Saturday's pots

That's right, if it's Saturday it must mean MORE pots.

Prices are posted under each image.
Call or email if you have questions:


607-387-4042 voice/fax
email: info@coldspringsstudio.com

Oval footed vase, $65
Med serving bowl, $70
Diner mug in lime, $30

In Butter Yellow: Med serving bowl, $70
Small serving bowl, $48



Med serving bowl, $70 Sunset red, Dinner plate, sunset red, $36ea.



Ruffled vases in Tangerine and Sunset $48 ea.
Sunset basket, $100



Butter or sunset teabowl (yunomi) $38
Lime oval pitcher, $70
Sunset and lime sorbet bowls, $24 each.




Butter yellow sorbet bowls, $24 each
Med serving bowl in Sunset, $70
Spoonrest $12


Dessert plate in Tangerine $24 (lots of other colors too)
Dinner plates in Butter, and lots of other colors $36
Oval footed vase, $65 tangerine




Tumblers in Tangerine and sunset $24 ea.
Spoonrests in lime $12
Diner mugs in Butter yellow, $30 ea.
Sorbet bowls in Tangerine (and cranberry in the back) $24 ea.



Small serving bowls in Sunset and Tangerine $48 each
Butter teabowl, $40


Lime oval pitcher, $70
Lime diner mugs, $30
Lime dessert plate, $24
Tangerine spoonrest $12

Makin' plates and revisin' the layout of the gallery

Gallery revision #3. This time we got rid of the shelving supports which really brightened the wall up and also freed up a great deal more vertical space. This layout has also made each shelf independent and much more sturdy. No more wiggly shelves when customers put things down or pick them up.






Everyone was working on plates in the studio this week. What started out as the most frustrating day yet, ended with everyone making no less than four plates... in some cases LOTS more than four. Mind you, this is day one of plates. I would say these potters are on their way to some massive fun!

Making Plates

When I first started out making plates, it was the biggest struggle for me. I was always wrestling with the larger mass of clay (in the case of platters or chargers)... and keeping the lips from either curling UP too much in the drying process or flopping down because of being too wet. It was one thing after another until I started making plates 18-24 at a time. Then the kinks got worked out, a process was born and things just sailed right along.

This week we worked on plate making with our apprentices. Here are a few quick images during the throwing demo.

How We've Changed

That would be me, throwing plate demos, Justin looking on.

Dana cleaning glaze off her pots.

Nancy putting the finishing touches on a new summer dress. We do a lot more in our studio than just make pots!

In the past few months our studio has gone through some pretty wild major changes. We used to be a studio of one, sometime two, now and again three if Aurora was with us that week. Since January we have had Hannah in the studio making plates and mugs two to three days a week. Talk about increasing our energy level and helping us figure out what our capacity is! We have stacks of bisqueware that we had never seen previously.

In the past few months we have added Dana and Justin to our studio family. They're typically three days a week, 2-4 hours at a shot. In that short span of time they have gone from being complete novices on the wheel to being able to throw decent cylinders, bowls, and this week we began work on throwing plates.

I took a look around the studio yesterday and it was amazing. We had three wheels going full tilt, with Dana and Justin and Aurora all throwing plates. Fantastic. It also made me realize we need more room and more kiln space. More storage for pots wouldnt be a bad thing either!

We finally finished adding more shelves to the gallery. It took longer than expected because the shelving system that we're using (Fast-mount by John Sterling Co.) seems to no longer be carried by Lowes... so we had to do some hunting around to find a dealer who could order more for us. Ironically, we found our supplier just around the corner. For folks reading this who have no idea where we live... Trumansburg is a tiny town with a pop. of about 1500 souls. We have two hardware stores. Sort of. One is open banker's hours. The other is more of a lumber yard. Not at all a big box sort of shopping. Prices are considerably higher than say Ithaca, where we have Lowes, Home Depot etc. But Ithaca is a half hour drive away. In good weather.

So after calling every dealer within a 100 mile radius, I checked with our local lumber yard. Sure enough, they could get the shelf supports in a couple days. Wow. And just down the street to boot. Nice.

We rebuilt the gallery last night with help from Dana and Justin. They had missed out on the deconstruction of the gallery space last week when Hannah pulled her whirlwind routine and moved hundreds of pots out of the gallery in no-time flat!







As I was describing earlier, we had a full house yesterday. Hannah here in the morning till the early afternooon. Then Dana and Justin in the afternoon-evening. Aurora joined us between her chores and her french horn lessons. This image was shot of her working on a new dragon head she was making for Dana.

One of the things I love about working with our barn full of apprentices is that they all LOVE being here. We all have a great time and tons of work make their way through the kiln each week. We used to fire a lot. Now we basically never let the kiln cool down. Fire, unload, reload, fire. Rinse. Repeat.

Justin glazing up a storm.

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!