Slightly Off Center

I'd hoped that posting aquatic animals to Instagram might propitiate the rain gods and let us get through the day dry. It almost worked.

The weather forecast Friday had called for rain around 2 pm; by Saturday morning, they'd moved it out to 5 pm, so I was guardedly hopeful. But still cautious: I put the rain pin in the canopy center pole, put up the walls, although rolled up, put the empty boxes behind the booth, but with a big plastic bag, saved from packing peanuts, stretched over the top, weighted down with pieces of 2x4". Also wore work boots, raincoat over flannel, my winter hat.

The day started out sunny, and a bit warm; lost the flannel and hat during load-in. Made my first sale before 10:00, Seb and Moon--in a very fetching Monarch butterfly sweater--picked out a pair of pie plates to go with the two they already had. They use them for dinner plates, like Denise and I use the dinner salad or dinner pasta bowls. With the additional benefit that they can go in the oven. Ten minutes after they left, Moon was back--the frog bank had caught their eye, and they said they knew they'd regret it if they went home without it.

Sold a pocket notebook to a young woman, who came back later to ask about "size"--she'd been on Denise's website in the interim. Denise pulls water-leaf paper, with no size (glue or binder), because she does one sheet at a time in a deep Himalayan deckle, and with size you need to treat the whole vat. We talked a bit more about the process, and I encouraged her to email Denise about coming up to make paper in the back yard.

There's a young couple who've been stopping in to look at pots since they first moved to Eugene last spring. Look around, can't decide, don't buy. They're awfully young-looking, and I suspect "can't afford" is as much an issue as "can't decide." Today, they were back with his mom, visiting from SoCal, and she immediately picked out a tall mug for herself, told them she was treating, they'd better decide. They still dithered a while, during which she also picked out a French butter dish, and a creamer as house-warming present. They eventually selected a tall mug for him, covered casserole for her, and checked the bag with me while they went to see the rest of Market.

Had three folks come into the booth, talking about how to get pottery home safely on the airplane. Oh, that's easy, I said, Pack it in your underwear in the middle of the suitcase, where it won't bang against anything else. It'll be fine. Pack it in dirty underwear, the man quipped, That way Customs won't mess with it. Asked where they were from; turned out the couple was local, their friend was from Australia. She came back a little later to buy a hummingbird soup bowl to take home, and we chatted a bit. She's from north Australia, up in the rain forests, and I told her about a potter I met from there, who fired his wood kiln with timber bamboo. There's so little water in the stalks that they can go in the firebox green, but it's important to split the nodes, or the trapped air will make them explode.

From time to time, someone will come in the booth, ask if I make everything (yes, and paint it too), and comment, That's a lot of work! I generally reply, I grew up on a dairy farm in Wisconsin; nothing will every be that much work again! This time, the customer said she lived in Chicago, and wanted to know where in Wisconsin. I gave vague "halfway between Eau Claire and Wausau," but she wanted specifics. So I said "Greenwood," and she said she worked for a construction company that had built a Raising Canes restaurant there. And bought a pie plate. (Later checked, and found out the restaurant was in Greendale, down by Milwaukee. Thought it seemed a little unlikely.)

Near the end of the day, a woman in mermaid leggings--with flappy fins off her calves--and a purple quartz tiara stopped in, said some complimentary things, asked if I made them all. Confirmed I was the potter and painter, and she asked if I needed a bookkeeper. Had her card halfway out of her pocket when I said I was the bookkeeper too. I've got a really good Excel spreadsheet.

Dark clouds came over around 2:00, but then sun again. It happened again at 3:00 and I shuffled boxes around and brought the empties inside, so when it started to shower at 3:30, I could just unroll the walls and everything stayed nice and dry. Stopped by 4:00, and I was actually able to box everything up and get it in the van, including my produce, show bag, hat and raincoat. Of course it started up again at 5:00, as I was dismantling the shelves, and was bucketing down by twenty after, when I took the canopy down. Should have taken time to get out the rain coat, of course; I was wet as a drowned cat by the time I started home.

Still, the pots were dry, and it was another $1000 day. Worth a little wetness.

In the back yard, making so much paper.

The blue sheets are varying amounts of blue jean cotton pulp. The pink was apparently once a fuschia-colored bed sheet. Greens, yellows, lavenders are recycled office paper, with nice little speckles of copier and laserwriter toner.

Unloaded the glaze kiln last Thursday, and I don't know that I've ever had a better firing. Hardly any oxidation--I'd notice a gap in the right rear wall of the kiln during firing and stuffed it with kaowool, which may have helped--less than half a cone difference between top and bottom, with the bottom leading again. I'll have to redo one special order plate, the black stain blistered, but all the other orders came out beautiful. Times like this remind me why I keep doing this pottery thing.

Got the new control system for my Pacifica wheel on Friday, but didn't get to do anything but unpack until today--Saturday Market, kiln loading, kiln firing. So this afternoon, I cleared off the bubble wrap, wrestled the wheel up onto the handtruck cart, and rolled everything into the studio.

It was a surprisingly easy fix. The control box is mounted to the frame with a single 5/16" bolt. The pedal is pre-attached to the box, and the connection from box to motor is a simple plug. The second hardest part of the job was wrestling the old plug out of the socket on the box. After 31 years, it was not inclined to move.

But the whole process took less than 15 minutes, and the the wheel now runs as well as it ever did. The hardest part of the project was clearing away junk to make room to store it in the studio. Rains are predicted to return tomorrow, so I didn't want to leave it on the back porch.

Seemed to be a lot of round pots this time a...round. Cookie jars, as I only had one left. Honey pots, teapots. A whole lot of plates, mostly dessert sized; dinner plates haven't been selling as well. I also took a couple of requests for coffee pour-overs, as I still had notes in my card file from the last time I made them.

