Kiln-opening and open studio this weekend

The kiln is loaded and the burners are firing. It's around 700 degrees in there right now and it will fire until later this afternoon. Then we'll open at 11 Saturday morning, with what is likely to be a studio full of visitors eager to see the pots that Kim Medeiros and I have inside.
When Falmouth potter Angela Rose and I started this holiday kiln-opening/open studio weekend about nine years ago, I think we had three or four people around us when we opened the kiln door. And I think all of them were relatives. Times have changed. This will be the third year that we have had to hire a Falmouth policeman to manage the kiln-opening traffic. That uniform carries more car-parking authority than the fleece vest or denim jacket worn by whatever unfortunate friend volunteered to help park cars. There will be a lot of people here.
This idea sprang from the holiday home pottery show of the late Shino master Malcolm Davis. When we lived in the Washington, D.C., area, and I was a beginning potter, we would go over to the Adams-Morgan neighborhood townhome of Davis and marvel at his Shino pots. We even bought some once in a while. But what struck us as a good idea was the fact that he always had four or five other craftspeople in other media also selling in his home.

So when Angela and I decided to do a December show, we wanted to include other craftspeople. Since that first show, we've had jewelers, potters, painters, one glassblower, a paper artist, a coffee roaster, a photographer ... maybe some I can't remember. Jeweler Kim Collins has, I think, been with us from the beginning. Glassblower Bryan Randa has been with us for several years, as has paper magician Ruth Bleakley. This will be raku potter Lois Hirshberg's third year and functional potter Kim Medeiros's first. Mike Race will sell his freshly-roasted coffee beans for the second year. 

And everyone will bring food. This is a good place to have lunch on Saturday, even if you don't feel like buying pots. (Though that's encouraged.) For the past five years we've served chile dogs made with genuine New Mexico red chile. That started when a friend arrived with five hot dogs (five????) and five buns. I happened to have made chile that morning, so we combined the two and Ed's strange potluck contribution was consumed almost immediately (well ... there were only five) and started a tradition. Now, chile dogs have to be on the menu. And there will be much, much more ...

Come on down if you're on the Cape. We open at 10 Saturday morning and open the kiln at 11. Sunday we open at 11. Both days we close the doors at 4.

Happy holidays, all.

The photographs of a few of my pots available this weekend: Top, two side-handle teapots, appropriately decorated; small lobed vase fired in the Truro wood kiln; mugs from the Truro wood kiln;  fat vase, from the same kiln.