Adding Insult to Injury

A week before Nancy and I headed off to Philly to check out the Philly Museum Craft Show we both injured our backs. Not the best timing. So with both of us down for the count, what happens? Orders start piling in. At this point, it has been three weeks with us not able to work full-tilt. Thing are improving but we are now wicked-behind. I had hoped to ship off quite a few orders before the Thanksgiving Holiday but most wont be ready for another week or more.

Last Friday NYDOT finally opened our road again. Route 96 is BACK IN BUSINESS!!!!
We joked that as soon as the road was open, folks would be flocking to the studio again. Well, we were right. Today is the third day since it re-opened and we have had customers each and every day!!! Not only that, we are now starting to see folks calling and emailing in orders!

Where things are at

Two weekends ago, Nancy and I BOTH threw our backs out. Nancy is already feeling much better but I am still feeling down. The real issue right now is whether or not pots will be ready for the holiday season. At this time, I dont see it happening! So, that adds to the stress.

In any event, I did have a chance to take some nice pics of some new pots.

Enjoy

Salmon Pottery - grand opening in Trumansburg

We can proudly announce that Salmon Pottery will be having their grand opening this weekend! From now on there will be someone in Trumansburg offering classes to the public, on the main drag through town, within walking distances of restaurants... SALMON POTTERY. Mary Ellen Salmon came and visited us about 6 months ago when she was first putting this gallery/teaching studio together. We are honored to have her showing a small representation of our work in her gallery.

PLEASE come to the GRAND OPENING of Salmon Pottery Studio and Gallery of Fine Crafts on November 17th from 4-7pm. See you there!!

New Booth Ideas

After walking the Philly Museum Show we came home with a pretty solid idea of the direction we're heading in. The good news: for the most part it boils down to a new paint job and some fun decorating. No major redesign. Bad news: Philly is one tough show to get into !! We talked to quite a few of the artists at the show, not just in clay either, and not many of them were selling too fast.

this is sort of a rough sketch in Photoshop of what we imagine our booth to look like once the shelves are painted a dark coffee bronze and the walls are draped in black drapery.


We had a great time wandering around Philly last night and this morning. Far more welcoming than say, NYC. Hopefully Boston will be similar. Haven't spent any time in Boston since 1993.

We had the most amazing dinner at this tiny restaurant called Lolita.
Nancy had a wicked salmon dinner that was to die for. My steak was anything but the usual fare. Mexican, Cuban, even some Indian influence. My dinner was served on fried yucca with a crispy plantain on top. The sauce was made from a combination of cream and smoky red peppers and probably some sundried tomatoes too. VERY savory. Our big surprise of the night was the green salsa which had some wonderful reference to Indian cuisine. LOADED with mint, and lime flavor, it was AWESOME! Desserts were a dense coconut cake with a chocolate pot de creme and for me, a pecan and chocolate bread pudding. All in all, WICKED!

What waits for us in PA

Nancy and I head to Philadelphia tomorrow to check out the Philly Museum Craft Show. One of the best shows in the country. We're really excited. After having seen last year that many of the artists participating in the Fine Craft Show at Memorial Art Gallery in Rochester were also doing the Philly Museum Show... we thought, hey, we should check that out. Many of the same artists also try to get in to the CraftBoston show as well as Smithsonian's Fine Craft Show.

Ideas for our next booth

So here we have the latest and coolest design from SmartFurniture. Damn that looks mighty fine. Just doesnt scream brown crunchy woodfired snot drizzled pots now does it?
Hey, sophisticated is okay too right?

I did some further reading about the materials they are using and was kind of disappointed. They are making these shelves out of melamine and MDF. I had sort of hoped for more of the baltic birch type construction I had seen with IKEA. Especially for the prices they are asking. Oh well.

Still looks very cool.

Planning for 2008

Tonight Nancy and I spent the better part of the evening discussing new booth design ideas. I've included a graphed out map of what we think we be the new design. We hemmed and hawed over some quasi-IKEA ideas. We'd been looking for booth ideas to inspire us for our upcoming show in Boston in March. Came across a website that makes shelving units for displays... SMARTfurniture.com Nice stuff.
This was the unit we liked the most. http://www.smartfurniture.com/shop/images/catalog/assembly.C0506f001.real.BLACK.jpg
So, after the long decisions of "do we buy it or build it" we decided to work with what we already have. Do some minor modifications and add some nice new touches. We're even going to switch the color of the display from cream to espresso mocha!! Should be cool! We still may end up working with some of the ideas from SmartFurniture... we shall see. Check out the rest of their website. Amazing stuff. http://tinyurl.com/38usd7

GREAT big slide show of most of what we make

Still playing around with this slide show idea. Lots of things to consider.
Suffice it to say, there are more ways to make a slide show than there are ways to take the darned pictures!

Enjoy


Created with Admarket's flickrSLiDR.

Platter slide show - another attempt

Here we go, let's give this new slideshow an look-see.


Created with Admarket's flickrSLiDR.

Halloween

Some pictures of the latest Halloween dragon!
It's great being this age!!!