Tuesday, June 23, 2009

A busy and wet weekend in Falmouth




It's near midnight Tuesday and I'm more or less recovered from a long weekend of pottery events and a wet and windy northeaster. The gallery is back together again and pots are cooling in the bisque kiln.
First, Friday evening the Woods Hole Historical Museum 0pened its "The Art & Nature of Workmanship: Six Woods Hole Potters, " with a lovely and well-attended reception. Potters Anne Halpin, Ron Geering, Joan Lederman, Ann Newbury, Tessa Morgan and myself are showing together through the summer in a room in the museum. The show was organized and mounted very nicely by Anne Halpin. It looks great and drew a big (for Woods Hole) crowd on what turned out to be a lovely Friday evening.
What makes me a "Woods Hole potter"? Even though Hatchville Pottery is nearly a half-hour from Woods Hole, I'm told that because I drink coffee at the Woods Hole Coffee Obsession on a weekly basis, and because I hold a Woods Hole Library card, I qualify. Works for me ... though the others all have better geographic claim on the title.
Then about dawn Saturday morning I drove with a loaded truck to downtown Falmouth to set up for the two-day Arts Alive event, now in (I think) it's fourth year of showing off local artistic talent of all kinds. This year the selling craftspeople were set up off the library lawn on a closed public street, the better to facilitate selling our wares. It turned out to be a good decision, with performing arts happening on the lawn behind us and selling happening on the street. People were buying pots Saturday, a good sign for the coming summer, in spite of the recession. Sunday was another matter, as the three-day northeaster began blowing and spitting and we all worried a bit about flying tents and rain. I didn't sell a pot until about 3 p.m. It was sloooowwww ... and cold.
I put the gallery back into shape this morning and afternoon, sweeping up and re-arranging pots on shelves as they emerged from their wet paper wrappers after sitting in the back of my pickup more or less in the rain for 36 hours.
The tomato plants in the garden have been blown around and now are staked to keep them from total destruction. Winds have died down as the storm backed out to sea. Tomorrow I have to put handles on some large pitchers that have been barely drying over the past week.
Back to work. Next show is here, with a kiln-opening on July 11.

9 comments:

Anonymous said...

good thing you got that library card... overlooked perks i guess

Hollis Engley said...

Well, it's a small community. And I'm one of the potters that donates a pot every Christmas for the fundraising raffle at the library holiday party. So I have a lot of friends down there.

Marcus said...

Did your PVC pipe tent weights work?

Hollis Engley said...

heh ... they worked great. 18 pounds of concrete/PVC pipe suspended from each corner. Held the tent down just fine in the wind of Sunday afternoon. The woman opposite me had her tent rise up in the front as the result of one gust. She lost some stuff in that incident. But my tent stayed where it was supposed to.

Docks-Pottery said...

Buongiorno Hollis,Turn turn and I am pleased to come to your blog, my name is Filippo Di Giovanni,
I have a studio in Turin northern Italy. Your comments on our blog-work is important to us.
Ciao filippo

Hollis Engley said...

Buongiorno, Filippo! I'm delighted that you're looking at the blog. I'll connect with yours.

Docks-Pottery said...

Thanks a lot, mille grazie Hollis.
Arrivederci Ciao

Unknown said...

Hey horace, I'm missing the time in the day for blogging, but nice to see what your summer is about. All's well here. Dan (not Elizabeth!)

Hollis Engley said...

Thanks, Dan (not Elizabeth). We're finally getting moving here, with July 4th a couple of days away. I'm glazing now for a firing Friday and opening Saturday. Sounds like you're having a bit more of an adventure this summer than I am. How's the surfing?