. Let the pictures speak.

Finally, I have been working on a pot that incorporates some influences from Tony Clennell. It has a 9# bowl, 6# cap, and a 4# base all attached to each other. Add a lid and some wheel thrown handles and this is what you get. Currently 16" tall and 14" wide. It is not really my style but it was good practice and a lot of fun to do. Now to dry it for a couple of months and see what happens in the firing. Thanks for stopping.

I've Been Led Astray

I need to be making mugs. I need to be making cereal bowls. Going to a conference, you see people making stuff like this.

So you come home and start making parts for pots you don't need. Here is the bottom

Here is the top.

Tomorrow, we'll see if they fit together and if the forms hold up when they are attached to each other. PS, I blame Tony Clennell for this. That guy is a hazard sneaking across the border just to mess with my complacency !

I want to show a piece of Steven Godfrey's work today also. I really wasn't familiar with him but he does some incredible work with porcelain and he came all the way from Anchorage Alaska to see us.

He does lovely work and seems like a nice guy too. He was a good presenter and held up his share of the stage. Not an easy task when the stage is shared with two other people.

I still need to review Sunshine Cobb and a visit to what is probably one of the best collections of contemporary pottery in the country. Thanks for stopping by and come back soon.

So Long Everybody

That's right. It's been so long since I posted that I think people quit looking for updates. I'm gonna fix that right now. It was a long January and February. The ankle still hurt some and I had to be careful not to get out on the ice and slip etc but it has settled to the point that If I overuse it, it hurts. If I take care of it, it feels like it did a couple of years ago. The limping seemed to screw with my back so there went another two weeks. Finally a couple of weeks ago I went for a routine check up and my doctor didn't like the way my face looked. Specifically a spot on  my face that turned out to be a minor skin cancer that comes off in a couple of weeks. They say it is nothing to worry about but then again it is not their face. All of this stuff has slowed down the pottery making this winter. I need to make Lasagna dishes, I need more mugs, I need more big bowls.  It will get done, I'll just be busy. I'll keep you posted, Honest. On the fun side of the ledger, I attended the North Carolina Potter's Conference last weekend. I have 92 pictures so I will need to space things out over a couple of weeks to go through it all.

Tony Clennell and I have been online friends for several years and this was a chance to meet up in person. I know it's not really that far to South Ontario but there are only a couple of days each year between skeeter season, blackfly season, and ice over so it has been hard to schedule a visit. Tony demonstrated his strong sense of style and distinctive line of multihandled shino glazed pots He also brought a nice selection of pots for sale and sold them all in short order. It was great to finally meet him and hang out for a while.With so many pictures, I didn't even process them so they are still raw but you can see what was going on.

In my quest to offend a wider array of people, I have still been singing a couple of times a week. Here is the latest. I'll post more from the conference in a couple of days. We're just getting started.

After 28 years, a New Companion

In 1988 I took the kids to a Student Council roller skating party. I mainly went along to make sure no one got hurt. I ended up nearly tearing my foot off. Triple ankle fracture, lots of soft tissue damage, and dislocation all rolled into a fraction of a second. It sounded like someone breaking a Louisville Slugger. I looked down at the foot dangling from my leg and knew I wasn't walking out of there. Someone called an ambulance, someone else volunteered to take care of the kids and call Tina when she got home from a meeting she was attending. ( Pre cell phone days). Actually things moved pretty smoothly and I was quickly attended to at the hospital. The Dr. took one look and said" That's what we call the Humpty Dumpty fracture" The humor was lost on me. Anyway they set it for the night and the next morning he tried to put the pieces back together. He was happy with his work but it wasn't his ankle that was hurting so bad. Without belaboring all of this, It eventually healed and after teaching for 3 months out of a wheelchair and a couple more months on crutches I could limp around without additional support. It got better but it never got right. I was told to expect arthritis and it came. Gradually the ankle stiffened and hurt more in response to activity.

Jumping ahead to December 2015. Standing most of the hay at a show and a 6 mile death march off a mountain in Tennessee ( see previous posts) finally pushed things over the edge. A month of all day and all night discomfort that ranged from an ache to me screaming assorted F-Bombs every time I moved set me to an Orthopedic and Sports Med center last week. The first response from the doctor as he looked at my X-Ray  was literally " Man that's ugly" The cartilage is worn down so thin that there is no room to get a needle into the joint for a cortisone shot. That surface that is supposed to be polished looks like the surface of the moon and there are bone spurs from arthritis all abound the edges. I was put on Prednisone for the immediate swelling and put into this brace that I will have to wear until I have something else done.

 

Next option is either an ankle fusion or a joint replacement. Good news is that the current regimen has helped and I am no longer screaming expletives each time I move. It's still sensitive and I am using a cane but it beats no foot at all. Hopefully I will be able to keep kicking the can down the road a while longer but I will probably have to do it with my left foot.