Earth and Fire Festival - Kings Mountain

Last night I unloaded the kiln.  The pieces shown here are my favorite out of this load.  The pitcher features the puffy feet I learned at the Allison McGowan workshop.  I am not sure what the use for the piece on the left is for, perhaps to hold mail.

I reloaded the kiln last night and tomorrow morning I will get these pieces and all the others out and ready for the Earth and Fire Festival.  The reception is Saturday June 23rd from 7-9.  The show runs until July 27th.  I will be unable to attend the reception do to my being at the Art in the Park in Asheville until 6 and then tearing down the display, I won't make it back to Kings Mountain in time.  Last year I had a great time visiting with all the visitors and other potters.

On Tuesday I unloaded the load of pieces for the Mountain Nest Gift Shop in Black Mountain.  I was disappointed to find that five out of the seven mugs I glazed had too much glaze and it ran on to the shelf.   I re-made the mugs and will hopefully have them finished next week.

Next week I hope to glaze the pieces for Ocean Annies in Duck, NC.

Oh Nooooo

Last week in two days, I threw more pots than I usually make in 2 weeks.  I was trying to crank out the order for Ocean Annies in Duck, NC.  I only had two days open before the glazing started for the Earth and Fire Festivl in Kings Mountain and the order for the Mountain Nest gift shop in Black Mountain.  I wanted the pieces to be drying while I am glazing the other pieces so that next week I can glaze the order and get them shipped out.

In my hurry to get items bisqued for the Kings Mountain show I rushed the drying on a teapot.  It rained so much last week that things weren't drying quick enough.  So I placed about 6 items out in the sun Thursday to finish drying.  All the other pieces were fine, but the teapot was apparently not completely dry.  I am bummed because I really wanted a teapot in that exhibition.

Today I glaze the items for Mountain Nest.  This morning I already put on the wax resist, which keeps the glaze from sticking to the bottom of the pots.  I have also mixed some of the twilight glaze, which I will be using tomorrow.  Look for photos later this week.

Last week I won the Top Treasury Team Challenge for the week.  So this week everyone makes a treasury featuring my Dragonfly Pie Plate.  It is fun to see all the creative themes and items used in the treasuries.  I will have a hard time choosing which one I like best.  Check out the treasuries here.

Getting ready for Art in the Park - Asheville

This week I have been doing a last push making pieces for three things coming up on the 23rd.  First is the Art in the Park in Asheville (only need a few more pieces for this), Earth and Fire Festival in Kings Mountain (need gallery style items for a full 8ft. display), and the wholesale order for the Mountain Nest Gallery in Black Mountain.  I also tried to make a few more yarn bowls for Ruby's Gift and Etsy.  Someone told me to dry them upside down to keep them from warping.  I am not sure that will help but willing to give it a try. 

Tomorrow I will make brie bakers, slip trail beading and load the first of two bisque loads this week. They will include the tall pieces I made a few weeks ago.  I hope to have at least 2 pieces for upcoming competitions I would like to enter.  By the end of the week I hope to glaze at least one load to have a head start for next week.

I plan on adding numerous new items to my Etsy shop at the beginning of July.

After this I do not have any shows until October, so I will start stocking up for the fall show season.  That is when I am usually at my busiest, plus my mom is coming to help out with my shows and we will be going to the beach and mountains on the weeks between shows, so I need to have everything ready to go.

New Gallery will carry my pottery

This weekend I had a booth at the Black Mountain Arts and Crafts Festival.  The weather was cool with gusts of wind.  One potter lost half their pots in a large gust that lifted the tent causing one side of crates stacked to fall over.  Huge losses.  I was eating lunch while my husband watched the booth.  He called me frantic to get back and help hold the tent down.  By the time I got back the wind had died down.  It kept scaring us all day.

I was excited to get an order from a shop in Black Mountain.  Mountain Nest will be opening at the end of June and will have some of my Dragonfly line, shown on the center rack above.

While driving from our cabin in Bat Cave to the show on Sunday we saw a bunch of turkey's.  This is the only photo I got and I wasn't fast enough to get the turkey on this side of the fence.  She had 4 babies with her and they flew away when we stopped.  She just kept walking towards the treeline.

Vases and a plate

Today I unloaded the kiln and here are a few of the pieces.  The vase on the left was thrown a while ago but I just didn't know how to glaze it.  I like how the carving shows up well with the green sprayed on.  The vase on the right I used the spiral stamp I made after seeing it at the Potters Conference.  I stamped the pattern on four sides  The plate features the technique learned at the Claymatters Winter Workshop, with the grooving around the rim. 

I will finish sanding the bottoms, inventory, price and pack up for the 15th Annual Black Mountain Arts and Crafts festival coming up this weekend.  This is a new show for me so I hope it is busy.  We will stay at our cabin in Bat Cave.  I have started looking into shows near there so that we can enjoy the cabin while not having to pay for a hotel.  To see what else we have been doing while at the cabin, check out out cabin blog.

Be sure to "like" the New Day Pottery Facebook page to stay informed about all that is going on in the Studio

Large Pottery pieces

Today I made three tall pots.  These are probably the largest pots I have ever done.  The coffee pot's spout is a little weird.  My favorite is the pitcher on the right.  It has the crosshatch pattern around the neck.  I need these for the Earth and Fire Festival in King's Mountain at the end of June-July.

This week I will throw pots until Friday then load the bisque with any that are dry.  Next week I will glaze for the Black Mountain Arts & Crafts Show.  This will be the first time at this show.  I am hoping for a good turnout.

This week I have added a number of pieces to my Online Shop  A number of items were purchased for Mothers Day and I restocked plus added some new items.

Getting ready for Claymatters Festival

Well, recovered from the weekend at Sanford.  The weather was bi-polar.  Very hot on Saturday and chilly and windy on Sunday. We realized late on Saturday that my setup was not going to work.  I had mixed all my items but it didn't have any pop.  So I put like colors together and that helped.  Really it should have a grey panels behind but I am not sure that I want to make the investment. 

I only needed a few more pieces for the Claymatters Festival coming this Saturday, so I only glazed one full load.  I wasn't in the mood to haul pots upstairs to photograph, so here is a snapshot of the whole batch.  Tomorrow I will sand bottoms, price and pack.

I am looking forward to the Claymatters Festival.  It is my favorite show to do since it is the guilds show and there are so many talented potters.

Just out of the kiln

The last of the glaze loads finished up this week.  There were a number of pieces I really like.  Here are a few of the pieces that are different from my usual. 

To the left is the punch bowl set with the puffy feet.





The jar to the left was inspired by a piece in the new 500 RAKU book.  I like the look and will probably make more like this.

The piece below was hand built.  I like the shape, but boy is sure takes me a long time to make handbuilt items.

More photos are on the Facebook page.

 I am packed up and ready to leave tomorrow for the Sanford Pottery Festival.  I will set up my booth Friday night.  It will probably take awhile, since I have new product and I would like to make the display more gallery like.  I bought some pedestals awhile back to have levels on the table

Sanford Pottery Festival

I came back from the mountains to find a nice surprise. I had three sales from Etsy over the weekend.  Mothers Day is in just a few weeks, so I imagine that they might be gifts for that special mom in their life.

Tomorrow I will be unloading the last glaze load before the Sanford Pottery Festival.  After photographing any great pots that might come out of the last load, I will sand the bottoms, price, inventory and pack everything up.  My hope is that I can finish it all tomorrow so that I can start throwing again on Tuesday.

Today I finished my Spring Newsletter.  Check it out here.