Ring in 2010

Are we all just in awe that it is 2010?
I know we all want to say it has come too fast.
Where were we as the years flew past us?
Were we present in our own skins or too busy being busy to notice until we pulled up our heads to take notice?
2010- just rolls off the tongue doesn't it?
So what is your assessment of the past year?
Some years are better than others.
Then again some weeks are better and in some weeks, some days are better.

As 2010 comes knocking on the door I think the latter part of 2009 was pretty darn good compared to July 2008-July 2009 our year from hell.
One of those years I do not want back.
But-
This I have learned over the past 50 plus years.

Life does go past fast.
It is not a dress rehearsal.
You will have good times and you will have bad times.
It is a roller coaster ride with highs and lows.
There is never enough time in a day, week, or even year.
And-
The following things are important.
Liking your family and friends as much as loving them.
Being able to forgive little stuff.
Health.
Your idea of wealth, because wealth comes in many forms and colors.
Happiness, not something you have everyday but your ability to recognize when you have it and that it is not something someone else gives or makes for you.

I don't believe in New Years resolutions, they are always promises made to be broken.

I do believe that I would like to make my own life better and in doing so hope to touch others.
So for 2010 I hope for my usual:
World peace.
Hope.
Love.
Random acts of kindness.
I still believe that most people are good at heart, let's prove it.

sliding down hill very fast!

Hello!
I know that you all had great times with family and friends,
I know we did.
Just to keep things short and to the point Christmas with the kids and the YaYa's ( grandmas) was great.
Now here comes the but-
Our son-in-law was hospitalized with very high blood sugar.
He went on the 27th but should be coming home today.
He will have to go on insulin and watch his diet, but should be fine as long as that is all taken care of.
If you don't know the what to look for diabetes here are the signs:

Frequent trips to the bathroom:
Are you visiting the bathroom much more lately? Does it seem like you urinate all day long? Urination becomes more frequent when there is too much glucose in the blood. If insulin is nonexistent or ineffective, the kidneys can't filter glucose back to the blood. They become overwhelmed and try to draw extra water out of the blood to dilute the glucose. This keeps your bladder full and it keeps you running to the bathroom.
Unquenchable Thirst:
If it feels like you can't get enough water and you're drinking much more than usual, it could be a sign of diabetes, especially if it seems to go hand in hand with frequent urination. If your body is pulling extra water out of your blood and you're running to the bathroom more, you will become dehydrated and feel the need to drink more to replace the water that you are losing.
Losing Weight Without Trying:
This symptom is more noticeable with Type 1 diabetes. In Type 1, the pancreas stops making insulin, possibly due to a viral attack on pancreas cells or because an autoimmune response makes the body attack the insulin producing cells. The body desperately looks for an energy source because the cells aren't getting glucose. It starts to break down muscle tissue and fat for energy. Type 2 happens gradually with increasing insulin resistance so weight loss is not as noticeable.
Weakness and Fatigue:
It's that bad boy glucose again. Glucose from the food we eat travels into the bloodstream where insulin is supposed to help it transition into the cells of our body. The cells use it to produce the energy we need to live. When the insulin isn't there or if the cells don't react to it anymore, then the glucose stays outside the cells in the bloodstream. The cells become energy starved and you feel tired and run down.
Tingling or Numbness in Your Hands, Legs or Feet:
This symptom is called neuropathy. It occurs gradually over time as consistently high glucose in the blood damages the nervous system, particularly in the extremities. Type 2 diabetes is a gradual onset, and people are often not aware that they have it. Therefore, blood sugar might have been high for more than a few years before a diagnosis is made. Nerve damage can creep up without our knowledge. Neuropathy can very often improve when tighter blood glucose control is achieved.
Other Signs and Symptoms That Can Occur:
Blurred vision, skin that is dry or itchy, frequent infections or cuts and bruises that take a long time to heal are also signs that something is amiss. Again, when these signs are associated with diabetes, they are the result of high glucose levels in the body. If you notice any of the above signs, schedule an appointment with your doctor. He or she will be able to tell you if you have reason to be concerned about a diagnosis of diabetes.


