Wellfleet and Durango, and Studio Potter

Who said things shut down on Cape Cod after Labor Day? I've had multiple shows to deal with, prepare for, finish up with ... in just the past couple of weeks.
This weekend it's the Wellfleet OysterFest down at the far end of the Cape Saturday and Sunday, then at the same time the opening of "Three Cups" at the Durango Art Center in Colorado. (And a Saturday annual board of directors meeting of Studio Potter Magazine in Boston ... learning how to be in two places at once.)
"Three Cups" opens Friday night. I won't be there, though my four teabowls will be. And I will be in the company of some people whose work I have admired for years - Warren McKenzie, the late Tatsuzo Shimaoka, Doug Casebeer, Alleghany Meadows, Joe Bennion, Peg Malloy, Sandy Simon - and newly-made friends such as Doug Fitch, Hannah McAndrew and Ron Philbeck. And many, many more. See the photos attached here; just a few of the pots in the show. Wish I could get there. (Adam Field contributed the show photo below.)
The OysterFest in Wellfleet has become for some of us the event that marks the true end of the summer season. It's the last craft fair before the holiday shows begin in November, and it's more or less the last chance for sunny and unseasonably warm weather. Often, the air is cold and a heavy breeze blows in off the Atlantic on one side or Cape Cod Bay on the other. Tents can fly at this show.
But thousands of people come out to it - for the oysters, fried clams and other seafood, for the beer and wine and the oyster-shucking contests and the rock bands on stage. Oh, and a few come to look at the crafts and the art. It can be a big show or - and this happened two years ago - hurricane force winds can blow in and send everyone packing. You never know.
I've got my first Studio Potter board meeting in Boston Saturday morning, so my friend Dafney Shufelt will fill in for me and we'll see if an attractive young woman sells more pots than a scowling 65-year-old male. I'll drive down well before dawn and get the tent up and the pots arranged, then hand it off to Dafney and head for Boston. I'll be back in the tent Sunday.
Speaking of Studio Potter, the board is debating the future of the magazine - in part trying to figure out if we remain a hard-copy magazine or become in addition/instead some sort of online digital presence. It's a very 2012 kind of situation.
Ideas? I'm happy to contribute anything you say to the conversation.

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."