My Assistant

Always one to appear when there are boxes to hide in and packing peanuts to bat around, my cat Ziggy has been watching over me to make sure I ship the right pots out. It's nice to have help!

I've been slowly cleaning up and rearranging the studio, just one corner at a time. I'm trying to change things to help the work flow and to use every space more efficiently. When I'm in the middle of a big kiln load, I always run out of room to put pots and bisqueware. Sometimes things pile up in corners that don't need to be there, so I'm trying to create more space for myself. I think I'm going to build a new shelf and a new wedging table, so I'm trying to figure out the space it's going in and what dimensions they need to be. I'm excited to get it all fresh and clean and ready for working again. I haven't really deep cleaned and reorganized in the three years I've been in this studio so it was definitely time!

Decisions

I'm getting ready to send out this group of my best pots to Baltimore Clayworks for their Winterfest 2009 Exhibition in Baltimore, Maryland. After the last two kiln firings, I held back a large grouping of my best pots for the show at Baltimore, as well as another collection of pots for my next gallery exhibit, 'All in the details' at Pottery 101 in Salisbury, NC. That exhibit is a duo show of pottery put together by myself and from my friend and potter Annie Singletary from Black Mountain. A few years ago, Annie and I were both resident artists at the same time at the Odyssey Center for the Ceramic Arts in Asheville, NC. Since we moved on into different journeys of our life, we have continued to remain friends in mind and in clay. I have always felt we have similar roots in our passions for clay but interestingly branch off into our own interpretations of those inspirations. Annie has a new website and blog that you can visit here.

So for now, I'm deciding which pots go where. I need to send about 12 pots to Baltimore, of which I'll probably include a teapot, pitcher, vase, basket, ewer, reed jar, bowls, tumblers, mugs, cups and a small pitcher. So it's packing tape and bubble wrap for me as I prepare all of these pots to be shipped!

Then it's deciding which pots and how many I need for the Salisbury exhibit. Annie and I are sharing the entire gallery floor, which means that's a lot of pots! I was so lucky that I fired so many pots in the last couple of firings to get through all of the big October retail craft shows and still have enough show pots for the gallery exhibits.

A letter from the janitor

A little reality for the blog. No, this isn't a beautiful closeup of lichen on a rock, as you might think after all of my nature photography I post. Behind the scenes of my pottery, shows, and hiking excursions, this is the mold growing on ALL of my shelving and ware boards in the studio. Living in western North Carolina poses it's problems in a dark clay studio, especially with this extremely damp year we've had. I've been plagued by this recurring mold in the studio and now I've had it! I'm currently working on a HUGE studio cleanup and it's hard to know where to start. I rarely do a deep clean so things have been cluttering up. Lately I've been feeling like it's getting way out of hand and the mold takes it to a whole new level!

So, this potter is busy cleaning her studio and is feeling a little overwhelmed. Sometimes this roller coaster ride is a little rough, with the ups and downs of the self employed artist wearing so many hats. But it will surely feel good to get back in there once everything is clean again.

More Fresh Air

Here's some more shots I took along the Blue Ridge Parkway last week. The picture below is just past the Linn Cove Viaduct looking toward Grandfather Mountain.

Sunset

Here's the other nights' waxing moon over a Blue Ridge sunset....

Fresh Air

looking east toward Lake James

The past few days I took off for a break along the Blue Ridge Parkway, hiking and camping. I went to Linville Gorge, Table Rock and Grandfather Mountain. All of these amazing places aren't really that far from my little corner of WNC. It was nice to find pockets of fall color still hanging on. Depending on your elevation, fall had either passed by two weeks ago, or here, at Table Rock, was in full peak. You can see the dappled colors of fall within each mountain fold. These views are from high atop Table Rock looking down into the Linville Gorge Wilderness area. Click the link for last year's post on my backpacking trip down in the gorge. It's really one of my favorite areas. From the top I could see Roan Mountain, near home, Iron Mountain, Mount Mitchell, and Grandfather Mountain, all favorite areas within sight and not much of a drive.

looking across the Linville Gorge

looking north at Hawksbill Mountain and Grandfather Mountain in the wayback

It's nice to feel refreshed and to have had time to get out to see the fall color before it's all gone!

