2012 update

Well the 2012 festival season has ended this past weekend.  We have now put the booth away, and put all the remaining inventory back on the shelves for now.  It has been a challenging year, most shows level, few were down, few were up.  Gallery sales have increased which is good.  Since we introduced Obvara in our last 3 shows, it has comprised of 70% of our sales.

Fall is the time we submit to a few exhibitions, We currently have two active now the 5th biennial South Dakota Governor's Show that opens in it second venue, SD State Art Museum, later this month on its 18 month tour.  Also the 1st Juried Exhibition at the Washington Pavilion is going on now, where we have 1 of 60 pieces selected for the show.

Tonight I'm finishing our annual Paint the Night Pink submission, it's a great night, 10/19/2012, of fun, food,drink and art.  If you are in the area I strongly urge you to purchase a ticket and attend.  Also working on another one, but we have never been accepted, maybe this is the year, submitting two Obvara pieces.

Fall is also the time of year we look for additional galleries, I think we are looking at trying to add one or two  this year.  We are also in negotiations with an interior design firm to market our work to their clients, may have that finished by the end of the month.

With the extreme dry conditions in South Dakota, our fall pit fire is cancelled, so the pits on hand is all we will have until next year unless it is dry again.

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.

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.

New technique

Late last week I learned of a new 19-20th century technique that is also naked!  I have spent the the last several days trying to find out all I can on the topic, which to say there is not much on the Internet (yet).  I have contacted the artist who pieces I found and she has been helping me by directing me to information and answering questions.  I am planning the 1st trial firing for next week and can hardly contain myself.  Since learning about this "new" old world technique, I have been coming up with variations to try, but I need to work on the original 1st.

more to come....

Urns

I have been making ginger jars / cremation urns for a few years now.  It’s not something I go out and market it, but people ask me from time to time if it is something I can do.  I have spoken to other potters who surprisingly freaked out by the idea of making cremation urns.  I’m not going to go into great detail about it is only a vessel, you know darn well what it is for when you are making it.  I’m sure some of those potters who are uncomfortable with the notion of making cremation urns, probably don’t realize that one of their lidded vessels may be holding someone’s remains.

I have never really put much thought into making the urns, it just another vessel at the time.  It began with adding a lids to various vessels, most had knob and/ or handles.  One in particular I added an elaborate handle with lots of flair and flourish.  Of course the flair and flourish broke off, leaving me with a flat lid.  I fired it anyway.  It turned out really cool with great depth in the smoke marks.  1^st show I brought it to it was nearly immediately commented that looked like an urn and it made the lady uncomfortable.  It did continue to venture to a few shows, and I started taking orders for urns, and stocking a few in my studio.  Typically have 2-3 for each person to choose from when they request urns.

Earlier this month, I sold my last finished urn and took an order for another. It was not a big deal.   I had 2 thrown waiting to be finished.  I finished them the next week and completed the order.  Unfortunately, during this week, my sister lost her battle with cancer and her children asked me to make her urn.  This has been a challenge for me this week.  These have been more than a vessel. I have always considered it the utmost honor to have one of my works used for this purpose.  This set of urns have truly been my honor to be part of.

2012 Show Season

With less than a month remaining until the first festival of the season, I was reminded that our shelving unit needed repairs :(  the massive downpour we endured one weekend last year ended up warping the shelves into nice arcs.  Unfortunately, curved boards don't do well to show our booth visitors that our pieces don't wobble.

I guess I procrastinating, since I purchased the new shelving material, and just not working on it yet, but today needs to be the day, at least to start on them.  We debated on building a whole new unit, one larger and much, much lighter, but I'm only going to do the shelves to start with.  With that said, I better get going.

1st show is May 19th in Orange City, IA at the Tulip Festival.  Hope to see you there!

throwing

My Mother-in-Law was so kind to point out this week that my shelves were looking rather empty...So a throwing I will go. Bisqued a kiln load last week, and have one starting this morning and enough pots to light it again in a couple days. It's not that I haven't been working, just not as much as I normally have by this time of year.