If we had not been clued in things could have been much worse.
If you don't know them you might think you loved one is on drugs.
It took me two days to clue in and say something to him.
Then our daughter and son convinced him to let her take his blood sugar.
To say it was through the roof is an understatement.
Fortunately Anna is dealing with gestational diabetes and was able to bring his numbers down and drive them back to Virginia and get him in the hospital.

I must say that other then that the trip was great.
I will leave you with a few pictures and head out to the studio.

Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas one and all.
May you have a safe and Happy Christmas filled with lots of cheer and joy.
Meredith and Mark

PS- this is not our house, but we enjoyed the effort someone else put it to it!

Jen Mecca had a great post about being a potter and being a mother.
The balancing act of both.
In fact for most of us it is also about being a partner,a daughter, mother, son, brother, father and all those things.
We are potters, yet, our lives are so much more.
To be a potter it helps to be with someone who understands the following:
I can't because I have to, throw this order, trim bowls, put on handles, fire a kiln, unload a kiln, pack and ship and so on.
If you make pots or work in clay you know it is like a good comic.
It is all in the timing.
When it is time it is time. Or you just have to face losing the work.
For our families and love ones this is what we do.
If we are lucky they understand.
When Mark and I started this I was talking to a potters wife.
Her words to me were , "you understand this."
" Understand what?", I did not get it at first.
She went on to say, " you understand why he can't drop everything and just walk away."
"Oh, that - well yes."
It is hard, it does take time and timing.

I love the question of when do you do blank.
Well, you do it when the clay is ready.
So much of what we do we do by feel.
Is the clay too wet?
Too dry?
Or like Goldilocks is it just right.
So back to family.

One of the main reasons I chose to become a potter, beside the one of the love of clay, was the fact I could
A. work from the farm and not go work in a surrounding town at a mill, which I did do while we were getting the business started.
B. I would be home when my kids were home.
I did not want someone else to rear them.
The benefit was not only would I be here, but so would their father.
We were here to get them off to school, and pick them up.
We could rearrange to go on field trips, we brought clay into every class they had through middle school and then again in high school.
I worked from 8:30 until 2:30 for many years.
Pottery was my job and I took it as such, but when the kids were home, I was more in tune to them.
As they grew older I could work longer hours.
I don't regret this at all.

Christmas was especially taxing and hard on all of us.
We did all those things you do while you are rearing kids.
( someone one told me you raise pigs you rear children- it made me laugh)
There are times clay can wait.
There are times it just can not.
So as I look back on the past years I will never regret those years here with the kids and the madness of it all.
I am sure going through pictures has me reflecting on all of this- but
I still find my children are some of the finest people I know.
I enjoy their company and I know we are both happy that they have found great people to be with.
So for now let the clay rest and let the Holidays beginning.
Cheers!
M

It's my birthday too, yeah

and so Michael Kline says where is the picture of you from 1978.
Well, I posted up one from 1973-74ish last week.
This one would be 1980ish.
And yes- yesterday was Anna's birthday and today mine.
What a great gift to have a daughter born the day before your birthday and right before Christmas.
We put her in a basket under the tree in 1977.
She does not go for the tradition any more so we had to give it up.

and here is me, and my best present for my birthday,on my mother's front porch the summer she was 2.


So to all of you out there all that are blogging and reading and all that I have met and those that I will meet.

MERRY CHRISTMAS !

enjoy your time with family and may the new year bring us all peace and hope.
M

12/21/1978 They say it's your Birthday.....

Just a shot out to our girl who has a birthday today!
Happy Birthday Anna.
Pictures from Christmas 1978.

You say it's your birthday
It's my birthday too, yeah
They say it's your birthday
We're gonna have a good time
I'm glad it's your birthday
Happy birthday to you.

