Come to "The Potter and the Painter"

Dara Pannebaker and I open our two-person show Friday evening at the StoveFactory Gallery in Charlestown, an old Boston neighborhood. The opening reception Friday runs from 6 to 9 p.m. All are welcome and in fact encouraged to visit.

I hope I haven't given everyone too much information about this show in the past few blog posts, but little else pottery-wise has been happening around here for a week or more. I'm off to Boston Friday morning to do things like number the pots and wash the gallery floor.

Anyone who is in the neighborhood, please stop by. The gallery is also open Saturday and Sunday, 11 a.m. to 6 p.m.

Photos: A few of the 113 pots in the show.

Putting pots on the walls

I spent most of Saturday in Charlestown, an old Boston neighborhood, at the StoveFactory Gallery, leveling shelves, drilling molly holes and screwing shelf brackets into the wallboard. Dara Pannebaker and I were there to prepare for our show "The Potter and the Painter," which opens Friday night. I brought something over 100 pots for the show, and at this point we're not sure exactly how many paintings Dara has. Many, in any case.

It's an interesting process, deciding which pots go with which pots, and then deciding which paintings go with which groupings of pots. There was much consultation between the two of us and also with Carla and Cindy, two of the other Charlestown artists who were there to help. I suspect the consultation will go on into Friday afternoon.

I forgot a card for my camera, and was forced to shoot a few pictures with my iPhone. Here's a look.

Numbering pots, pricing pots, packing pots ...

I'm finding there are always more details to be figured out in putting together the show that opens next Friday at StoveFactory Gallery in Boston. Taking off old price tags, figuring out the right prices for pots, numbering each pot for inclusion on the descriptive price list, building and painting shelves, getting out publicity ... it all goes on and on. I'm numbering and packing pots today because I'm off to Charlestown (it's a Boston neighborhood) to meet with Dara and begin screwing the shelves into the walls. And doing it all so that her paintings work together with my pots.

We open a week from tonight, Friday the 29th of April. Come on down.

Photos: The brochure that Dara laid out for us; cleverly, after the show it can be cut down the middle and each side works as a general purpose brochure for each of us. And many of the pots, now numbered, awaiting packing upstairs.

"The Potter and the Painter" opens next week

Any regular reader of this blog could be excused for thinking nothing has happened here for the past month other than the slipware workshop with UK potters Doug Fitch and Hannah McAndrew. And that is largely true. But just before they arrived, I dry-stacked my gas kiln and then left it alone for a couple of weeks. Then I spent this past Monday glazing and loading and Tuesday afternoon firing.

Not a bad batch of pots. Many hakeme-decorated shallow bowls and teabowls, most of them in an iron kaki glaze.

A few of the pots from this load will go into the show at the StoveFactory Gallery in Boston, which opens Friday, April 29. Come on up and see my work and Dara Pannebaker's beautiful paintings. We'll be starting to set up this weekend, then wrapping up the details late next week.

The photos: Five shallow bowls from yesterday's firing, brushed in white slip and glazed in a Leach Kaki; a group of pots that will be in the show.

Left behind by Hannah McAndrew

We here at Hatchville Pottery think that our young kitten/cat Cleo took Hannah seriously last week when she said she wanted to take Cleo back to Scotland. She appears to be missing both Doug Fitch and Hannah, after they bonded with her over five days living with us last week. Here, she gets a whiff of Hannah from the tiny slipware jug she left with us.

The basket has become her favorite nesting place since Dan Finnegan left it here Monday. Finnegan handed it to me in the Coffee Obsession parking lot, saying, "Here, I brought this for you." Frankly, I think he was so overwhelmed with luggage and boxes from the three traveling potters (Australian Angela Walford was the third) that he was desperate to get ANYTHING out of his Jeep. Hence the gift.

We thought Dan, a longtime cat man, would be delighted that he gave Cleo a new resting place.

Two-person Boston show in late April

My friend Dara Pannebaker and I will join our work in "The Potter and the Painter" later this month at the StoveFactory Gallery in Charlestown. It's a lovely little gallery, part of the Artists Group of Charlestown complex in an old factory building in the Boston neighborhood. Dara and I are still assembling the show and planning how to mix my pots with her paintings. In the meantime, here's a look at the e-invitation.

The Brits are on the road

Visiting potters Doug Fitch and Hannah McAndrew are even now on the road with Dan Finnegan and Australian blogger-potter Angela Walford, somewhere between Cape Cod and Fredericksburg, Va. The people attending next weekend's slipware workshop in Fredericksburg and the following weekend in Shelby, NC, are in for a treat. We knew from looking at their blogs and their online photos that these are two fine potters and decorators. Now we know that they're personable, funny, modest about their considerable abilities, generous ... and all the good things that Hannah probably tries to teach her Cub Scouts in Scotland. Everyone at the Cape Cod workshop liked them a lot. And so will the folks in Virginia and North Carolina.

Yesterday they finished up decorating several pots and Doug threw a couple more to make up for speedier-than-expected drying overnight in the classroom. We cleaned up teacher Stephanie York's room and then a small group of us headed to the British Beer Company in Falmouth Heights, next to the beach, with Martha's Vineyard on the horizon, and ate and drank British beer and cider and enjoyed a fairly noisy hour or so.

Back here after dinner, the four of us sat down in front of the television to watch the Red Sox beat the Yankees. Many, many questions from the tired Brits about this foreign game, and Hannah is still trying to work out the proper time to applaud something that happens on the field. Maybe watching the Nationals out of Washington will help her with that. In the morning, Doug donned his new Red Sox cap and took a couple of swings with a bat at my underhand pitching. The man can hit, driving a hard line drive into the neighbor's yard.

Then a big crowd around the table at Coffee Obsession, with chocolate-espresso pecan pie provided by Janet. Doug and Hannah made lots of friends while they were here on Cape Cod. They'll do the same down South.