Deep breath after the weekend open studio

We've done this holiday kiln-opening and open studio for the past nine years and I'm always anxiety-ridden in the week leading up to it and always happy when Saturday arrives and everything works and the new pots are good, the cop handles the traffic, we don't get two feet of snow and people buy pots. And that held true this past weekend.
The raucous laughter coming from the room over my studio was reassuring early Saturday morning, when Kim Collins, Bryan Randa and Ruth Bleakley were back together again, organizing their wares and catching up with each other. I went upstairs to tell them it was like having the kids come home for the holidays and livening up the house again. Then Lois Hirshberg arrived and Kim Medeiros and then Mike Race with his coffee and pretty soon everything was as it should be. And then the people came and we opened the kiln and my pots and Kim's were good and people bought them and bought from everyone and food came from seemingly everywhere and I was cold in the studio selling pots while everyone else was in the house selling and eating and drinking. But what the hell.
For about an hour after we emptied the kiln there was a line of people waiting to buy my pots and I ran out of my pile of wrapping paper and bags. I don't think those things have ever happened before.
Once again, our neighbors Jim and Bill were close to the new pots coming warm from the kiln and once again they walked off with one of the best. They always do that.
This weekend has become much more than a sale, though. In the week before the firing, more people ask me about what they should bring to eat than asked about how my glazing was going. There was chowder, green chile meatballs, empanadas, thousands of cookies, chocolate truffles (still some in hiding in the kitchen, actually), small and delicious mince meat tarts that somehow never made it onto the communal food table, salmon, chile dogs, vegetarian chili, coffee, vodka, a tomato tart, bacon and mushroom quiche ... much more. And much that I didn't get to eat. There were kids, dogs, old folks with canes, couples, families, relatives ...
Now that it's over, I can say it's a pretty cool thing that happens here every year. Even Angela Rose, a local potter who started this with me, showed up and talked promisingly of making more pots and getting involved again.
Now, some photos, with pots that just came out Saturday: Top, all the craftspeople, except coffee roaster Mike Race, who must have been in the kitchen brewing; left to right above the bearded guy are Bryan Randa, Lois Hirshberg, Ruth Bleakley, Kim Collins and my firing partner Kim Medeiros; white Shino broken-rimmed teabowl; one side of an eight-pound jar with overlapped Shino and Temmoku glazes; another side of the same jar; two small wide teabowls whose upper walls are added slabs.

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.

More from the Cape Cod View article

The magazine chose to feature glassblower Bryan Randa, paper artist Ruth Bleakley and fellow potter Kim Medeiros in sidebars that went with the main story of our holiday kiln-opening and sale. Bryan and Ruth have been with us for several years; Kim joins us for the first time this year. Also involved in the event, and mentioned in the magazine, are jewelry-maker Kim Collins, raku potter Lois Hirshberg, coffee-roaster Mike Race and possibly potter Angela Rose. And I neglected yesterday to credit the great maker portraits in the piece. Christine Hochkeppel of Cape Cod Media Group did the photography, and she did a great job.http://www.capecodview.net/this-issue.html