River Arts District Exhibit

I've been sorting through pots that I'm setting up for my next exhibit. It's a group exhibit of potters in Asheville that's opening this Friday night in the River Arts District. It's in my old stomping ground, at the Clingman Cafe, which is right down the street from the Odyssey Center where I was a resident artist a few years back. The cafe has been having several clay shows there lately and I think it'll be a good venue for some of these pots to get out of the door and out where they can be seen!

The hard part is just trying to decide what's not going....I have way more pots than I need for this show, so I'm trying to pick out the best. If you're around, come down to check out the opening Friday night, 5:30-7:30 pm. The show will be up for the whole month of July.

Taking pots out of the woods and on to the big city tomorrow...

A close look

I was asked to shoot some photos for Jenny Lou Sherburne, a potter here in Bakersville. She needs photos of imagery that inspires her work, which is often the patterns and textures of fruits and vegetables. This is right up my alley, too, although one look at Jenny Lou's work gives you the idea that she pushes texture and pattern a little further, with intricately carved and altered porcelain forms. Check out the link above for more about Jenny's work.

I had so much fun photographing these fruits and vegetables, although I did find my mouth watering and thought it might be hard not to eat my photo subject!



Below are a few vegetables nestled into one of her large serving pieces. You can see her influence almost immediately. I love the vivid colors in this image.

This was such a fun project. I often find the most interesting things and patterns behind my camera and when I document images of my own work I discover things I hadn't noticed before. It was even more inspiring to get a closer look at Jenny's work and the patterns and lines of fruits and vegetables. Maybe I should be a food photographer!

There's a first time for everything!

My first pile of bricks! Now I must definitely be a potter. Don't all potters have piles of bricks everywhere? It's funny how we save and pile things up, clay, pots, packing material, kiln shelves, buckets, and now, for me, it's bricks! Thanks ever so much to June Perry who generously gave me this pile of hardbricks! I'm always amazed at the support that comes from potters and am thankful to live in such a close knit community of potters.

My kiln parts are coming together so I can build a little baby kiln. Another local potter, Micah Cain, gave me an old electric kiln, and I'm going to get some more bricks and a burner from Shane Mickey. Now I've got to get some posts and shelves and begin to think about how this is all going to come together. I'll have to carve away a space in the old barn where I stack my firewood for this baby kiln and talk to the gas company about getting a small tank and a gas line run out here. Although I know I'll outgrow it quite quickly, It'll be nice to have a small kiln for small kiln loads and testing.

And in other things, amidst a general cleanup of my studio, I made it back up to Roan to see more of the gardens and couldn't resist posting some more photos here:

Favorite places

The rhododendrons and flame azaleas are in full bloom up on Roan Mountain. I caught the last of the days sunlight on these blooms overlooking the Bakersville mountains.

sunlit moss under a canopy of fir trees

For a few more of my Roan photographs, go here.

Hot

I just drove around the state of North Carolina today, dropping off a friend at the Charlotte Airport, hitting Trader Joe's for some great deals on yummy food, and then headed to downtown Salisbury, NC to drop off work for a gallery that I'm in called Pottery 101. Cheryl Goins, a potter herself, has renovated an old historic building and created a beautiful pottery gallery as well as a clay studio with classes. We are planning a future exhibit as a solo show for me or with another potter....I'll keep you posted.

A hot day, it's nice to return home to the mountains, and now I'm headed up to my favorite stomping ground, the old Roan Mountain...the rhododendrens are in peak bloom right now, just in time for the Bakersville Rhododendren Festival this weekend. Until I get back to post pictures of the rhodos, check out my favorite photography blog for the full Roan Report.

Odds and Ends

Bits and pieces are straggling in from my kiln request...I guess you do have to be careful what you ask for...but I'm still taking offers in case you're out there reading and you are just sitting on kiln parts waiting for a good home. Who knows? I could build two small kilns! One to fire right after another.

Today's an odd soggy day and it just won't stop raining. It's feeling heavy around here and I've got lists piling up of things to do. I'm a perpetual list maker. This really helps me in getting things done, yet sometimes I find myself mentally forming lists just over trivial things. Just not feeling pulled into the studio yet. The, "I should get going...", is what we potters are always haunted with. But there are always other things to do being a potter besides making pots. Today's list was sorting through piles of paperwork and attempting to unclog my very old computer that is slowing down and filled to the brim.

In other news, there are exciting things on my Etsy page...this week I'm offering discounted shipping for all of my pottery mugs, check out my online pottery shop here. This sweet mug is just sitting there, waiting to find a good home. It's one of my favorite ones just recently from the last soda firing.

Resting

....a good day for dogs, plants and butterflies. Overall the tour was pretty good out here, despite how far out at the end of the county my studio is compared to the general Penland area that gets most of the traffic. Sales were about the same as before which is nice for a home show where I didn't have to go anywhere.

Just trying to rest up a bit after the whirl wind of full speed auto pilot that started about a couple of months ago. In the last week I managed also to finish planting all my seed starters in the garden...feels a bit late getting them in so hopefully I'll get something good to eat this summer. I have tomatoes, peppers, kale, spinach, lettuce, bok choy, peas, carrots, radishes, onions, and a complete herb garden. We'll see if after the weather, the bugs, the birds, the rabbits and the deer there will be enough that survives for me!

If I were a dog, I think I'd do that too.

I need a kiln!

I'm looking for an old electric kiln, perhaps one that is sitting out in the garage not being used, or even one that is beyond repair! I'm at the point where I'm needing my own kiln, after 3 years of renting kiln space. I'm planning a small kiln project to convert it to a small soda gas kiln here at my studio, and would love to recycle and reuse the parts of an old electric kiln! I'm also in need of a few old silicon carbide shelves and kiln bricks. I'd be interested in one somewhere in the western NC area, eastern TN or upstate SC regions so it is easy for me to transport it. Please help me figure out my next step and help with this transition! I'd appreciate any help or ideas I can get.

