Circle of Eight Sale this weekend

If you're in the area, stop by and check out the Circle Of Eight Fall sale. It's a good one and you won't be disappointed.

Too Much Going On...

This Saturday Hal Dedmond and Corine Guseman are having a sale and a wood kiln firing and the Mint Museum is having the Fifth Annual Potters Market Invitational. Both are going to be great events.

Update?

Woo-hoo!

We're back on the case!

I am currently contacting folks to see who is still interested in staffing the Clayworks gallery. Remember the Clayworks gallery?

I hope to have some more news here soon when I tally the yeas and nays and can arrange some details.

Stay tuned...

Update

I'm sorry it seems like the gallery staffing has taken a back seat...

It has.

Everyone has been extremely busy lately so we'll will pick it up again in July and get it all set up.

Thanks for your patience.

All Fired Up

The 2009 All Fired Up fundraiser roared by last night. While attendance was lower than desired, the event was a lot of fun. If you missed it, you REALLY missed it. Clayworks took on a fairy tale appearance with the addition of thousands of Christmas lights. The whole place was transformed into a wonderland of friends, food, and art. Thanks to all the attendees, volunteers, and especially to Adrienne and Julie who really jump through hoops every year to create a great party and make it look easy.

With the silent auction, door prizes, music, food, beverages, desserts (yes, they deserve their own separate category!), and raku, things were hopping. Add to that the wild fun of the clay olympics and you will see how memorable the night was.

It was pretty warm, but at least us folks in the raku department didn't have to deal with inclement weather for a change. The raku went well and the pieces came out great. I'd like to give a big thanks to Nick, my raku partner-in-crime.

Directly following the big shindig, everyone pitched in and converted it back to a working clay studio in no time at all. It's an amazing transformation to witness.

A few of us late-nighters stayed and chatted for a while after everything was done. It was nice to relax and unwind a bit. There was talk of going to the Penguin, but that will have to be another time when we're all feeling a bit younger.

More pictures here, here, and here.

history

Esp. for Ron, Becky and Ellaine, some pict's reminded me of your work check out my blog. at maccraftn2d3d.blogspot.com 

Update

I have sent a list of names off to Adrienne to be added to the cash register. Expect to hear something soon whether it's a general meeting or several small ones.

In the meantime, does anybody have anything they'd like to post here? A discussion subject? An observation? A request? Anyone that's listed as an author on this site can create new posts. Please feel free to discuss anything studio or clay related here.

Who's taking which classes in the next session?

Meeting

Who can make it to the studio either Saturday at 1:00 pm or sometime on Sunday? I would like to find out who is interested in staffing the gallery and work on making some decisions on our course of action.

Please let me know if you can make it either day.

Covergirl Amy Sanders

Congratulations Amy on making the cover of PMI!!! I liked the article and your work is fantastic!

Empty Bowls 2009

Clayworks contributed 294 bowls for the Empty Bowl project this year! If you helped make some of them, thanks! If you didn't get the chance, mark your calendar for next year.

Just a quick note about a book of interest to pass along.  I am reading "Carolina Clay: The Life and Legend of the Slave Potter Dave".  I know you are interested in pottery, but this is much more than a ceramics book,  history pre & post civil war, value of education, poetry, politics and general history of our area of the Carolinas.  Writen by Leonard Todd whose family back in 1800s owned slave potter Dav.

Our best kept secret: We have a gallery at Clayworks!

I have some amazing news about our Clayworks gallery. The only thing keeping it from being open is the personnel to staff it. (I know! I was shocked too.)

If we can come up with a schedule to staff it on a REGULAR BASIS, we can all sell our work there! What we're going for here is to be open on Saturdays (for example) from 9:00 to 4:00 or somewhere thereabouts. If we can commit to a regular schedule we can put the sandwich board out and market it as a "real" gallery. Think about it --our work could be seen by customers (which is the first step of selling it).

Think of this scenario: It's your Saturday to work the gallery so you come in and do your clay work in the front classroom. When you hear the bell on the door jingle, you wipe your hands and greet the people in the gallery. When they are finished browsing and/or buying you go back to work in the classroom. It's a win/win/win situation since you have the opportunity to sell some pieces, Clayworks makes some money, and let's face it, do you really NEED an excuse to come in on a Saturday and work in clay?