I've gotten extremely low on animal banks, almost without noticing. I knew frog banks had been selling well, but I'm somehow almost out of piggy banks, and have fewer cat and brontosaurs than I'd like with the holidays looming. So this is how I started the glaze cycle, with enough banks to fill up the entire three by four-foot bottom shelf of the kiln.

A VW Thing, to be precise. Spotted it at Market two weeks ago. All original paint job, says the owner. An "Hecho en Mexico" sticker on the rear end.

I remember when Volkswagen tried to make these a, you should pardon the expression, thing, back when I was in high school. They'd had great success with the Beetle, and done pretty well with the VW van. These guys, though, landed with a thud. 

They weren't cute like the Beetle; they weren't practical like the van. The appeal of a convertible just wasn't enough to overcome the fact that they were just ugly.

This part of August feels like turning a corner. Not fall yet, but you can kinda see it from here. Part of it is light--it's the first weekend since May when it was still dark when I got up for Market. Didn't help that it was also overcast; I dressed for the predicted high of 84°, but the sun didn't actually come out until well after lunch. I'd brought a flannel overshirt, but shorts and compression socks meant my toes were damned cold all morning.

Kind of a slow day; no big events drawing in the tourists, though I did spot a crowd of Japanese students, in town for UO's language program. Talked to a few couples recently moved to town, who promise to return once they're settled in. Skyler and Alexa, the pink-haired couple who bought the fox cookie jar last weekend, came back again for the matching fox casserole. The Japanese-American daughter from a few weeks back stopped in after work to see if I had anymore octopus ware. I'll have to remember to pack the octo dinner salad bowl net week.

Took an order from the fellow who wanted the extremely tall canister--10" internal height, 5.5" internal diameter. First one had an octopus on it; he wants a companion piece with platypus. I've also had a couple of people express an interest in coffee pour-overs in the last couple of weeks; think I'll make a few for my next firing.

My regular neighbor Chere was off this weekend, driving the puppy rescue bus. In her place was a 2-D artist named Betty. She'd started selling at Market earlier this year, prints and stickers, but this week was trying something different. At her mother's suggestion, she'd created a cardboard "Doodle Booth," a sketch-o-matic machine. Customers could sit in the chair/s, and for $10 per single, $15 couples, she'd do two live sketches of them, sliding out the finished product through a slot like a photo booth.

She was tremendously nervous, had no idea if if would work or not, but it caught on immediately. Her first customers sat down just after 10, followed by the Japanese exchange students, and from then on, she was busy pretty much constantly. She sold one art print and a couple of stickers, but at least fifteen doodle portraits.

Including one of me and Bella. Hey, it was a slow afternoon. (And a lot of fun.)

Not slow for my other neighbor, Jess. She has a fellow who comes in maybe once a year and splurges. This time, he bought a couple of skeleton shadow boxes, insect/flora bell jars, at least one wet mount (dead critter in formaldehyde), and who knows how much more. All I know is he counted out a big roll of bills, and went to his car to get more. Pretty sure she did over $2000 for the day, much of it that one sale. I'm really happy for her. Her exotic moth and beetle mounts get a lot of lookers, but they're on the high end, price-wise, so can be a hard sell at Saturday Market.

Not much exciting from a people-watching perspective. The new Slug Queen and court were supposed to make an appearance, but they may have slid by me. Saw a guy about my age in a Gallifrey University t-shirt; I'm guessing Tom Baker was his Doctor. Also saw a lot of women in high-heeled boots: cowboy boots, go-go boots, even a pair of calf-length spike heels. Is this a thing again?

After weeks of people admiring it, I finally sold the sea otter medium cookie jar around 3:00 pm, bringing my sales for the day over $600. A few more small purchases brought the total to $669. This leaves me with two large cookie jars, no small or medium, and still three weeks until my next firing. Better get busy!

Got a text from an old friend yesterday, an Israeli potter I met back in 1984 at Tuscarora Pottery School. Debby's in Seattle with her daughter and grandkids, visiting her brother, and hoped we could get together when I came up for Anacortes.

Two problems. 1. Anacortes was last weekend, and 2. I didn't get into the show anyway. Told her it probably was a good thing, I'm having trouble keeping up with demand. Selling them as fast as you make them? she teased. Well, that's not far off.

She was setting up a sidewalk sale of her pots as part of a neighborhood tour--she works at Pottery Northwest while she's in the states--and we traded pics and texts while setting up. Here are a few of her pieces.


At the end of the day, she'd sold a few pieces, and taken orders from followers in Portland and Chicago. Mostly just enjoyed sitting outside and talking with people. I had my usual good day, even sold something to a woman from Seattle.

Never got around to posting my August 1 Market report. Partly because busy, partly because not that much happened. I mean, sales were excellent, and I took an order for a bunnies teapot--because the one I had got sold right in front of the orderer. But mostly, it was memorable because of the guests who showed up.

First was John Fleenor, a long-ago (late 90's!) member of Club Mud, now living in Philadelphia. Says he's not doing much pottery these days, mostly painting, though he still has his wheel and kiln. Looked vaguely familiar until he smiled; like me, he's got a distinctive gap between his front teeth.

I also got a visit from Brother Rafael, a Dominican who'd been staying at my church's rectory for the summer while taking Greek classes. He'd finished the session the day before, was out on his bike when he came across the Market and happened upon my booth. It was fun showing him the rest of my work--he'd been having breakfast out of my bowls all summer--and it's always nice to connect the different strands of my life.

Best of all, though, it was a sunny but mild day, so I got to spend it with Denise, who came down to Market to help record sales. We also treated ourselves to a hot lunch from the food court, taco salads from La Familia.