Yes we're going to a party party
Yes we're going to a party party
Yes we're going to a party party

I would like you to dance (Birthday)
Take a cha-cha-cha-chance (Birthday)
I would like you to dance (Birthday)
Dance

I would like you to dance (Birthday)
Take a cha-cha-cha-chance (Birthday)
I would like you to dance (Birthday)
Dance

You say it's your birthday
Well it's my birthday too, yeah
You say it's your birthday
We're gonna have a good time
I'm glad it's your birthday
Happy birthday to you.

A story continued

I would come back to visit with my grandparents a few more times before we moved to Whynot NC
In all those visits I would see Dot as well.
There was one visit where I took Mark after he and I married.
I thought he should see the mountains, now this is where you should all belly laugh- I thought the "hill" behind the farm was a mountain. You have to remember I grew up in the flat lands and on the coast of Va.
Mark did set me straight and take me to see real mountains, but that would be another story with a 1956 pick-up truck and camping across county not today.
We stopped in to visit with Dot and Walter.
Walter was off somewhere and Dot and the gang who worked and apprenticed there at the time were all in the courtyard having a laugh fest.
It was so funny and striking to me to see this person who was my mother's age hanging with the crowd so to speak.
It is that point where you see an adult more as a person and not just a friend of the grandmothers.
I would see the Dot and Water again when my grandfather passed away.
They were there to help hold the family together in any way they could.
I went to see Dot again on a to visit with my grandmother after my grandfather passed away.
I would go see Dot in the shop, she at her place on the wheel.
I was there to buy gifts for my friends back in Tenn. where we lived at that time.
Some NC pottery to take back, in many ways to take back a piece of my past.
I would not see Dot again until we moved to NC in the summer of 1976.

We moved to the farm in one weekend. Then we packed up my grandmother using a borrowed horse trailer, Mark, Brother Chris and his wife would move her to Va. into a house close to my mother.
Here I was with a 3 month old baby alone on the farm for the first time.
It was surreal.
This had been the place that I and my 4 siblings, spent all our summers.
The place where I would wake to my grandfather tapping my foot to say, "the cows are out." Which meant get up and come with me I need you to help.
or " a fence is down."
Again, you just got up pulled on clothes and went.
It was the place I learned to ride a horse ( not well but I got on), herd cows, work in tobacco, cut grass with a riding lawn mower, watch hay being baled, corn growing, fed ducks and chickens, learned about snakes, learned to swim and bait a hook for fish, rode out in he night on the back of a pick-up truck with the stars shinning or under a full moon.
For a city girl it was everything the city was not.
It was the place where I would wake to the smell of coffee, bacon and cantaloupe.
I would go down from upstairs to find my grandfather standing at the kitchen counter in his undershirt and pants, his hat on his head, some sweat on his brow taking his break.
A cup of coffee, some bacon and cantaloupe.
He would chuckle and say things like," hey sleepy head its time to be up. I have been out in the field for hours and here you are just getting out of bed."
He would have been up with the chickens.

There would be chores to be done, but, then, in the afternoon, hours of swimming or fishing in the pond.
The best part of this is I did it along with my two older brothers, older sister and my youngest sister. We spent some great times on the farm. In many ways it brought us together to share something we did not have at home.
Here we could not just run off and see our friends, here we had to make our own entertainment.
Play records, dance in the basement, run all over the farm and of course spend hours swimming or fishing.
Now here I was I would be living in my place of memories. It would be years before I could drive up and not expect my grandparents to walk out to greet me.
This would become my home.
A place I raised two kids, had my own animals, and became a potter.
I'll get back to that.
A bite at a time.
M

A Story- part one

While I am still rummaging through my past and trying desperately to stay in the present I am full of thoughts about some of the older potters from my past.
Dorothy and Walter Auman keep playing in my brain.
I am trying to figure out where to start with them.
The Auman's were such a big part of my life.
They were friends of my grandparents so my memories of them and their son Walt Jr. go way back.
I remember thinking they were not like the friends of my parents who were city people.
My first memory of Dorothy Auman was out at the pond.
We had fished and then cooked out.
There was a bonfire and I was hanging around listening to the adults laugh and talk. I don't remember the conversation, but I remember being struck by Dorothy and Walter's laughter.
I remember thinking they were so different from the farm families who lived around the farm. They were a bit more wordily and lively.
I was taken back by Dorothy's out going personality, quick smile, good wit and her laughter.