Show Time!

Here's a live view of my booth at the Southern Highland Craft Guild October Fair, in Asheville, NC. I'm exhibiting there today through Sunday. Still have a lot of nice pots in here...come and see for yourself!

Out for a walk

In between all my busy-ness of these two big pottery shows, I sneaked out for a short walk. The color up here is in its peak, a little earlier than normal it seems. This was walking up to Dennis Cove Falls, near Hampton, TN. There were 3 creek crossings and with as much rain as we've had, they were very hard to do just by rockhopping, trying not to get your feet wet. Although there was an alternate route...but my potters' arms aren't quite that strong.



Hope next week I'll get to get outside some more if I haven't missed it yet. I'm hoping to explore up the Blue Ridge Parkway.

Southern Highland Craft Fair

After a great show last weekend, I'm off again tomorrow to my next show with a load of new pots. This weekend Thursday through Sunday, October 15-18 I'll be at the Southern Highland Craft Fair in Asheville, NC. It's downtown at the Civic Center and there are over 200 exhibitors in the show. This ones going to be a good one!

More details about the event can be found at www.craftguild.org

Hope to see you there!

On to the shows

Will and I unloaded the kiln yesterday and I got a fair share of decent pots out of the load. The firing was a little different than normal, but then again, what's normal in a wood kiln? The pots really flashed cranberry red more than ever this time, which is great, way better than brown pots, there was just less soda showing up on the pots this time. Overall, I feel better with the amount of work I have now to get through from now until November.


So now it's packing up pots, the booth, and then I'm headed down to Spruce Pine this afternoon to set up for the big potters show this weekend. The show is in its 4th year and I'm honored to be exhibiting among such amazing potters that are up in these woods.

The show is October 10- 11, Saturday and Sunday 10 - 5 pm.

Don't miss this gathering of 30 great potters!

My Collections

I'm a collector of things, mostly small and mostly textured. Surrounding me I have bowls and plates filled with shards of shells, seed pods, bark, and branches. I also enjoy filling out my pottery collection, which is slowly growing, but these found objects are just as valuable to me. I have this collection on my breakfast table on a bark plate I made. I often find myself sorting through the pile, examining each little detail. I have whole shells, but usually I like the ones that have been fractured and worn down by the sea and the weather.

I've always had collections since I was growing up. I think it used to be feathers that started this whole thing. It's these little details that enable me to slow down and appreciate the moment. Then I realize the comfort I find in the simplicity of such things.

To find the universal elements enough; to find the air and the water exhilarating; to be refreshed by a morning walk or an evening saunter... to be thrilled by the stars at night; to be elated over a bird's nest or a wildflower in spring - these are some of the rewards of the simple life. ~John Burroughs

Bark Baskets

I worked on the last of the reed handles for a little bit today. The wood kiln is cooling and I'm trying to recover although I got slammed with a cold. I know it's from my relentless pushing around that I do, such a busy little bee. Problem is, I've gotten too good at keeping myself busy. I've had to force myself down on the couch with a pot of tea and a good book the last few days so I can hopefully recuperate before all of my big shows coming up.

Anyway, I'm happy with these bark baskets, and as you can see, I have a new little one now. The larger one has such orangey red fall colors on it, I thought perhaps I should call it the 'harvest basket'.


Unloading the wood kiln tomorrow!

Go Team, GO!

I'm loading Will Baker's wood and soda kiln tomorrow for another firing we're squeezing in before my next two shows. It's a team effort, this time around we are splitting the kiln load and I'm putting in a lot of the leftover pots that I made that I didn't get in my previous firing. We'll load it tomorrow and start firing it overnight and finish it Monday. It's nice to split the load of pots and split the workload, which makes for a smoother 24 hour firing. We can take turns stoking the kiln with wood, otherwise 24 hours of nonstop stoking by yourself can be utterly exhausting! I'm excited to get some more 'twilight pots' out of this kiln load. It's in Will's kiln that the 'twilight pots' come out the best. So for the next 48 hours I'll be loading pots and then hopping around a hot wood kiln, singing songs, stoking the fire, and gazing upon the lazy river of flame inside the kiln. Just wish the kiln walls were made of glass so you could see that constant river of flame fighting its way through the pots...wouldn't that be cool?