I have discussed this with Adrienne. She approves and has gotten board approval so the only thing holding us back is us. There will be some rules and some training on the cash register, but this could really turn out to be something good for all involved.

Let's get together and talk about this. What would be a good day/time to meet and work out a plan?

I'm thinking when the weather turns nicer we could even take a wheel out on the sidewalk and throw out front. That might draw some attention.

The mind reels...

Raku final

It appears that we will NOT be doing a raku firing this Friday night. There is a lot going on downtown this weekend and it's probably not the best time to be doing it. There wasn't very much interest in it anyway.

We will try another time as schedules permit.

Stay tuned...

Raku

We have only four days left before the proposed raku date and I have only heard one 'nay' and one 'aye' (both of them off the blog). Is anyone else interested or not interested? Is anyone actually reading this blog any longer? Don't be shy about voicing your opinion. This is our blog.

Please let me know.

New raku date?

Is anybody up for a "traditional (Clayworks)" raku on Friday, February 27th?

Please post and let me know who's interested.

Thanks.

Raku on hold & barrel firing

Saturday, February 21st has not turned out to be a good day for raku. We will have to reschedule for another time.

I believe the barrel firing is still taking place on that day, after 4:30 pm.

Calendar instructions

Several people have commented that they were not able to add an event to the clayworkers calendar or their event doesn't show up on the calendar after entering it. There may be something wrong with their logins but there is also an added step to the procedure since we are updating a public calendar.

Since you signed up with blogspot, you are now signed up with Google. When you click on the link at the bottom-right of the embedded calendar, a new window should open up in your browser (or it could be a new tab, depending on which browser you are using).



Once that window (or tab) opens, you are in your personal calendar. The first time you access the calendar you need to add the clayworkers calendar to your own.



After that, whenever you add an event, there is a box that appears which asks which calendar you want the event to appear on.


If you would like the item to appear on the clayworkers calendar, you must always choose that calendar from the drop-down box since the software will always try to add it to your personal calendar as a default.


Up until this point, I have been showing the "quick add" pop-up window. Here is a view from the full page editor. The which calendar drop-down box is on both windows and you must pick the clayworkers calendar so it doesn't default to your own. (Unless, of course you want it to be only on your personal calendar, which is not in the scope of this post.)

I hope this clears up any confusion with the calendar. If not, let me know and I will try to help you with it. Thanks.

Raku recap

Thanks to all who came out and helped with the raku firing on Saturday. It was pretty much a success with some of the pieces turning out absolutely amazing. As far as the "new process" is concerned, I think we may have some more homework to do on that front. We can't expect to be great at it the first (or maybe even the second) time out.

In case anyone wants to see what we were working towards, here's a link to Bruce Odell's video.

Thanks, again for coming out and let's see if we can't schedule another raku on the 21st (2/21/09). Anyone up for that? If we don't do the alcohol/sawdust method, we could schedule one for Friday night (2/20/09) instead.

As always, let me know what you think. This is supposed to be a group project.

Tony Clennell on handles

Tony Clennell recently did one of Ceramic Arts Daily's videos of the week about handles. In the video he mentions Lana Wilson's Magic Water which he uses to attach the handles. He states in the video that he doesn't even score the handle when using the Magic Water.

It seems to me that we need to have some of this at the studio.

Lana Wilson's Magic Water

3 tablespoons	liquid sodium silicate
1.5 teaspoons	soda ash
1 gallon	water
mix well

If this is really old news I apologize. I have a really old computer.

Saturday raku

It looks like we're on for a Saturday afternoon raku and the weather looks great.

We're looking forward to trying some new processes in this firing so it should be exciting (isn't it always?) and will probably yield some happy accidents along the way.

One thing we need to mention is that this is not a Clayworks class firing and is not funded by the studio. People (mostly nontoxic) have put out some time and funds for fuel, copper wash, and alcohol for spraying so there will be a donations bucket.

Please donate and have fun.