Years later when I was 17 I would take my first solo trip to see my grandparents.
My mother walked up to me and said, " Go see your grandparents, you have some vacation time and they would like to see you."
She handed me the car keys and said , "we will map out the route."
It was my first trip alone, just me and the open road I was excited.
My mother's car was a Red VW camper. The one which popped up and had a refrigerator in it.
We all thought it was super cool and here I was taking it for a ride to the depths of central NC.
My mother was a High school math teacher. All the family and kids at school called the VW Big Red.
A double meaning since my mother was a redhead and not a small women.
Anyway, I took the keys and set off for the farm.
I made one stop over in Chapel Hill to visit with my Godfather and family then on the the farm.

This was the first time I would spend time alone on the farm with my grandparents.
Now, talk about being treated like royalty it was great fun.
My grandparents were great people who had traveled all over the world before settling back in Seagrove, or I should say Whynot, to farm.
Even though there were cows to be taken care of and grass to be mowed we spent a lot of time out and about the nieghborhood and small towns.

One afternoon while I was there my grandmother and I stopped to see Dorothy in the pottery shop.
I have memories of Cole's as a child and Seagrove Pottery, the Auman's shop, but this time it was different.
We walked in to find Dorothy in her usual place behind the wheel making pots and yes standing and talking.
I was looking around, really taking in the work for what I think was the first time.
There were several small rooms off to the left and I wandered through looking at bowls, mugs, teapots, plates, pitchers, jugs and pots, pots and more pots.
I walked back out to stand next to my Grandmother and watch Dorothy turn.
I looked at Dorothy and the what she was making and a feeling that even today I have a hard time describing came over me so strong and powerful that I started to pass out.
My grandmother grab an arm, Dorothy shot out from behind her wheel and they both sat me in a chair, placed a coke in my hands and started fanning me.
I was embarrassed beyond belief.
Like two mother hens they felt I should go rest, but really the feeling was gone.

I have thought about this over the years.
I think that if I was in tune with a place deep within me I could have somehow seen how many times I would walk through that door, look at pots made by Dorothy and glazed by Walter.
It was as if my 17 year old self felt something there, on that day, that would be such a big part of my life.
In fact if not for Dorothy and Walter and the many days and ways they influenced my life I don't know what direction I would have taken.
If I never moved to Seagrove what would I have done?
Who would I have been?
Would I have ever touched clay, become a potter?

This is just a beginning.
I have so much Dorothy and Walter in me.
I know there will be more.
Let's just call this part one.


I found this interview done with Dot and Walter In 1983
go over for a good read.

Virginia Shelton

When Mark and I moved to Seagrove in 1976 one of the throwers who worked at JB Cole's Pottery was Virginia Shelton, a niece of Waymon and Nell Cole.

Virginia was one of Bascom King's daughters.
Bascom was married to Nell's sister Vellie.

While going through pictures I found these great pictures, taken what looks to be many years back, of Virginia Shelton.
I thought I would share them with you.
As you can tell in some of them she must have had a warning that photographs were being made.
She is so pretty in her dress and with her hair all fixed up, but note the feet.
I love that she has no shoes on.



Virginia was one of those potters who Mark and I would go and visit with when we had a quest for the knowledge of how to make pots.
We were enrolled in the local community college, but we were also embedded in the history of the surrounding potteries.
Going to Cole's to watch someone like Virginia or Waymon for that matter was a treat.
They could both throw and talk at the same time. I guess they were very used to the many visitors which came and went.
One of the best things about Seagrove in those days was the ability to wander through the work areas of the local potteries.
As long as you did not get in the way you could stand and watch for hours.
It was easy to find a place and settle in for a spell.
Mark and I both took a great liking to Virginia.
Generous, kind and sharing.

