Ridge Bowls

Ever since my friend deemed a certain tone of my wood and soda fired cups, "twilight cups", I've been wanting to find interesting names for my pots. Names that suggest the details of nature that I so love and feel refreshed by and in turn, incorporate into my clay pots.

This impressed texture of these 'ridge bowls' I've done for a while and it's one of my favorites. I often think of it as the folds and ridges of a mountain range. The glaze pools in the deeper areas of the texture and breaks on the ridges, just like the sunlight casting its shadows into the deep folds of the mountain ridges, while lighting up the spine of the ridge. I saw this last night on a nice adventure over on Unaka Mountain, along the Appalachian Trail near Erwin, TN. It's hard to capture the essence of those mountain folds in a picture rather than seeing them in person, but maybe these below will show you what I see in my bowl texture:



This batch of bowls turned out really nice, the shino glaze on the interior is more reduced than in some previous firings. I love the warm golden, peachy tones...


Do you sense a theme going on here in my mind with the changing of the seasons? I keep talking about things using the terms warm, cozy, toasty, golden, coral, and then when you get me talking about food I'm referring to spices and hot soup! Ah, the cozy things of life.

Oh and one last picture to get you through your day:

this was last night's coral sun setting over Beauty Spot Mountain

Have a nice weekend!

The best cookies I have ever made

When I'm not in the studio or outside with my camera, then I'd rather be cooking. Truly, these are the best cookies ever! They're all gone now or I would have showed you a picture. But just imagine a chewy ginger cookie with melted chocolate and I bet you you'll find yourself right there in the kitchen trying to make these wonderful creations. So at least I can share the recipe with you. The recipe is altered, of course, I can never make a recipe without altering something. I replaced one of the cups of flour with 1 cup of cornmeal, added crystallized ginger, and went extra extra heavy on the ground ginger, cinnamon and nutmeg. You can't go wrong with too much spice in my theory!

Chewy Ginger Chocolate Cornmeal Cookies

3/4 c unsalted butter, plus more for baking sheet
1 cup flour
1 cup cornmeal
1/3 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
4 tbsp ground ginger (the more the better)
2 tsp baking soda
2 tsp cinnamon (also the more the better)
2 tsp nutmeg
1/2 tsp salt
1 cup packed light brown sugar
1/4 cup molasses
1 egg
1 tsp vanilla
8 oz. dark chocolate, finely chopped
1/2 cup crystallized ginger, minced
1/3 cup granulated sugar

Preheat oven to 350. Butter a large baking sheet, set aside.
In a medium bowl, whisk flour, cocoa powder, ground ginger, baking soda, cinnamon, nutmeg and salt until thoroughly combined. Set aside.

In a large bowl, beat 3/4 cup butter and the brown sugar until light and fluffy, about 3 minutes. Add molasses, egg and vanilla, beat to combine.

Mix in dry ingredients gently but thoroughly, scraping down sides of bowl as necessary. Batter will be thick. Stir in chopped chocolate and crystallized ginger until well combined.

Form batter into 2 tbsp balls, roll each in granulated sugar and place on buttered baking sheet. If batter is too sticky, dampen your hands with water when forming balls.

Bake cookies 5 minutes, turn pan 180 degrees, bake until just set only 5 minutes more. Cool on pan for 5 minutes, then transfer to cooling racks. Repeat forming and baking with remaining balls of dough.

Makes about 36 cookies.

Enjoy!! Best right out of the oven!

October!!

I love October. This view from last year is at the Unaka Mountain Overlook near Erwin, TN, also near me on the NC side of the woods. We don't have that much color yet, but it's on its way with the cold snap we've just had.

I'm sanding, cleaning pots and making reed handles for jars today, then I'm out for a hike on this beautiful day!