Taking Carrie's Platter to Cornell's Johnson Museum

Carrie's Purple Platter

Detail of 122198J-Carrie's Purple Platter

Nancy and I have been invited to show some of the platters I made when I was in grad school at Utah State. It has been nearly 9 years since these were last shown publicly. My hope is that they will find a good reception in this community.

To that end, today I took Carrie Crane's Purple Twister Platter to be photographed by Cornell's Johnson Museum staff. I am excited to see how their image differs from the one I made here. This is actually a composite image. It was shot outdoors, on a telephone pole, at 11am, bright sun, and then superimposed onto the background of a platter which had been shot indoors last year. God Bless Photoshop.

Fun things!

Ending April with a Chill

After the past few weeks being unseasonably warm, even HOT... these past two days have been downright chilly. Nice to be back to what the weather SHOULD be for April. It finally rained and then it all cooled off.

Today was one of those days where my morning was supposed to be filled with glazing. But when I got outside, felt the sharp snap in the air, I just couldnt do it. The very idea of being in the studio, no view of the outside, no windows open, just didnt sit well. So I decided to spend my morning shooting flowers and stuff around the yard. Just playing with the camera. Trying to get more familiar with it. I think today I had some minor breakthroughs. Your thoughts?





I dont know if anyone else feels as strongly and as personally as I do about their cherry trees, but this cherry tree (1 of 3) means the world to me. We have nursed it along for 4 years now. Transplanted it from a wet area in the yard to this sunny drier area. Last year it finally produced fruit only to have them all eaten by the birds. This year we have a PLAN. Right now I am just enjoying the show of the whole tree being covered in blossoms.

Aurora and I found a black cherry tree last summer at Lowes. As much as I hate buying things like trees from big box stores, the price was within her allowance. She has had her heart set on growing our own BLACK cherries. I tried explaining that they arent really grown here for a reason. Needless to say, that sort of reasoning just didnt make one bit of difference in her opinion. So we planted this black cherry and so far it is really doing well. It was damaged by serious deer nibbling... but I think this summer if it can put on enough new growth, we will probably see flowering and fruit next summer. That's the hope at least.

Learning, Leaning and Laughing

Aurora has finally learned to ride her bike. She wanted to make sure that the record was set straight on this matter. She has announced that she is determined to learn to ride well enough to be able to bike the 3.4 miles each way to school..... soon....... soon. There you have it.
Pictures were taken at Taughannock State Park. Talk about a perfect day; cool breeze, bright sunshine, waves crashing on the shore....nice.

Warmest Days of April

Usually, April is full of rain, quiet days, soft ground and chilly nights. Yesterday was nearly 84F... within 1 degree of the historical record for this time of year. When folks argue about Global Warming on days when we get snow I just want to SMACK them. It is going to just get hotter and hotter and more and more unpredictable.

While I could rant all day about stupid people's opinions on global warming, instead I want to rave about how the heat has made all of our daffodils just POP. In two days we went from nothing to POW! Really made our whole yard just light up. (and yes, these pictures were shot right in our front yard!)

Spring Days

Spring is Spring-ing. Today the weather was well over 70F which was a shocker. This time last week was cold and damp. Not today! Nancy was able to take half a day off work to come home and help RE-paint the booth. Seems that after three months of painting our booth before Craft Boston had all been for naught. It was scratched everywhere. Just trashed. The new enamel paint is just crap. So, we bought quarts of all sorts of finishes, hoping we could find the perfect paint/finish for our display. After trying every clearcoat, polyurethane, spar, varnish, lacquer and stain combination... none of them were worth the effort. We ended up with wicked cheap paint from Home Depot. Nothing fancy. CHEAP matte flat paint. It isnt at all scratch resistant, but it repaints and retouches EASILY and dries almost instantly. Best of all, it doesn't stick to our pots and supports the way this previous enamel paint sure did.

So, now we are almost done repainting the ENTIRE booth...again. Two times in one year is nuts. We're also still planning to repaint everything in the gallery in the studio too. BUT we may just keep one booth white/cream for doing outdoor shows. This chocolate color REALLY gets hot. Hot enough to warp a hollowcore door in an hour apparently.

Fun stuff. In between painting the booth, trimming ice cream bowls and working on these brochures, I have been planting trees. Pictures to come!

Making Maps for Brochures

After finally getting (sort of) caught up after our Craft Boston debacle, I finally had some time to work on the brochures for some of our friends. We offered to help Cayuga Creamery and Salmon Pottery with their new brochures... but until now, that just hadnt happened. So, from Thur through today, we plugged away, edited images, designed layouts, found great fonts... and pulled it all together. Here is a look at one of the maps we designed for the back of the brochure.

