It was a raucous Friday evening at Donna Sutherland and Kevin Steele's house in Pocasset, with 120 people, more or less, availing themselves of the food and wine and checking out my pots, Donna's prints and Bryan Randa's glass. As it has been the past two years, the evening brought together a mixture of several different social groups, friends of each of the artists who don't ordinarily see each other in social situations. It was a good, if exhausting, night.
Oh, and some people bought some of the work on display.
The photos above are from Friday night, with people wandering through the house and the show. Drinks in hand, Chris Bromfield and Denise Marcoux smile for the camera. They live in Falmouth. Chris is a transplanted Englishman (from Somerset, Paul Jessop) and thatcher and all-around handyman. Chris built the little deck on our gallery here. (His claim to pottery fame is that he had a hand once in thatching the roof at Johnny Leach's place in Muchelney, Somersetshire.)
Saturday was, as it usually is, much quieter. Rarely more than a couple of people looking at the show at any one time. Sometimes an hour goes by with no visitors. Still, they do buy and all three of us sold work Saturday, which is sort of the point.
We got things wrapped up and out of our hosts' way by about 6 p.m.
It's beginning to be possible, I think, to see the effects of the so-called economic downturn on sales of art and crafts on the Cape. I now have two recent shows to judge by, with another coming up just after Thanksgiving. Both the Wellfleet OysterFest and this show were down about a third from previous years' sales. Maybe even a bit more than that. So we'll see what happens as we get deeper into the real holiday season.
Now, back to the wheel to make and fire more pots for the annual Hatch Street Studios Holiday Sale in New Bedford Nov. 28-30. The Hatch Street building is a former factory converted into three floors of art and other studios. It's always fun and sometimes profitable. More about that as we get closer.