Pinch, Pulled and stretched

Pinch, Pulled and stretched 3 days, 200 plus students and 600 pounds of clay

At the end of yesterday I looked at the Pottery teacher for Greensboro Day, Mr. Burroughs, and said, “Uncle.”
He chuckled and raised an eyebrow, “you have had enough?”
Yes, I thought, I have.
Teachers are special people.
Mark and I both come from teachers, my son married a teacher some of my best friends are teachers.
You have to have the right attitude to go in day and after day and teach.
I always come back with great admiration for and a whole bunch of respect for teachers after spending a few days at a school.
I always like the fact that I can go taste this profession, if only for a little while.
I know I am not cut out for teaching.
I enjoy my fast hit and then I am ready to head back home to the farm and our studio.

At the end of yesterday Mr. Burroughs figured we had been through 600 pounds of clay.
That is a whole lot of clay for mug making.
But with some “do overs” and handles, adding designs the clay was, should we say, rolling in the studio.
We finished up at the end of the day after much excitement since
A TV crew came in to film the students while they were finishing up their mugs.
They did a nice segment on how the kids were working to donate the proceeds of their cups to “Three cups of Tea.”
Mark and I managed to stay well out of the way of the camera so the would get great pictures of the kids.
All-in all- it was three days well spent.

The weather here is warming up.
The ice on the pond has started to thaw out and maybe some of the wildlife will come back.
We have not seen much this winter.
With our pond frozen it makes it a bit hard for them to hunt.

I am wrapping up the Clay and Blogs: Telling a Story show with what I think is the last name in the data base.
Check the side bar for a good list of who will be there.
We have 48 potters who will participate.
We are also working on having at least one work per potter online for sale through the gallery.
The online sale will open on October 3rd.
I’ll post up a link when we have that all pulled together.
I must say we are all excited and now the real work begins.
It is time to get back to my wheel.
I am getting there- but I have to go have a wee little surgery on a molar which has gone south on me.
Bleck!
Nothing like January for a Root Canal.
Sigh,
M

Teaching at Greensboro Day

Last year Mark and I participated in the Fund raiser Seagrove Potters for Peace

We, along with many of our fellow potters, made and sold mugs or drinking vessels.

We donated 100 % of the sales to the Central Asia Institute.

We received a call about a month later.

The pottery teacher at Greensboro Day, a private school in Greensboro NC, called us and said they were impressed with the sharing and giving that had come from the potters

They like to bring in an art project for their students every year and tie the project to a way to give back in their community.

They feel it is important to teach their students to give back.

This fit in so well with what we felt last year that we decided we had to be apart of it.

As I wrote yesterday, the first day was Demo of pot throwing, a talk about who we are, what we do and about the Seagrove area, but we also tied in how the community supports others.

We talked about and showed pictures of our fire and how we were helped.

And then how we in turn helped with our pottery which we made and donated to the Seagove Potters for Peace.

The project the school chose was that every middle school student would made a mug.

The mugs would then be auction off and the money used for something the students would like to support.

We spent day 2, today, helping make more mugs with some classes while showing the others how to put on handles.

It was fast and furious, yet, fun.

We really have enjoyed the school, the staff and the students.

This school has such a great relationship with its students and it showed everywhere.

We had lunch with several of the teachers, some we knew and others we did not, but now we do.

It has been a great way to spend some time in January.

There really is nothing like the optimise of children to brighten a day.

And most of all we were impressed with how they are teaching these middle school students the importance of giving back.

I have some more information for you on the show Clay and Blogs:Telling a Story.

It will be later this week before I pull all the information together, but I have more names added to the list.

I should have this tied up by the end of this week.

It has been so exciting to bring this together.

Like I try to tell people, I am just a potter, not a professional, but with the buzz going out and the excitement I have hopes for a great show.

Cheers,

M