Reflections on Spring

This has been a very strange week. We finally had REAL springtime weather. Some warm sunny days, some rain here and there. Not a bad week. Today was sort of bittersweet. The first of many orders came out of the kiln. Nearly all diner mugs. Two hours later, they were all packed up, boxed and ready for pick up. Couple hours later, they were off to become wedding favors for a wedding two weeks from now. Hopefully we can post some images of these mugs in action after the wedding.

We spent the earlier (sunnier) part of last week walking a lot. Finally warm enough to get out and enjoy the longer days. The image above was shot while we were hiking the lower trail at Taughannock Falls. I love this time of year when the creek runs high and the high cliff trees are starting to think about bursting out. A month from now, we'll have trees fully leafed out, dense canopy of shade below.... Spring is so different. We are still finding ice-falls and rockslides that are active on the sides of the gorge. While we were hiking we watched a few good sized slabs come tumbling down in the afternoon sun. Imagine a case of beer-sized chunk of ice shooting down the side of a cliff... that was us..... watching the ice coming right toward us!

Next week: Daffodils, and more.

The Road Home

We haven't had much cause to drive the Mass Pike in the past couple years. No vacations to Maine, no road trips to the Berkshires....not much really. Most of our time has been spent with our heads to the grindstone in the studio. Our drive home from Boston on Monday was definitely a wake up call. Winter isn't over. FOR SURE. We had been having signs of Spring earlier in the week. As soon as we reached the higher elevations on the Pike we started getting slush instead of rain. Within a few miles we came upon our first crash, accompanied by a pile of flashing blue lights. Few yards further on, MORE blue lights and another car payment tossed in the round file. Within about 2-3 miles we came across some DOT workers putting up one of those flashing signs indicating we should all slow down and get ready to stop for an accident. Hmm, I figured they meant the accidents we JUST passed. Nope. 5 miles down the road, everything was at a standstill. It would remain that way for nearly 2 hours. Every 20 min or so, some state vehicle, DOT, or Mass police vehicle would come racing up the breakdown lane to the site of the accident.

We checked the radio (AM & FM) trying to find info about how big the accident was and how long it would be delaying things. Nothing. For over an hour. Finally we heard that the Pike was closed Westbound. Closed. Hmmm. We were stuck. So we made do the best we could. Cracked out Nancy's camera and started playing with ideas and images. Mostly we tried not to dwell on how roundly we'd been whooped at Craft Boston. It was time to start looking ahead to our next shows. So, here are some images from the time spent on the MassPike.

Craft Boston

We made it home yesterday after driving through slush and rain all the way through the Berkshires and the hilly country between Albany and Binghamton. Suffice to say, I am glad to be home. The van has been unloaded, the boxes are empty and the gallery is starting to look normal again. I guess that is part of the problem. Not much work sold during the show. If we had another day of sales we would have broken even. As it is, it was a good show, a wonderful experiment and an expensive weekend in Boston.

Here's what our booth looked like. I think Nancy did a great job pulling it all together. Made us look like a million bucks.

My hope now is that the economy turns around after the elections and we're able to visit Boston again next year with different results.

Almost ready for Craft Boston

Here we are, not quite two days away from hitting the road on our way to Boston. Everything is packed up into boxes and ready to load into the van. We've never had this many pots on hand EVER. Probably 2x more pots than we have ever had... even for our holiday sales. Just TONS of pots.

Tonight we spent the bulk of the evening playing around with the layout of the new booth display. Trying all sorts of angles, rearranging this and that over and over... always in search of the perfect layout. The best part was laying the new Wondermat flooring. Foam squares that interlink. Very comfortable. I dont think I could ever do a show on carpet again! Best part: they are grey, so even dirty, they look just fine. Talk about low-maintenance.

Here are a few of the pots we're taking with us this coming week. I decided that from now on, we need to pull a few pots from each firing to save for exhibitions. From this last firing, I am pulling aside the sunset teabowl in the image from the last blog entry.

New pots pre-Craft Boston

Tangerine carved vase $100

Sunset facetted teabowl $Not For Sale

Blue carved vase $120

Here we are, a week before heading to Boston. The studio is a disaster zone and should qualify for federal relief. The booth has been completely repainted. Parts to everything are EVERYWHERE.

The good news is that we have TONS of pots ready for the show. Finally. The last two firings produced some absolutely stunning pots.

I spent the better part of last night and so far, much of today, taking new pictures of these pots. As always, comments are welcome.

More playing

The original image

Yep, when I should have been dealing with taxes today, I was instead up to my _________ in fun, playing with some new photo software. Oh what FUN!

