Tuesday, August 28, 2012

Its great when things work...

Last year I spent several days building our website www.upinsmokepottery.com , and have been watching the stats and working on getting it to show up in searches.  Well it paid off!  A guy was looking for an anniversary gift for his wife, had to be either bronze or pottery, (8th anniversary), and he google'd Sioux Falls   Pottery or South Dakota Pottery and he found our site :)

We conversed via email for a couple days, and I directed him to the local gallery that handles our work.  He went and checked it out, but didn't find anything that jumped out at him.  Now the gallery has some great pieces of pottery from many talented artists, but the guy wanted one of ours :)

He contacted me again, and we were able to meet up and looked over what I had in the studio, although it is in quite a disarray, he kept pulling pieces and set them on our ironing board as he whittled down his selections.  He narrowed it down to two pieces and he could decide so he took both!

It's great when technology works in our favor.

Monday, August 13, 2012

Upcoming shows and a rant

Well as the end of our festival season is in sight, here are the final 3 shows we have scheduled for this year...
8/24 ArtRocks in Luverne,MN
9/8  Sidewalk Arts in Sioux Falls, Sd
9/14-9/15 Hutchinson Arts and Crafts in Hutchinson, MN

Last evening I finally was able to catch up on the Ceramic Arts Daily forum, I haven't read it at all almost all summer.  We have been burning the candle at both ends so to speak, between making pottery, Custom Stoneware, Festivals, our W2 jobs, and the kids activities; time has been stretched.  I read a post regarding comments/criticism from fellow potters at festivals.  Typically potters are a group of easy going, willing to share and enjoy each others craft and borrow ideas from each other, which I agree with.  One of the comments was regarding comments made to a potter at a show from another potter belittling their work because they were not a true potter firing to cone 12.

 Well that happened to me this summer as well, wonder if it was the same potter.  We were visiting about our work and I explained it was all glazeless.  He  stated "Not everyone is able to be a true potter."  I was rather taken back by that comment, but decided not to point out that every piece of his was severely crazed from cooling too fast, and bordered on no longer being food safe despite being glazed.  I realize some people like the crazed look and some potters want that appearance, but I guess to me it is a flaw you try to avoid and work like crazy to adjust your glaze formula to prevent it.  Just because I don't use glazes doesn't mean I don't know how to use them.

I had chosen not to post about that experience, but reading the forum made me begin to start to wonder if it is not the same person, considering the all the potters involved are in a 3 state area and may have overlapping shows.

Anyway, off my soap box, hope to see you at one of our upcoming shows.