On my front step ... one barn, four magazines

I peeked outside early this afternoon to see what was happening out on Boxberry Hill Road and my eye was caught by a couple of things stacked on one corner of the front step. They might have been there since yesterday; we were down-Cape and returned after dark last night. At some point yesterday or this morning, the postman brought a package of Studio Potter magazines and a box from Chapel Hill, NC.

Both were lovely surprises. If you haven't yet seen the latest SP, you should, especially if you're a pottery blogger. Meredith Heywood, of Whynot Pottery in NC, and I worked together on a story I wrote about blogging potters and the upcoming "Clay and Blogs: Telling a Story" show in Moore County, NC, in October. The editors did a great job laying out the story and including a number of photos of pots done by people in the show. The main photo layout is in the image above.

The box from Chapel Hill had Tracey Broome's name on it and the word "Fragile" rather prominently and numerously all over it. I suspected what was inside. Turns out it was indeed one of Tracey's beautiful handbuilt barns. In fact, it's her very first, which I know is a difficult thing to let go. Thank you, Tracey, I love it. I had figured I might buy one when we come down for the blogging show in October. Now it lives on a table in our dining room, flanked in this photo by a pot of mine and a teabowl of Phil Rogers. If you don't know Tracey's barns, take a look at her blog in the column of blogs to the right, under "A Potter's Life for Me." This first one has led to a community of lovely vernacular clay architecture in miniature, her translations of the barns of the Carolina countryside.