Fourth Annual Vasefinder Nationals 2009

Check out this site to see the winners (and all the rest). They're all amazing.

Green Vase
By Bob Dixon

The link is here.

Calendar?

Does everyone like the calendar embedded permanently where it is now?

You can click on the events to get a better description or click on the link at the bottom of the grid to pull it up full size in a window.

I have currently embedded the calendar at the top and at the bottom of the page. Please take the short poll on the right-hand side of the page and let me know what you think.

Thanks!

Raku on 7th

Hey, Mud Buds. Thanks for the invite. Can't make Feb 7th...would enjoy a daytime raku event another time.

Thinking is dangerous

So I'm thinking we need to take a notion to entertain the idea of thinking about considering the possibility of maybe proposing a collaborative project.

We could do a large collaborative piece or everyone could do some work within a specific set of parameters.

The possibilities, while not quite endless, are pretty impressive.

What does everyone think?

I'm here

Raku?

Is anyone interested in a raku on Saturday, February 7, 2009 at ~10:00 a.m. (or whatever time works for everyone)? I have added it to the calendar as a possibility. Please let us know by leaving comments on this post so we know what the interest level is.

assundry comments about nothing

Dear John,

Another week away from class? If you miss any more classes Greg will surely drop your grade by a full letter!

About a raku session... how would you feel about the morning / afternoon of the 7th? If we try the new alcohol reduction technique we should have as much light as possible. (I can’t see good especially at night.)

I just read your post about Ruth’s Chris on Sunday. That is one of my favorite steaks. Mel and I went there last night for her birthday, very tastey. Then she drug me to see Rent afterward. I like a lot of music but apparently I haven't attained the level of sophistication that causes me to like musicals. We left at halftime, I am not sure who was winning.

Congrats Becky!

An Emmy! That is impressive - we will buy you a celebratory beverage soon.

Emmys!

Just in case you were unaware, Becky, Fred, and their associate, Mike won regional Emmys in the "Composer/Arranger" category for the TV show "Raggs". It's Fred's fourth Emmy and Mike's and Becky's first.

How cool is that?!

Wednesday night blues

It looks like I might miss class again on Wednesday since I have to go to St. Pauls, NC again. Trips to St. Pauls have fallen on a Wednesday three weeks in a row. Oy.

calendar

When i am logged into the Blog site and click on the calendar link John put up there is a button on the lower right hand corner fo the calendar that takes me straight to Google Calendar where changes galore can be made. Hope that helps

How to add an event to calendar??

Please help?

swore I would never blog

Well John, now you have gone and done it. How could I not blog when you did all the work to set it up.

About the calendar and all that, great idea, but I'm no help whatsoever at helping you figure out how to get it set up how you want.

I'm working on my three teapots for the gas kiln. 25 lbs of clay used and I haven't even made the handles yet. Threw 12 spouts today. I sure do hope I manage to get three usable ones out of them. I usually screw up one or two per teapot.

Calendar, Take 2

I have put a link over on the right sidebar that brings up the calendar. Now we just need to know how to update the calendar.

CALENDAR

I am posting this to use the logo from this reference point in the link. Please do not remove.

things that make you go hmmmmm

embedded code actually embeds the item, go figure! not the effect i was after - was hoping for an embedded object at the top hierarchy so we could see it without drilling down. You guys have any ideas?

let's share a calendar

Thanks John, you are the #$%^% as the saying goes! There must be away to include the public calendar we all have access to on this blog page. Is there a way to edit the layout of the blog and embed this info ""

Anyway - you guys feel free to add whom ever to the public calendar and we can start to use it to track firing info and other dates of interest. Then when the website gets renovated maybe we can just embed or link to and have everyone use instead of reinventing the wheel.

OK that about sums up my info for the morning.

First is first

I am making the first post on the new blog! Woo-Hoo!

(Somebody had to do it.)

There.

The ice is broken. The gauntlet is thrown down. The turkey's in the oven. The cat's out of the bag. The horse is out of the barn. The train has left the station. You have some broccoli in your teeth. What?

Well, the point is, now it's up to everyone else to jump on board.