Although both of us knew we would never be able to out turn Virginia.
She, like many of the potters who were here when we first moved here, is long gone.
But we keep these potters close in thoughts when we are working.



The last picture must have been taken at a later date then the ones above.

What year!?

Now, why do I think I can sort through pictures of my life in 20 minutes or less?
I am completely distracted starting in 1973-74 ish.
So I am now on the second round of sorting- but gosh these are a treat.



Me and sister Leslie 1973-74ish

All dressed up to go see Leon Russell- again about 1973-74ish.

I hope to make my way to the 1980's soon.

Pots!?

Those are drying and it is December give me a break!

Cheers!

M

Tiles and such

Tiles are in all stages of dry right now.
Allison's tiles are glazed and just waiting for Mark and me to finish up ours so we can fire.
I have done some of the pillow pots, from the nightgown series.
I was inspired by a nightgown which was hanging in my bathroom.
It is electric blue with these wild flowers all over it.
The flower got stuck in my head and needed to go somewhere.
They decided to come out on tiles and these pots to hang on the wall.
People keep asking what they are for.
I tell them just to look at- they have no use.
I think you need some pots that have no real purpose.
Just to add that splash to a room.
Mark had someone ask that other day and his response was, "to make you happy."
Nice- something to brighten the day.

While I am carving on my tiles Mark has picked up the brushes.
He had planned to carve the tiles below, but after laying down some red slip on the white clay body this is what came out.
How could you not like this?
It made me smile and think of how different we approach the tiles.
Me, I am all over them covering and carving.
I have plans for bright glaze.
Mark he takes his brush and with some well placed strokes......
Well- these tiles should make someone happy.


Allison's.......just waiting

I'll post some of the tiles finished but it is December.

Things move a lot slower here then other months.

A note on the white clay.

Linda Starr, the soon to be traveling potter, living in an RV and getting ready to hit the blue highways and visit potters all over the USA, asked about colors on the two clay bodies.

The glaze colors are completely different.

The iron in the red body adds color to the glazes, where the white body does not interfere with the true color of the glaze.

For different reasons I like both.

I will do some side by sides of the colors after I fire again.

I told you it's December- things slow to a crawl in December.

Visions of sugarplums and all that stuff.

Cheers!

Star clays

We have both been indulging ourselves in some tile work.
I have a fondness for Highwater Red Stone, which is my favorite to make tiles with.
I like the earthiness of the warm red color, even though later I will cover them all with glaze.
It has been a good clay to work with and even though I have had some tiles warp most of them stay pretty flat.
But, there is a new player in the mix.
I had picked up some Starwhite cone 6 at the open house at Starworks Ceramics last fall.
I finally put some test through the last firing and was pretty pleased with the resulting glazes on the clay body.
So last week Mark picked up enough for both of us to have some tiles to play with.
He rolled and cut quite a few while I was working in the red stone.
He gave me 5 4x4's to carve and I was impressed with how the clay behaved.
It was nice and smooth was no real bumps of grog.
I like it.
I plan to put these through the next fire for the electric kiln and see how I like the results.
For a person who use to be a thrower, I find the time I spend on tiles to be very rewarding.
Plus- I don't have to stand all day.
But then there is that little pinch in the neck and back muscles.
It must be time for a massage.
I will get some pictures up as things move along.
We have been packing and shipping those Christmas orders and dealing with the last minute gifts for customers.
Plus, a little house keeping and seeing family.
Oh vay!
I am ready for some down time over the holidays!

Pooh

“"I don't see much sense in that," said Rabbit. "No," said Pooh humbly, "there isn't. But there was going to be when I began it. It's just that something happened to it along the way."”

My mother was a big Pooh fan and would read us the books before we went to bed.
I still think of the "wisdom" of Pooh.

