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.