Speed run

Clayfolk is over, the van is nearly packed for Holiday Market, the turkey is thawing in the fridge. Time to catch up a little on posting here.

First, a speed run through the last glazing cycle. Here's a sampling of what went into the last kiln.




Once the kiln was loaded and firing, I started throwing again, mugs and tumblers. My turnaround for the next firing was extremely short--had to load December 1--so there was no time to waste. 82 mugs and tumblers later, I finished cone 10; came back the next day to make handles.

And then went home to make more pots, a solid week of throwing and trimming, so I could dry them out over the weekend, while we were at Clayfolk.

Got some good news from Jon last night--he has to delay his firing by a week, so I'm now loading December 5. Makes no difference as far as when the pots will be ready for Holiday Market, but it gives me an extra two days glazing.

Drawing closer

While I was in frantic production mode, I also managed to keep up with my October drawing challenge. Here's the next series, taking me through the end of the month. They've already been on my Instagram, but I'm catching up here. There's still fourteen days yet to post--I ran out of pages November 15--but they'll have to wait until after we're set up for Market.



You'll note I did actually use the mountain goat pattern in glazing the last batch. Sold two tall mugs right out of the kiln, too.

In other book news, this is my Exchange Book for our last book arts group meeting. The signature covers were gelli prints from a workshop we took several years ago. They weren't exciting as prints, but cut down and matched, made a really nice graphic statement. They're both pulled off the same plate, positive and negative, using buckeye leaves.

Back to the Armory

And, after all the throwing, glazing, sorting and loading the van, all the last minute ad layouts--I had to do nine on November 3, with a one-day deadline--Clayfolk finally happened.

It had been three years since we did the full Armory show. There had been smaller pop-up events, and a spring show at Edendale Winery looks like it's becoming an annual thing, but the weekend-before-Thanksgiving extravaganza hasn't happened since the before times.

They were a little more confident than Clay Fest, went will all the trimmings: central checkout, demonstration stage, a small kids clay area. The only concession to pandemic life was the absence of punch and cookies Friday night; there was also no live music, but that's because we didn't have a music chair this year. We have a volunteer for next year, so barring a Monkey Pox shutdown or something, music will return.

We had fewer than usual participants. They were able to remove a few booths and spread out the usually-crowded group space, and there was still one open booth where they set up an impromptu holding table and a few chairs. Made it hard on the work shifts chair, getting all the jobs covered. We were supposed to get three shifts each--I wound up with a fourth, because I did a demonstration. Brushmaking and decorating, of course.

There was a larger than usual group of potters new to the show, ten or eleven in all--I use that phrasing because some were certainly not new to pottery. Some really beautiful, skilled work.

In the past, we've opened from 4 - 9 pm Friday, to a mad crush of customers and a huge line at the sales area. This year, they decided to open at 10 am, close at 7 pm, to see if they could spread it out a little. As it happened, they just shifted it earlier. I was on sales when we opened at 10, and it took seven minutes for the whole line to come in. They did seem a little less stressed, though, knowing they had all day to shop, and the Square-based checkout system worked smoothly and quick, so nobody was in line all that long.

Knowing what to bring is always a challenge, there's only so much I can fit in the van. Even with three boxes of soup bowls, I sold out of seven or eight patterns, and there were only six painting mugs left in the restock box when we packed up. I also brought only one extra box of dinner and dessert plates, and both were looking pretty thin by the end, and I'd sold all three smaller covered casseroles and covered crocks.

Caught up with a lot of folks I hadn't seen in three years or more--my friend Mary, currently working as a scrub nurse in New York City, though looking to move back closer to her potter mom; Pete, with whom I worked for five years as resident potter at the UO Craft Center. And a whole bunch of Southern Oregon potters I never connect with anywhere else.

Likewise, the customers, people who've been buying my pots for decades. Many reached out to make orders during the plague years, but it's not the same as being able to pick things up in person. Demo audience was small but engaged: three potters, a scattering of customers who dropped in and out, a young man on crutches who stayed for the entire time, from set-up and waxing to final clean up. Thank you Henry, you're a good kid. Also had a cluster of little girls right at the end, so I sat in the front row so they could watch me paint an elephant, over my shoulder. Being told how great an artist you are by eight-year-olds never gets old.

Better still, the little girl in my booth, asked by her mom whether she was enjoying the show. Oh yes, she replied. I'm gonna be a pottery artist someday! You go, girl.

A couple of downsides... Because we came down Wednesday, we drove back Sunday night, so didn't have our usual celebratory dinner and sleep-in. Have to do that next week sometime. And the motel we booked through Priceline was... not good. We couldn't get a ground floor room, so Denise had to maneuver the rusting steel/crumbling concrete stairs twice a day with her uncooperative knees. The rooms, while worn, weren't terrible, until the cockroaches starting showing up in the bathroom and sink. No housekeeping; we made our own beds, but wastebaskets with food scraps weren't emptied, and in fact there was a milk bottle in the trash from before we checked in. The free continental breakfast promised on their website is apparently a thing of the past as well, though I'm not sure that's a bad thing. At least the fridge and microwave sorta worked.

The show closed an hour earlier, 3 pm, on Sunday, so everything was cleaned up in time for the wrap meeting at six. Overall sales were the best ever, though our personal sales were down a fair bit from 2019. We grabbed a burger and fries from Carl's Jr. and were on the road by seven, home a little after 10 pm. And so to bed.