Late news

Just got a phone call from the Silverton Fine Arts Festival offering me a booth off the waiting list. Fool me, I said yes.

My busy summer just got busier.

One man shop

Frequently, when trying to discourage the more insane requests or suggestions I get (like exporting animal banks to Japan), I say "I'm a one-man shop." This is my shorthand way of saying "Whatever Off Center Ceramics can produce is limited the by labor of the one potter who has to make everything." And technically, it's true. Off Center Ceramics is a one-man shop.

This is my wife, Denise. She doesn't throw pots, trim pots, glaze or decorate pots. But Off Center Ceramics wouldn't exist, at least not in its present form, without her.

Because she helps me so much. She helps load and unload glaze kilns. Sorts, prices, packs pots with me. Records the inventory while I load and unload the van. Comes with me to shows, helps set up, tear down, shares the selling duties. For years, she was the predominant face of Off Center Ceramics at the Eugene Saturday Market, as my radio show took me away during the busiest part of each Saturday. And she had faith in me all the early years when we were just scraping by, believing that the pottery was worth pursuing when a less supportive spouse would nag me to find a day job.

I really owe a huge part of our success making and selling art to her support.

I know. I've loaded and unloaded kilns without her. Done Saturday Market solo when she's away at the Paper Arts Festival. Even did a road show without her--once--when one of the kitties wasn't well. (By possibly not coincidence, that was the last year we did Coupeville.) I can do all these things without her. But everything runs faster, smoother, more efficiently with her help. She knows what order the mugs go on the shelf at Market. She's probably the only one who can get all the display stands back in their box. She knows when to bring me a pot as I stand on the step stool loading the top shelves of the kiln and, equally important, when to wait as I stare and the space and figure out what will fit from what's left to load.

I'm not saying this is all one-way. I've built a lot of paper-making equipment for her over the years, helped her set up and take down at workshops, manage her website. I do computer jiggery-pokery for her Braille work, harvesting text from files for translating, making out and printing invoices, doing the taxes.

But in much the way a farm wife is a farmer too, Denise is an integral part of Off Center Ceramics. So when I write about what we do at Off Center Ceramics, I'm not being pretentious or royal.

Just accurate.