So busy

I feel I've been remiss in posting lately, but I have been so busy. In the studio, I 'm making pots for a Nov. 1 firing. Heavy on special order mugs in weird shapes: half-size grandchild mugs, over-size steins to celebrate a 50th anniversary, and a handful of Great-Harvest style mugs, no logo, just because one of my regular customers saw them on Instagram and liked the shape.


I did a bunch of cute round pots, teapots and honey jars. A dozen stegosaur banks, as I'm down to only the two in the van. A bunch of pasta bowls and bakers, and a parallelogram vase of a sort I haven't done in a decade. (I'll post a step-by-step on that one some time later this week. Promise.)

Oh, and eighty tall mugs. They're in the order for Childhood End's Gallery, they're still selling at Tsunami Books, and I sell six or eight a weekend at Saturday Market. Don't know why they're so popular, but it took me the better part of four days to throw and handle them all. Two dozen dinner plates, the last two-thirds of which I finished just before starting this post. And I've got a week to make painted mugs, stew mugs, soup and toddler and salad bowls, pie and dessert plates. And cat food dishes.

Guys, I'm so tired.

Also this last week was our monthly Book Arts Group meeting, so I was hurrying to finish my exchange book before Thursday. The theme this month was "cats," so I dusted off a little ditty I wrote in 2000, drew the illustrations, and put it all together into this little volume. Got the fabric cover at JoAnns, where I learned they have an entire section devoted to dog and cat novelty prints. Cool, huh? The title is "Schrödinger's Cat."

Schrödinger's Cat

Schrödinger's cat has got away
He won't be found in the lab today.
Tired of a life full of quantum hard knocks
He wants to try living outside of the box.

Wants to catch mouses, wants to scratch fleas
Wants to be free of that uncertainty.
Wants to pursue purely feline vocations
Unfettered by measures of speed or location.

Whilst all his electrons in energized state
Keep him prowling and yowling in search of a mate.
A compatible tabby he's hoping to meet
A female in entropy (expressed as heat).

Who'd spark a collision, the genuine article
Producing a shower of daughter particles.
Schrödinger's kittens, their owner bedevils
By climbing to all different energy levels.

While Schrödinger's cat, disregarding all quanta
Is off in the field to wherever he'd wanta
To mark his position with particle sprays
And be nowhere around when that atom decays.

©2000 Frank A. Gosar

Bucking the trend

It was perfect day for Market. Sunny and mild, no morning fog or clouds even. But the morning seemed to drag. Not many people around, most of them out for morning coffee. I guess the football game ran late Friday night?

I decided to just post a bunch of koala pots on Instagram. I have a small square baker that everyone admires, but nobody buys. A batter bowl, tall mug, dinner and dessert plates. And it may have worked? Someone picked out the dinner plate, was about to look for a matching dessert when I pointed it out on the display stand. She bought both, and a saw-whet owl dessert as well.

Had a nice chat with some folks from Wisconsin, spotted by the Packer shirt their local friend was wearing. Oconomowoc, which I always loved, because every second letter is "O." Also a family from Florida--Mom zoomed in on the dolphin mug, then decided she wanted something distinctly Oregonian. Liked the hummingbird bowl, and I pointed out that the pattern was an Anna's Hummingbird, our local variety, so that clinched the sale. Could have sold a sea turtle mug to son--he had a carved coconut-shell turtle pendant--but they were both in the shed at home. He took a card, though, said he might order a set. We'll see. I also got to show my platypus mug to a girl in platypus socks. Simple pleasures...

Then there was the guy--it's always a guy, isn't it--who'd bought an owl mug at Tsunami, and really liked the owl, but didn't like the fact that he couldn't see it while holding the mug. I explained that I put the image opposite the handle so I didn't have to do right and left-handed mugs, which made him think I should paint two owls, one on each side. Yeah, right, double the amount of work on every mug... He kept hammering at his point, even left and came back to repeat one more time how nice it would be to see the painting while using the mug. I was feeling snarky at this point, so showed him how I held my mug: fingers wrapped around the mug (two in the handle), with the painting facing me. He wasn't convinced.

Late in the afternoon, a pair of Muslim women stopped in the booth, pointed out different patterns on pots and commenting in Arabic. One was wearing a hijab and N95 mask, but the other was in full niqab, and snazzy indeed. Black dress with gold buttons, matching black head-gear, like a mini-pillbox hat and veil, covering her hair and full face, except for the small band around the eyes. They seemed to like what they saw, though didn't buy; I gave the one in niqab a card and she thanked me in English.

It felt like a slow day. I turned the page of the sale book around noon, which is good, but a number of sales were of $4 watercolor cards, so the total wasn't that great. Sales accumulated, though, and by 4 pm, while my neighbors were complaining about the crummy day, I quietly totaled up over $800, including nearly fifty for Denise from cards.