I hope to do a foil saggar firing in the next couple weeks, but the W2 is keeping me busy working extra hours. Hours that come out of my throwing time. I guess I need the feel the crunch more than I do right now. I do have enough finish work for the 1st few show, lots of great Pits, just no foil or paper saggars. I have about 8 platters ready to go, which don't see to stick around long at shows or galleries, but I want to do more once my drying containers are emptied.

I figure I've throw just shy of 350 pounds of clay in the past couple weeks, for some of you that not much, but it been all I've managed to get done in the half to one day I've been averaging.

I am working on a couple test piece of a new design inspired by Michael Eden, 3 test pots are under plastic drying now, these are much more labor intensive than our standard pots, lets hope they turn out.

So Far this year we will be back at Sidewalk Arts in Sioux Falls, Artburst in Orange City, and Art on the Lake in Excelsior. Also have a piece touring South Dakota for 16 months beginning in May.

Until next time...

Workshop info

I have been getting a couple inquires about Pit Firing workshops. Yes we do have a workshop format developed modeled after many of the ones I have attended. It scheduled for 1.5-2 days in length. Day one is starts with digging the pit, after an introduction and seeing who many and what sizes of pieces that have been brought. Once the pit is done, we will go to a wheel work, showing how i get the smooth sides, and talk about clay selection, terra sigg vs burnishing. We will also take some time going over various colorants and their effects or reported effects. Somewhere in there will be a lunch break. We will also work on saggars that i use in the pit and build some along the way. We will finish the afternoon wrapping pots for the firing, building the firing base, and packing the pit. At this point we can either light it before dinner or after. I do enjoy lighting the pit at dusk so the color in the flames are more evident. We will meet again on day two, and empty the pit as soon as it is cool enough. We will discuss the results of the firing and talk about sealants, trim the pieces that were thrown yesterday, question and answer period and clean and fill the pit back in.

The 2012 base cost is $600 plus lodging, meals, and mileage from Sioux Falls, SD. ($1 per mile, one way) Material costs are extra if I provide them.

January 2012

Wow, where has time gone. It has over 2 months since i was on the blog, sorry about that. Since I last posted we have had our Holiday Open House, lot of great pieces found their way out our door. Kiesha had prepared a delicious spread of food, I got leftovers for a few days but I didn't mind. The family Christmas came and went. The kids have been busy with hockey, and so have I as a league manager/supervisor, also was talked into being a tournament director.

The end of the year also meant inventory, ugh!, double ugh!! and I am at a point the taxes information is ready for the accountant, just waiting on the w2s from the w2 jobs.

January is also the time we empty the bank account with show applications, this year we are planning on 7 festivals, 5 we have done before, and two new ones. I can say we will definitely be in Sioux Falls at the Sidewalk Arts in September. Other than that we will wait and see.

On the throwing side, I have not touched clay or the wheel since November. I set it up again last night, but not sure when I will get to play in clay. But I do have a couple custom orders due in February, so I best get going soon.

Pit Firing 11-6-11

Well, we did what is likely the final pit firing of the year this past weekend. We dug a new pit, using a trench style vs our old standard a large circle or square. We only had 25-30 pots to fire so space wasn't a big necessity this time.

Using the trench was an learning experiment, I believe I can accomplish the same firing with less materials, since there was less square footage. I used definitely a lot less wood, I left a good size pile from what we would normally use for the firing. The fire also burned longer and the ash bed was very large and took a long time to dwindle down. I also used a lot less chemicals this time, notice a little less of the copper reds, but it produced a lot more greens.

I also encountered higher wind delays, was planning on firing at 8 am, but ended up waiting until 5:30 pm as the sun was setting. This turned out to be a great experience, not only watching the fire in the dark and easily seeing the different colored flames. I also utilized the coal bed to test colorants and see what they produced. I only wish I had brought more alone.

There are a few photos of the firing on Facebook, it will most likely be a while before I clean and seal the pots. We are planning a foil saggar firing this week, and then it hockey nearly every night and weekend from now through March. Don't worry I still get my shelves filled so I can fire once the snow goes away.

Thanks for reading,
Chad