What I am finding is that while composition, good glass, excellent lighting, etc are all crucial to getting amazing photos, the thing that has been missing from my work has been the "post-processing".... meaning the Photoshop time or any one of a hundred programs out there. The ability to adjust contrast, saturation, color correction, focus, etc....is so important to the final image.

Excursion Around the Bay

Or what do you do when the lights go out? Today was one of those days, where the ice storm that should have been keeping us home and safe and dry... instead had us out on the road, looking for someplace warm and lit. We lost power for the better part of six hours. To top it off, we lost MORE branches on our white pines due to ice build up. The yard is covered with enough branches to make 2-3 full sized trees!

For most of the evening Nancy made new earrings and I goofed around the the camera. Once the power came back on I planned on getting back to work on taxes and data-input... but I REALLY wanted to play some more with the images we shot last weekend at the Junkyard. So, here they are!! Comments encouraged.

Junkyard Excursion

We finally had some snow this year. Everyone else in the Northeast has been complaining of too much snow, but here in our little corner, we've had precious little. With the nice white stuff all around, the family was compelled yesterday to head out on a photo excursion. Everyone had their camera in tow. The first pictures I am posting today are from my camera. Hopefully tomorrow I will have some images from Aurora's camera. Nancy will probably post her images on HER blog.

The Everglades

Of all the things we did on our trip, this was the most WILD! Alligators, anhingas, herons and all sorts of other amazing things!!!


Created with Admarket's flickrSLiDR.

Seaworld

While Aurora and I sat in Orlando with a 5 hour layover, we decided to DO SOMETHING with our time. So we hopped into a cab and went to Seaworld. Here's some of what we did.


Created with Admarket's flickrSLiDR.

New slideshow from our trip to Florida

After trying to sort through the hundreds of pictures that Aurora and I took on our trip, we have whittled it down to these. Enjoy.


Created with Admarket's flickrSLiDR.

Gone to Florida

Took a break from the studio this week to come down to Florida with my daughter to visit my family. Once we made it to Miami we headed down to Key Largo with my brother Martin and my mom in tow. We had the most amazing time snorkeling off the reef. Saw fish of every size and shape imagineable!! On the way back up the keys we stopped in at Dolphin Cove and SWAM with dolphins! Originally the plan was that only A would be going in the water to swim with the dolphins... then my mom sprung the surprise... I GOT TO GO TOO!!! Talk about amazing. Nothing in the world really prepares you for such a stunning experience. Rather than write more, here are some pics.

Ready, Sets, Go

Another week passes and we are up to our eyeballs in pots. This week was spent making oval forms. We had an order for some casseroles (which I no longer keep in stock as part of our line..)
which needed to be much larger than our normal old-style baking dishes... think 14"x10" ... which means throwing the form at 16'x12". That's a mighty BIG casserole. Looks more like a battleship compared to our little pots.

One of the things Nancy and I have been playing with is the idea of sets. In the past, everything we made was sold piecemeal. Now we're hoping that by combining pots into sets of forms, they'll sell as a unit. We shall see. I think the tumblers on the tray above is a good place to start. More to come.

I also had a chance this week to make oval vases again. My hope was to have a few days in a row to really make an extensive series, but our cat Ferro has been in and out of the hospital with urinary tract issues. No fun! With only a few more days to be in the studio before a week's hiatus (kid and I are heading to FL for some snorkeling and some exploring in the Everglades) there isnt much time to get hip deep in more work.

We are definitely getting closer to that end of March deadline as we get ready for Craft Boston.

Getting Caught Up

This weekend was incredibly productive in the studio. Nancy went to town making plates. Board after board of oval platters, dinner plates, salad plates and dessert plates... they just kept coming all weekend. She took Friday off work for a snowday. Ended up spending most of the morning trying to get our cat Ferro to the hospital. Add a wicked ice storm to the mix, and it made for a very exciting and tense morning.

We unloaded another kiln this weekend. Some pretty amazing pots came out. More oval pitchers and oval platters. The gallery is started to look fully stocked again. It's ABOUT TIME!!!
Our goal at this point is to be really overstocked by the time we leave for Boston at the end of next month. We're getting there.

Nancy spent a huge chunk of time over the past week stripping, sanding and priming the new booth parts. Still a lot more to go. After trying out some chemical stripper on some of the big hollow doors we use for shelves, we decided that strippers just arent meant for us. Talk about GOOEY! What a mess!! To save time and frustration we went to Home Depot and bought NEW hollow core doors. Done. Tonight they'll be primed and tomorrow they can be painted. Easy.

Sometimes the hassle just isnt worth it. We try very hard to be as eco-conscious as possible in this family.... but there's definitely a point of diminishing returns!