Cute

I used to hate it when people called my work "cute." It felt, I dunno, demeaning or infantilizing. I've loosened up a little more recently, since I found a way to answer that wasn't just "Thanks, I guess?"

(You know what it is: Thanks, I make them on the potter's wheel, and paint everything freehand.)

I've even begun to lean into it a little--last Saturday's Instagram post featured my cutest dessert plates: bunnies, sloth, mother and baby elephant, panda, asking which one was cutest.

I headed out for Market at 7 am in shorts and flannel shirt, and immediately made a U-turn back into the house for sweat pants. It was cold! I could see my breath! Figured the day was predicted sunny, I could peel off the sweats when it warmed up.

I finally took them off at 4 pm while I was loading out. Called Denise to warn her to layer up, and asked if she could bring along my fingerless gloves, tucked in my jacket pocket when she came down at lunch time. It was that chilly.

State track and field championships were in town at Hayward Field, but I didn't get the sense we got much spillover traffic, unlike the Nationals or the Olympic Trials. Sales okay, at a slightly slower pace than last week. Still giving away a lot of business cards to college students looking towards furnishing their first apartment, and had enough sales to get up to maybe three-quarters of Mom's Day weekend sales,.

Overheard a mother and college-age daughter next door in Cherie's booth say this is Mom's first visit to Saturday Market, she's visiting from out of town. So when they stop in my booth, I ask where she's visiting from. Wisconsin, she replies. Where in Wisconsin? Eau Claire.

I tell her I grew up about 70 miles east of Eau Claire, in Greenwood, and we have a nice chat about the old home state and how I got out here, Forgot to ask her name, which I only realize a day later when relating the story to my mother. Who has relatives in Eau Claire. Oops.

Cherie has been wearing her rainbow crocheted sweater the last few weeks, getting lots of comments. They all ask whether she made it herself, and she tells them she bought it from another artist at Holiday Market, who got the pattern off of Etsy. I don't do crochet, I do pottery, she tells them. I know my lane, and I stick to it.

"But what if I have more than one lane?" I ask her afterwards. Frank, you're not a lane, you're a frickin' freeway, she tells me.

I think I'm complimented?

Oh, and both the elephant and panda dessert plates go home with different customers.

Mug shots

Stock is getting very thin in spots--I'm out of one of my stew mug patterns, octopus, and also salmon painted mugs. Down to one pasta serving bowl as well, not sure what I'll put out if that one sells. And I've only got half a dozen tall mugs in my restock box, after topping up Tsunami Books, who were down to four themselves.

Which is why I spent last Wednesday and Thursday doing this.

Sixty tall mugs for the next firing.