The last plan I am

going to make for this year

 We are bouncing around in the studio, cleaning, tossing and working on a load of pots to fire for the New Year. 
At this point we are working on our plan for the coming year as this one is quickly running downhill.
It has been raining, raining, raining, I am sure that unless you live under a rock you already know about this crazy warm rain we are having.
If it was snow we could toss this to the wind, curl up on the sofa, and watch movies all day. Instead we are pretending that we are working in order to "earn" our credibility points for taking time off later.
This is the only good thing about being self-employed, the carrot of time off later. Wait! I guess this would apply to anyone who works. We are all reaching for the carrot.

In the planning stages I am still working out how to load the top shelf for the kiln differently than we use to. I have found that using some plate setters as a way to place things under and a place for things to sit on top has been working pretty well.
The plan is to give the "crown" shelf some space without making it too short or too open. This has been working pretty well for us.
  I found that it is also useful to take some pictures so that I do not have to figure out this puzzle twice.
I do like that my cell phone can be my dairy for this since I usually have that on me.

Ever feel as if you are in a bubble?
This was us at the MC Escher show in Raleigh.
I was trying to figure out how to take a picture while they ( the wise-hats) were all trying to teach me how to hold the phone so that I was in the picture and not hidden by the phone.
What a laugh.
Great show you need to go see if you are in the area.

I need to go pretend to work some more, or not...
Cheers for 2016!
M

Pots: out on the town

The other night I had a message from our son.
Hey, does Dad have work in 1705 Prime?
 I thought about that, we did have work in a restaurant that opened in downtown Raleigh but I thought it had closed.
Turns out it closed and reopened under a new name and format.
After dinner with his lovely wife he asked the bartender to get down and turn over the pot.
Mark Heywood, Whynot Pottery.
Yep, it was one of his Dad's pots along with two more.
He got a real kick seeing the work there and I got a real kick out of finding out they were still there.
One of them, a large egg shaped vase in our iron red with wood ash on top, was one of those pots we tried to keep.
 I took it to the house right out of the kiln.
 Then one day my sister Lee calls and says that she and Tony are working in a place in downtown Raleigh doing all the faux finishing, the bathrooms were gorgeous, and the decorator was tossing out some thoughts and she suggested they fill the places with pottery from Seagrove and to be sure to use some from Whynot Pottery.
( she was my sister, she was looking out for us.)
They came out and bought some really great work from a number of the potters, one of them being us.
We went when it first opened and had dinner there and enjoyed seeing the pots and my sister's handiwork.

Here is a quick shot Joel took with his phone.
You can see the iron red and another vase Mark made that sits back in the bar.
We just might have to find our  way there on one of our trips to Raleigh.

Cheers!
M