Adding the coffee beans ...

How could I forget to put the coffee in the photo???

Among friends, a kiln-opening July 28

The work of five Upper Cape Cod potters will be in the Hatchville Pottery kiln when it's fired July 27 and opened Saturday, July 28. My pots will be joined by that of Kim Medeiros, Annie Halpin, Angela Rose and Denny Howard. Angela and I fired together in this kiln eight or nine years ago, before her landscaping business took off and she stopped making pots for a while. We started the Hatchville Pottery holiday kiln-opening and open house together and it became a big December event for us in Falmouth. Now Angela's back making pots and the two of us thought this summer thing might be fun.

The July opening and sale will, I suspect, be much less crazy than the holiday party. There are many more things for people to do here in July than in December, so I don't think we'll need to hire a policeman. Though I could be wrong ...
Joining the potters will be coffee roaster Michael Race, whose freshly roasted beans did very well at last December's holiday show.

There will be more details as we get closer, but I just shot photos for our e-announcement so I thought I'd give all of you a bit of a preview.

Left to right, top: Angela Rose tumbler, Hollis Engley faceted vase. Left to right, bottom: Annie Halpin chalice, Denny Howard Shino teabowl, Kim Medeiros vase.

Post-postscript to the Skutt ...

Perry Petersen at Skutt Tech Support diagnoses my recent KM1027 kiln nervous breakdown to bad relays, which some of you have already suggested. Perry got back to me quickly, for which I'm grateful. I've ordered the relevant relays and wiring harness from Portland Pottery and should have them in a couple of days.
Thanks for the advice and encouragement, all. I'm going to go out to the studio and begin some long-necessary shelf-removal and slight re-arrangement so that I can actually get to the kiln and work on it.
Two more photos attached that are not particularly relevant to the kiln problems. First, a bow to you in the U.S. South, who have dealt with temperatures near and above 100F for the past week. Maybe a little snowy barn gable end will help you remember winter is coming. Second, a look at some of Vermont potter Bob Compton. Great potter, kilnbuilder extraordinaire, nice guy, drop by and see him if you're ever near the pretty little town of Bristol.

Postscript to pots exploding ...

Those of you who look at this blog occasionally may remember my post of a few weeks ago, when a bunch of serving platters became thousands of shards in my electric kiln. And you may remember my bafflement at that circumstance. Well ... still a bit baffled, but this time the bafflement is all about my electric technology and not about how I was pounding out the platters.
I normally set the Skutt KM-1027 to rise slowly to 160F and sit there for 20 hours to make sure the greenware inside is fully dry. Then I set it to cone 07 and let the temp rise slowly until it hits 1779 or so and shuts down. I did this the other day with a fresh load of greenware, kept an eye on it through the day (it rose to 160 and stayed there for hours), and then at some point in the night it went rogue on me and rose at least to 1300F. That's where it was when I came down in the morning. I hit the "stop" button and it made the requisite "beep."
But it didn't shut down. It just kept pumping. Only way I could stop it was by unplugging the kiln and letting it cool.
I emptied the kiln this morning and the pots appeared to have been bisqued, but they had the sort of dull "thunk" of pots fired below my usual bisque temp. As far as I know, I have no way of telling what temp they fired to. (Maybe the computer stores that somewhere ... ) Anyway, I've gotten in touch with Skutt, but it's the Fourth tomorrow and it's unlikely I'll hear anything for a few days. And I can always (very carefully) bisque in the gas kiln, I guess.
Does anyone have any ideas this time?
I'll attach a couple of photos that have absolutely nothing to do with this problem. I'm preparing a story about my work in photography, so I'll let you see some of those images.
Happy Fourth, everyone!
Top to bottom: Creek, off Chatiemac Road, North Creek, NY; summer cottage, Maine; summer cottage, Orleans, Mass.; cathedral candles, Greece; Dan Finnegan workshop, Chatham, Mass.

Three pots in October show, one pot in use

I got the good news about a week ago that three of my faceted teabowls were juried into "Concepts In Clay," the October show of the Cape Cod Potters at the Cape Cod Museum of Art in Dennis. Potter Ellen Shankin of Floyd, Va., was the juror. I don't know the exact numbers of pots and potters, but the museum's big room will hold the work of more than 30 Cape potters and sculptors. More about the show when it gets a bit closer.

I love being in a gallery or museum show so that people can see my pots. But display like that amounts to the theory of claywork and a pot in use in someone's home is its practice. I say this because when we got to the home of our friends Trudi and Brad Hennemuth in Lincolnville, Me., last week, there was one of my simple cylindrical vases in a window, loaded with lovely orange flowers. (Sorry, someone's going to have to tell me what kind they are ... ) I love to see pots being used.

A little black-and-white goodbye from Maine

We were Down East last week for Dee's brother's memorial in the little town of Lubec, Maine. It's a tiny fishing town far to the east on the Maine coast, hard up against some Canadian coastal islands. Jim Dorchester died last November, as longtime readers of this blog may remember. He lived near the clam flats just outside Lubec for most of the past 40 years, a man committed to a Thoreau-like existence on a small piece of land with a simple house, no indoor plumbing and only a modicum of electricity.
His 63rd birthday would have been last Friday, June 22, and 29 members of his family and even more local friends gathered to celebrate his life. Friday, the family hiked out on the Lighthouse Trail at Quoddy Head State Park, looking out toward Grand Manan Island, shared memories and then walked the length of the up-and-down cliffside trail, scattering his ashes along the way. Saturday evening, family and friends gathered at what is now his girlfriend Marilyn's home, played music, ate potluck food, drank beer and wine and shared more memories.
There were four generations of family in Lubec for the event, including the next one, still in utero. Our son Marcus came out from Seattle, joining most of his cousins on that side of the family. It was a good time and Jim was sent off well.
Some photos of our trip are below: Dee clasping a pot with some of her brother's ashes; Jim and Marilyn's house, with friends and family; Dee's cousin Sue Potter and Jim's girlfriend Marilyn Alexa; rock musician and cousin Jeff Potter, performing on the harmonica; rocky shore at West Quoddy Head.

Back at the clam beds

I promise these will be the only pictures on the blog this summer of hardshell clams and people digging for them. Not much changes in clamming - a sharp rake, a stony bottom, trying to read the signals coming through the rake handle as it scrapes across the bottom, knowing when it's likely there's a clam in the rake, and in the end a full half-peck of clams (locally called quahaugs). Then the paddle back to the truck and a cup of coffee afterward.
This was the first time the usual clamming crew headed out this year. At least, the first time to get clams for ourselves. We went a couple of weeks ago, but that was to get clams to send back to North Carolina with Mike and Tammy Race's daughter Shaina.
This time we all brought clams home. Mike and Tammy, Bourne neighbor Josh Albright and myself. You go clamming when the tide is low. Tide waits for no clammer, as anyone who lives near the ocean understands. So we were out there near Buzzards Bay a bit after 11, digging not long after that. And we returned about an hour later, with two half-peck baskets, one limit for Mike and Tammy, one for Josh. I was just hired help, since my shellfish permit is issued in Falmouth and is not good in Bourne.
It was cloudy and a bit blustery, but lovely out on the beach of the small island where we pulled up our boats. It's hard work, this business of yanking clams from the mud, but it's good for conversation or, if you choose a spot far from the others, silence.

Photos: The arrival at the clam beds, Tammy eager to go over the side and get to work; Mike digging; Josh checking his rake; Tammy sorting; the clams.