Malcolm in the mail ... well, in the UPS

Got a small box this afternoon from the UPS guy. It had a Fredericksburg, Va., return address, which made me think it was from Dan Finnegan. Opened up the box and found a fully bubble-wrapped pot with "Horace" handwritten on the tape holding the wrap together. Dan's called me that for years, after a story that is too long to go into here.
Anyway, I opened it and it is a very simple, un-Finneganlike little plate, fired in someone's wood kiln. I thought Dan had gotten all simple and earthy on me, then I noticed that the stamp was either an M or a W and certainly not Dan's. Mystery.
Then I rummaged through the box and found the note you see in the photograph of the plate. "Malcolm Wright!"
Years ago, when I'd only been making pots for a few years and Dan was my teacher at the Art League School in Alexandria, Va., I saw the short film "Bridge of Fire." It's the story of the friendship between Vermont potter Malcolm Wright and Karatsu, Japan, potter Takashi Nakazato. As a young potter, Malcolm worked in the studio of Takashi's father, Living National Treasure Taroemon Nakazato. The two young men knew each other then. Years later, they met again and decided to throw pots in each other's studio and glaze and fire the pots as they would be finished in that particular studio. It's a terrific film, well worth tracking down, and it was an influence on me for years, particularly after I went to Anderson Ranch in Colorado for two weeks with Nakazato.
I don't know for sure if Dan remembers that story, but I suspect he does. And hence the arrival of the little plate. Thanks, Dan.

A busy weekend of pots

This was as packed a weekend as I hope to have.
Saturday morning I drove to the Lexington Arts and Crafts Society, beyond Boston, for a day-long throwing workshop with Doug Casebeer, director of the clay program at Anderson Ranch in Snowmass, Colo. I was in a workshop at the Ranch about 15 years ago with Doug and Takashi Nakazato, two weeks that helped push me toward full-time potmaking. (Doug was the juror for this year's State of Clay statewide show at the LACS gallery, organized by Joan Carcia and Alice Abrams.)
Doug is comfortable talking in front of a crowd about the way he works and his philosophy. And he makes wonderful, relaxed pots. Both his pots and his sculpture make reference to his upbringing in the agricultural and more or less flat American Midwest.
That was Saturday during the day. I left the workshop a bit early to get back to the Cape in time for us to go to the opening of "Harmony and Balance: The Art of the Japanese Tea Ceremony" at the Cotuit Center for the Arts. The show, a mix of pots, metalwork, prints and paintings, was organized by our friend Lois Hirshberg, a raku potter who lives near here. I have several pots in that show and it looks great. Sunday, there were two sessions of the tea ceremony, which I missed because ...
That day we went back up north, Dee to a massage meeting in Newton and me back to the official opening of State of Clay. I walked into the opening and show organizer (and fine potter) Joan Carcia grabbed me and steered me to my four shallow pasta bowls, which now had a Juror's Award notice posted on them. It's enough to have a couple of pots juried into the show, but a special award (and a check) is pretty cool. Doug had good things to say about the bowls and about all the other winning pieces during his gallery talk.
This morning, I packed my truck with lights and tripods and graduated background and went off to our monthly Clay Club meeting to show people how I photograph my pots. We have a show coming up in the fall, with the jurying deadline in about a week, and some people barely knew which end of the camera to hold. So a few of the regulars got to shoot their pots on the spot and the others took lots of notes.
Now I have to mow the lawn. Then, tomorrow, I start glazing for firing later in the week.

Photos: Top, Doug at the wheel; the bowls that won the Juror's Prize; contemplating Ben Ryterband's "La Tendre Difference du Monde"; Susan Varga's magnificent "From Venice to Istanbul"; and my small, quiet squared bottle with poured Shinos amid some colorful work including, at right below, Frances Johnson's woodfired vessel, at far left Sarah Caruso's "Red Octopus Charger" and, above and to the right of my bottle, Alice Abrams' "Club Sandwich."