If you, or anyone you know of has any of these items, please contact me at:

Joy Tanner
Soda Fired Pottery
Bakersville, NC
joy(at)joytannerpottery(dot)com

Toe River Arts Studio Tour

The studio tour is on it way all weekend over here, check here if you want to catch details on the last day of touring around on Sunday. There's been a nice turn out here with more people than the previous year. It's nice to be in your own environment showing your work where people can see the studio and enjoy the scenery.

New wall tiles

There are pots everywhere! Between my shelving display and Will's, I think the showroom is looking pretty sharp!

So come on down if you're in town and check out these pots! Free snacks and lemonade!

one thing after another

Just got in from the Clayclub party and then heading over to Penland to hear this week's slides presentation. I missed the clay slides with Ayumi Horie, last night, but the slides were from the metals courses tonight. It felt good to get out of my clay box and hear some other perspectives, which in the end, all have their way of relating back to my focus in fine craft and the quest for finding 'my own personal thumbprint in the material', as one of the metals instructors mentioned seeking.

Things are coming along here setting up all the pots for the studio tour. I've got the front porch filled up and the showroom filling in between my display and Will's booth. The showroom is going to look pretty sharp in there, it'll be nice to leave it up that way for a while since I don't have another traveling show for a while.

Tomorrow is a big day, dropping off pots to a gallery while headed to Asheville for the Power of the Purse luncheon that I made those vases for. The artists were invited to the luncheon and to hear the guest speaker, which I think will be really interesting. Then it's racing back to little ol' Bakersville in the afternoon to teach my evening class. The studio tour starts Friday at noon so last minute touches and other things on the to-do list will have to get done in a pinch on Friday morning.

a good weekend

I'm back settling in after a long weekend away at a pottery festival in Townsend, TN. It was a small show of 3o potters with demonstrations and a wide variety of pottery. Unfortunately the sales were not great at all but there were other perks built into the weekend that brightened it up. Will and I went camping and explored the Smokies up to a hike at Clingman's Dome to Andrew's Bald, and along the Little River Trail in Elkmont.

One of the highlights was seeing the synchronous fireflies. Not knowing that this week in June was the peak time for viewing this rare species of fireflies only known to be in the Elkmont area of the Smoky Mountains, we lucked out and were camping right near there. In fact, it's such a popular event that the national park shuttles in 6 buses of curious people each night for two weeks to see these fireflies. Walking down the Little River Trail in Elkmont just before dusk with about 700 people around you that you can hardly see, you can feel the anticipation, waiting for the first fireflies to begin their mating calls. The forest was literally crawling with people with lawn chairs who had been waiting for 3 hours just to see some bugs! We were camping right there so were able just to stroll right down to the "best" viewing area. I kept wondering how the national park managed to get the lightening bugs to be down this particular road....bribing them to perform spectacular light shows each evening. I didn't get any pictures, but check out this picture and this to give you an idea of how amazing it was. There were hundreds of fireflies all lighting up the forest, sometimes sporadically, yet after a while they would get their act together and all become synchronous right before a short period of pitch black and then they would begin the show again.




This is Andrew's Bald, a couple of miles down from the top of Clingman's Dome, the second highest point east of Mississippi. The rhododendren were just beginning to bud out up there and the sunny view offered beautiful panoramas of the Nantahala National Forest.

Sweet little bluets along the trail

Feeling refreshed from the beauty of the weekend, now I'm back getting all the pots out and displayed for the June Studio Tour this weekend by the Toe River Arts Council. I'm cleaning out the shelves and am going to sell a lot of seconds, as well as firsts...so come on out to the studio, check the link for more information about the studio tour.

Still sorting

I had four of these bowls in the wood firing and they turned out quite dramatic. I really like the flashing and colors you can see all around and even the bottoms are interesting.


These smoky gray tumblers below are one-of-a-kind, they were right on the bagwall, right in the front of the shelves of pots where they get hit with all the wood ash, soda and carbon. I like the peach halos that show up.

Now I'm to the point of packing up pots and sorting through my booth display to get ready for a show in Tennessee this weekend near the Smokies.

Sorting and absorbing

I'm getting ready for a show this weekend and have been sorting through all of the new pots and sanding them. That's when I truly get to "see" the pots. After the unloading it's kind of overwhelming to really see them all, so later in the quiet moments of the studio, when I'm busy cleaning them up and photographing them is when I can really enjoy the details.


I love these small tiles! They are about 2" square and can be hung on the wall. I wasn't thinking they were "real" tiles for grouting, yet now that I see them I realize it could work and be really neat. These were just great kiln fillers and chances to try out fun textures, and now it could lead me down a whole new direction! I love how ideas stem from one thing and later have the possibility of branching out into something you never would have thought of before if you hadn't tried the first thing.


I had a great pile of mugs that turned out nicely, which is always good. I can never have enough mugs! I usually don't put the carved mugs in the picture below in the wood kiln since there is glaze in the carved area and that could really run. It never looks quite right, with the extra wood ash and soda competing with the delicate carved textures. This time, though I think they worked out fine since I put them in a relatively quieter zone in the kiln. Although, these are the best two below that I'm holding out for a real slide and you can see they definitely got the soda and ash splashed on!



It's been such a nice day, feels good to get my ducks in a row, those endless ducks keep appearing with that perpetual list...yet I did spend some time in the garden this weekend which felt great for my soul, yet my body is still feeling sore!