Sunny weather keeps people on the beaches. That's a natural law here on Cape Cod this time of year.
The first two days of the Chatham Festival of Arts last weekend were gorgeously sunny and warm, which mean smallish crowds (is that an oxymoron?) at the craft fair. There was much standing around among vendors, visiting from booth to booth, complaining, complaining, complaining ...
Which led Mac, my neighbor in the booth to the left, to ask, "What's the difference between a puppy and a craft fair vendor? ... The puppy will eventually grow up and stop whining." Well ... it was funny at the time ...
In the end - which means Sunday - the threatening clouds came and drove the sun-worshippers off the sand and to the craft fair. Crowds were better, sales were better, the whine quotient was down considerably as money changed hands at a higher rate than the previous two days. It turned out to be - for me, anyway - a worthwhile show, if not a bonanza. As always, many good conversations with buyers and browsers and a few good sales.
Over the past couple of weeks, I've e-mailed back and forth with Laura Burns, a schoolteacher and amateur potter in New York City who has discovered various pottery blogs, including this one. She also read the Studio Potter blogging piece that I wrote with the help of North Carolina potter Meredith Heywood. Laura spends some summer vacation time on nearby Martha's Vineyard and wanted to come over here to the Cape to see pots.
Yesterday, she showed up. I knew she was coming, but nearly missed her because I had to be out digging clams with a friend and, as we know, time and tide wait for no clamdigger. But she was still in the gallery when I pulled into the driveway and we spent some time together talking about potting and blogging. She works in a community studio in Long Island City, Queens, firing cone 6 electric. But she's a Shino fan and left here with four nice Shino cups and a small ash-glazed bowl. And she agreed to be photographed with one of her new cups. So here she is.
And a photo of her hands and the cup, and a photo of the hands of Portland, Me., painter Oana Lauric (artoujours.com ... check it out), with a small vase fired in Dan Finnegan's Virginia kiln.
8 comments:
Meeting with readers still feels a bit weird... cool but weird. It does seem to be a good deal of fun for everyone involved though.
That's a sweet cup!
those pictures of hands on pots are priceless- they speak volumes about how someone handles a piece with love and respect!
Glad it was all worth while and clams....wait for no one!
Glad you stopped whining and photographed those beautiful hands caressing your stunning pots.
you always say the nicest things, Janet. And thanks, Zyg and Meredith. Cups are all about the hands and the lips.
Great joke about puppies.
Dave
Greetings from Greenwich Village. It's noisy here.
Love the pictures with your pots in our hands and I do hope you will continue them. They almost resemble hands in prayer. There is a certain reverence.
Glad the clams and the ferries cooperated. I love the puppy joke too.
hehehe so grumpy potter can sell heaps.... i'll try that next market!! not..hehehehe good one Hollis glad it was as super wkd... so nice to see through others hands on your pots yeh baby!!! :))
Yeah, Ang, that grumpy potter thing is a bit of a pose, usually during the early morning drive to the fair site and during the set-up. Not a happy guy then. But once things get going, I smile and say "good morning!" to everyone who comes in before noon. No matter whether they respond or not. Most do. In the afternoon, I keep smiling ... mostly. But I swear, if I didn't say something to most people, they would do their looking silently, not catching my eye even though I'm standing right there.
Laura, good to see you in here. It's a busy week on Cape Cod, and probably on the Vineyard, too. I do like the "hands on pots" images and I'll keep doing them.
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