“If the person you are talking to doesn't appear to be listening, be patient. It may simply be that he has a small piece of fluff in his ear.”

It has been so long since I read Pooh, but today with the rain, wind, tea and honey a person's mind seems to take in a little Pooh.

“Piglet sidled up to Pooh from behind. "Pooh," he whispered. "Yes, Piglet?" "Nothing," said Piglet, taking Pooh's paw, "I just wanted to be sure of you."”

So even though I am heading out to the studio to roll out tiles, I think I will take a little Pooh with me.

Sometimes, if you stand on the bottom rail of a bridge and lean over to watch the river slipping slowly away beneath you, you will suddenly know everything there is to be known.”


M

Making pots

As most of you know if you had been reading this blog we live in the country.
We live on what was my grandparents farm smack in the middle of an area which is know for it's history of clay and clay making.
Or in layman's terms.
It is well know for it's pottery.
Seagrove is rich in its tradition of pottery.
We don't even come close to touching places like China, Japan or Korea when it comes to making pottery, but for the USA and it's youth we are pretty strong with a tradition which dates back to the late 1600's.
We live among potters with names such as, Cole, Auman, Craven, Teague, Owen, Owens, Fox, Chriscoe, Chrisco, and others I am sure I have left off.
When we moved here In 1976 many of these families still had running pottery shops, but many of them had gone on to work at different jobs.
Good paying mill jobs in surrounding towns allowed for someone to make a good living.
By the time we moved here there were only about a six working pottery shops.
Seagrove Pottery run by Walter and Dot Auman.
JB Cole, run by Nell Cole Graves and brother Waymon Cole.
Jugtown Pottery, run by Nancy Sweezy
Joe Owens- Joe Owens.
Teagues over in Robbins.
Old Gap Pottery, Phil Pollet
The new kids on the block back then were Westmoore Pottery, run by David and Mary Farrel.
I am sure there may have been a few more but it escapes me at the moment.
When we opened our pottery shop in 1982 we brought those numbers up to a round dozen.
12 pottery shops, which you could easily go and see in one day.
The next year a few more opened and then the year after that a few more.
By the late 80's and through the 90's the number grew to somewhere close to 80 shops.
Some will say 100, but I think right in the area it was more like 80.
That is a lot of pottery!
Like all things it has it's ups and downs and with a faulty economy we have watched as shops have closed.
Now the numbers in the area have gone down, but by no means are there just a few shops.
I have not made a recent count but I would say our numbers are still strong.
What can you find if you come to Seagrove to see pottery?
You can still find potters with the family backgrounds where pottery was past down from one generation to the next.
You will find potters like us who learned at a community college and through the absorption of the older potters who were still making pots in the late 70's and early 80's.
You will find potters who moved here bringing their skills with them
You will find potters with college backgrounds well schooled and trained in glaze and clay.
But my thoughts are you will find a wide variety of pottery being made here.
Earthenware, stoneware, Raku, gas fired, low fired, wood fired, and so on.
As you travel from shop to shop you will find that if you give 100 potters a piece of clay they will all made something different.
Amazing stuff this clay.
So here we are ready to finish up our 27th year making pots in Seagrove and
I am still amazed that this is how we make our living.
I am still amazed at the potters who were here before us, the ones who are here now and the ones who will follow behind us.
It has been interesting to watch an area change as this one has the last 27 years.
But what new things are in store for Seagrove as we move into another year.
It will be interesting to watch.

Upgrade in the studio

So a good buddy of ours calls Mark and says, "come down here and take off some of these cabinets that I can't use."

They are returns from jobs or they are cracked and need some repair.

Okay, you don't have to ask twice.

Mark went down and then spent the last two days doing an upgrade next to our wheels.

I got the one with the pull out drawers because it was too big for his space.
I love it.
Just what a girl needs a place to store those small things that pile up all over.
Plus my mother saves all these take out containers for me.They are just right for all my little stuff I use when I am making magnets, pendants and earrings.

