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.

Your formal invitation

Sometimes people around Cape Cod ask me what they have to do to get an invitation to our annual open studio/kiln-opening. What, you've been staying away for the past eight years because I didn't call you?
OK, for those of you who read the blog, here it is. For the rest of you who read the local Falmouth Enterprise, it will be in the paper. For those of you on Facebook, it's there, too. No one is excluded. Come one, come all ... a free handmade eggnog cup to the first 25 people who show up Saturday morning (and half of them this year were made by Kim Medeiros, so you'll be getting a bargain). Kiln-opening at 11 Saturday morning, chile dogs for as long as they last at 1.
And we'll all be here Sunday from 11 to 4 for those who can't make it Saturday. Pots by Hollis, Kim, Lois Hirshberg; glass by Bryan Randa; cards and notebooks and other stuff by Ruth Bleakley (who also did our poster); fresh-roasted coffee by Mike Race; jewelry by Kim Collins.
Photos: Our Ruth Bleakley-designed email card and poster; potter Kim Medeiros of The Barn Pottery and her daughter (and a pretty good thrower already) Phoebe after unloading this week's firing here.

Oysters and tsubos ...

I'm taking a break from making fat jars in the studio. Back to throwing again and getting good pots from it. Gnarly, gravel-laden teabowls trimmed yesterday, then several round fat jars thrown then and finished today. Now on to throwing some 10-15 pound jars. I've been taken with this very fat form of vase lately. My own pot from the wood kiln kicked me down that road, then I've been looking at Lisa Hammond's wonderful "tsubo" forms on the Goldmark website. So there's no doubt what will be on the top rear shelf of my kiln in the next firing.
The other photos were taken Sunday afternoon, as the sun was going down quickly and the tide going down slowly. We slogged out into the cold water to find three limits of oysters for the three permit-holders among us. Good success, though the oyster grounds are less plentiful than they have been in the past. Still, Thanksgiving will have a variety of oysters on the table ... briefly ... before they're consumed.
Fished again with Mike and Tammy Race, their son Jordan and his girlfriend Jamie Wynn. All brave (and cold) fishermen.
Photos, from top: The oystering grounds at low tide; Jamie Wynn sorting and packing; Jordan Race trimming and sorting; Mike Race doing the same; fat pots in the studio.

A happy Saturday selling pots and coffee

Saturday's "Among Friends" kiln-opening and pottery sale was a wonderful one-day event. Not only because everyone seemed happy with their sales, but because it was just a good time. The trick to enjoying this occasionally iffy business of staging an event in the summer on Cape Cod is to have a group of people that like each other and are fully capable of having fun, no matter how many pots go out the driveway.

But quite a few did. The joint firing was successful, Mike Race brought good coffee, Tammy Race made scones, Jo Ann Muramoto made a tomato tart, we had dozens of bagels and many, many chile dogs. What could be wrong with that? I suspect we'll do it again next year and give people a reason to come to Hatchville. Now ... if we can figure out how to plan cloudy, non-beach weather like yesterday's.

Photos: Top, Denny Howard sets up, with Kim Medeiros behind him and Angela Rose in the background; three of my pots from this firing - an oversize Shino teabowl; a low, ragged-edged teabow and a small vase with overlapped Shinos.

Loading the kiln for "Among Friends" firing

I shot the top picture earlier today, about halfway through loading my kiln with my work and work by Kim Medeiros, Denny Howard, Anne Halpin and Angela Rose. All five of us have pots in here, to be fired Friday and opened Saturday morning for ourselves and whoever responds to the newspaper ads, posters and e-mail blasts we all (and coffee roaster Mike Race) have sent out.
The event begins at 10 a.m. Saturday the 28th, here at Hatchville Pottery in East Falmouth, on Cape Cod. We open the kiln at 11, but before and after the opening all of us will have other pots on tables and under tents here at the pottery. Angela Rose, a landscaper in her other life, had her crew in here Monday to mow, trim and weed the property to within an inch of its life. Thanks to her - and to Dee's gardens, which are now so well-displayed - the place looks great. We're hoping for no rain or thunderstorms. Ideally, the weather will be cloudy enough to discourage people from going to the beach but not horrible enough to make them stay home and play Monopoly. This business of selling pots in a summer resort community is like that ...
We'll have Mike Race's freshly-roasted coffee, pastries of several kinds to go with it, chile dogs with genuine New Mexico red chile at lunch. Call 508-563-1948 for more information, or e-mail me at hatchvillepottery@comcast.net.

And in other art-related news, the Cahoon Museum on Route 28 in nearby Cotuit opens "Come East at Our Table" tomorrow evening. I have yet to see the show, but there are several of my pots in it, as well as pots by several other Cape potters. Included in the show are the Nuka/copper red bowls at the bottom of this post.