Second to Last Firing is OUT and on the Shelves

We have one more firing cooling down today, which will be on the shelves first thing tomorrow morning. Then we're out. What you're seeing is what we have left. Great colors, and fantastic pots. Our aim was to go out with a bang and I think we nailed it with this last firing!

There's a lot of lime, matte purple and other great colors!

Down to the Wire

This morning we unloaded an armful of gorgeous oval trays, more salad and dessert plates (and a few special things for those waiting for orders!)
Alas, the driveway was quiet today. Not nearly the onslaught that Tuesday and Wednesday gave us. Tomorrow and Saturday are it.

Saturday at Noon we take down our sign. Anyone who shows up in the driveway after high-noon had better be bringing pizza, ice cream or something chocolate-ish.... 'cause we'll be celebrating and grieving and lamenting and reveling. It's the end of an era.

We're BACK

Only five days left to go.....

Wednesday's Pots - Straight from the kiln

Apprentice's teapot in Pear $120, 1 matte purple sorbet bowls (Sold)

Blue teabowl $36, small pear mixing bowl $60

Small mixing bowls in Matte Purple and Pear (SOLD), $60 each.

Matte purple salad plates ( 2 SOLD), $30

Small serving bowl in Matte purple $48

Small serving bowl in Matte purple $48, Blue canister $50, pear salad plate $30

Tiny teabowl in Turquoise $36 (SOLD)

Ordering Depression with a side of Self Pity (or Sabra comes the rescue!)

Sabra's AWESOME silverware (and kick-ass container!)

Yawp. That would be me tonight. Between my slowly fading headache, my gnawing back pain and my overtired eyes.... you'd think that would be enough. But no. I had to go and try to build a wardrobe tonight. You heard right. After thinking about the fact that my photography clients are going to be less than inclined to have me show up at their special events or place of work, looking like I just stumbled out of a pottery studio, clay stains and all... I figured that it was time to change into something new. Something stylish. (Stop laughing!) Something comfortable. Black.

The hard part was coming to grips with the fact that my body is no longer the shape it was a year ago, or even a month ago. I've been heavy most of my life and by and large, I fall under the larger than large size. Post-surgery though, I have zilch in the way of abdominal muscles. With the onset of the latest incisional hernia, there is even less holding my innards in... so the resultant bulge in my front really looks weird. Not cool. So, I am trying to find ways to pull it all together somehow. Doing so though, forces me to stare at this girth and it depresses the living shit out of me.

I still imagine that I look like I did when Nancy and I got married. Ha. I wish. That was seventy pounds ago. Trying to work my mind around this new shape is more than difficult. But somehow, in the midst of this self-deprecating morass, I realized that no matter what I looked like, I needed to feel better about my appearance

On Friday we were visiting with our wicked cool friend Sabra up in Rochester. There's something so awesome about friends who'll be thrilled when you just drop in out of the blue. That would be us. Dropping in while we were in the neighborhood picking up enormous bags of styrofoam packing peanuts.

A year ago, I was helping Sabra with some glaze calculation stuff. We'd never met in person, but were introduced by a fellow potter, and we worked together online. Fast forward to my coma and Art Trail in October... Nancy needed to be in the hospital with me, but she was determined to keep the gallery open as best she could. Sabra came to the rescue! She showed up with bells on! To this day, we continue to hear great stories about how awesome she handled sales. Apparently some folks were simply cut out to sell other people's pots! God bless em.

So, while visiting with Sabra on Friday, Nancy asked if she knew of a shoe store she would recommend... to find shoes for me. I needed something more snazzy than Crocs. Go figure. I don't argue about shoes with Nancy. If you dont know why, read her blog: http://coldspringsstudio.blogspot.com/. Sabra recommended (and we do too!) a place in Fairport Ny called 123 Shoes. Great little store. We walked in and twenty minutes later, left with a pair of shoes that were perfect for what I needed. Stylish, semi-formal, decent support... and the fit is outta this world! Nice touch: they come with a 30-day, walk-around guarantee. Wear them outdoors for a month. If you dont love them, they'll take them back. Gotta love that!

Thank you Sabra!! You definitely sent us in the right direction. Now if only we had found Dog Town ... a hot dog joint she was trying to help us find. Next time!

Ferro showing off his mug for the camera. He really liked Sabra when she came to visit last month!

Another Week, Fewer Pots, Newer Pots

the tangerine and both turq bowls are sold

the blue plate has sold

the tangerine oval tray has sold

the turq teabowl has sold

I wont go through the trouble of posting prices. Suffice to say, they're the same on our website. This will be our last weekend home before we're gone for a brief vacation the following weekend. For folks out there keeping score... that means we have less than two weeks left of the studio being open. Pots are still coming, but some things we are totally out of... like: soup mugs, footed mugs, ruffled vases, oval vases, pitchers, lg/med mixing bowls.... too many things really. BUT we have a mountain of plates, and more coming!

Getting Ready To Take It All Down

414981 - Blue Blue Day, 15"diameter

After having our gallery walls hung with our huge Glaze Tectonics platters for the past eight years, the time has finally come to start taking them down and crating them up. They simply have never sold as well as one would hope. As much as I love looking at them and reflecting on them, they have never reached out to the public at large. Most people simply cant imagine paying 2D prices (ie painting, print, photography prices) for a clay disk filled with glaze that happens to hang on the wall. Maybe the lineage is too close to being a mug. Maybe it is the old dirt cheap metaphor. Who knows? Doesn't really matter. The real estate is too precious to leave these beasties hanging around. Time to bring them in from the cold, to wrap them up and call it a night.

Which leaves the next question: What is going up in their place? Ahhh. Prints.

Today FedEx pulled into the driveway and unloaded six BIG boxes full of framed, matted, photographic prints. Nancy and I sat down, went through all of my favorite images, and picked out a dozen. They are now framed in a few different sizes... basically big, bigger and DAMN that's big!

My hope is that Nancy and I will have time to repack all the platters this weekend and start hanging the new prints soon. I already unpacked one box and I haven't recovered yet. Mpix makes amazing prints! The framing job is better than I could have done on my own here. Very high end job! Definitely worth the cost. Next week: Pics of the new photographs on the wall!!

Open

Getting Down to the Wire

As we head into our last three weeks with our studio open, the pots on the shelves are starting to look pretty lonely. We had a bang-up weekend where at times we had people leaving the studio with a bag under each arm, and in some cases they had to make a few trips. This is wonderful for us, but for folks waiting to buy pots on the last day we'll be open... perhaps not so good.

Let me say again for anyone who didn't read the postcard or the Facebook page or my earlier blog posting: August 21st is the LAST day to buy pots. Prices GO UP all day long. We have pots now, and that selection is dwindling fast. If you want to be able to have choices, NOW is the time to be shopping. Okay... 'nuf said.

Wide Awake and Wondering

62098F - The Sixth platter in the Sixth Month of the Year (Blue Storm).

The clock just ticked past 4am. That means I have missed out on most of tonight's sleep. I have no idea what brought on tonight's insomnia, but rather than toss and turn in bed in frustration, I figured a better solution was to get up and try to work on something. To that end, I have prepared new images from the Glaze Tectonics platters hanging in our gallery currently.