It also gives me this great counter top to work on between my wheels.
I put my stuff in the drawers right away.
Then Mark had to take them out to work on the doors.
I filled it up again and he had to take them out to put the hardware on as well.
You get the picture. I like this cabinet, it is better then a new toy.







Here is the one Mark put next to his wheel not a bad deal either.
He put a nice thick sheet of plywood on top covered by plastic sheeting.
So when you are out there making friends, go friend a person in the kitchen bath industry.
They make great friends.
The other useful thing we get, when we can get them, is sink cut outs, which make great bats for throwing large things.
Or we use them by putting wheel on them and then using them to roll around heavy objects such as large batches of glaze or buckets of water.

I am moving better every day.
And if you are reading in my side bar go to Jim's post on his trip over Thanksgiving.

I sent it to my son and his only reply was, "I need a basement."

Back to work- I am working on some tiles and pillow pots, plus lots of little tiles, pendants, magnets and earrings. I need to fill up the small electric kiln so we can fire Allison's tiles.

North Carolina Pottery

Living and spending all my youth in Seagrove has had some effect on how I view pottery. How could it not.
My early years were shaped by the potters who made pots back in the late 50's and early 60's.
These were my grandparents friends and relatives.
Me, the city kid, and a bit prissy, did not know how much I would absorb from these folks.
I mean, to me, they were first off old.
Not so old now that I am heading down that path.
And second off pottery was, you know, messy.
I told you I was prissy, but give me a break I was a city kid and about seven when I really started this adventure.
When I would visit with the grandparents we spent time with Dot and Walter Auman and Phil and Nell Cole graves.
We also spent time at their pottery shops, which ran like well oiled machines.
There was a job for every step and a person for every job.
If you were the "turner" there was a ball person for you.
You stood at the wheel making pots, while someone else, using a list, made up all the balls of clay you would need for the day.
( how would you like that time saver?)
There was someone else to take off what you have made and fix the pots and put on handles.
(another time saver!)
Someone else did the glazing, no thought process for you.
Someone else loaded and fired the kilns.
And, pots were then unloaded by a crew for the show room.
There was a division of labor.
This was as close to factory as you could get for a handmade item.
Not like most of of today.
Dot would call us "studio potters."
Her explanation to me was, " you do it all, you do every step of the process, not letting go of the object until it is up for sale."
I sometimes think of those well oiled machines of the past and think they had some real in site into how much work it took to get it from the very first step, mixing the clay, to the last step, for someone to buy and enjoy.
And yet even with all this knowledge I took the step to be a studio potter.
I still like to make my own, glaze it and look at the final work and know it is mine or Mark's.
Yes we do have some help now and again, but I can still pick out my work or his.
For the good and the bad.
I have an older brother who also traveled this path with me.
( well there are 5 of us and we are all pottery lovers.)
He has been collected pottery over the years while I went on to be the potter.
He has written some ace articles on NC pottery on his blog Backcounty Notes.
He just posted up a new post on one of my favorite shapes, North Carolina Jugs.
Give it a read and poke through his other articles on pottery I think you will enjoy them.
Cheers!
M

Hey- it's December!

After a day working at the computer and service people in and out. I moved around well enough not to need a cane to help me balance.
Maybe the low dose of meds is helping.
My plan is to run some blanks for tiles today.
I have too many that need to come out of my head and I still don't think throwing would be wise.
Too much spinning.

This afternoon Allison, you all remember Allison ,will come in to put glaze on her tile.
I need to have some work to go around her work so I can get it through the kiln in time for her to snatch up a grade on her project.
It has been fun and interesting to work with someone whom I have know since the day she was born.
In fact on the day she was born Whynot Pottery closed so we could go to the hospital and hold her.
She was so tiny.
Now, she will graduate from High School and go to college.
In the blink of an eye.

And thanks all for the well wishes and encouragement.
I am amazed at the blogging "community."
Friends in far places, and yet, we are all connected by clay and our lives which are intertwined with that clay.
M