No I didn't fall off the edge of the earth...

...just been busy moving to Seagrove, NC, and settling into our new home and studio.
Michele has been chronicling our journey on her blog, Meeshspottery.blogspot.com .
I highly recommend reading her accounts of our trip starting in early March, or maybe even December 2009 when we came to NC for a holiday dinner with my family...I'll try to find time soon to write more and post photos of my own...but until then got to Michele's blog to catch up on what has been happening at Jeff Brown Pottery,...by the way, we are now Michele Hastings & Jeff Brown Pottery... the new sign is going up next week...hmmm....maybe we should combine blogs too...then we can share the blog writing....

The Gypsy Potter is on the road again...

WhyNot Seagrove, NC....
This week we're heading to Seagrove to immerse ourselves in a week of pottery, and the red clay of my home state, North Carolina. We will be staying in a quant little pottery studio/gallery/log cabin compound nestled in the longleaf pine trees, along side of the road called "Potters Highway"... Our host for this excursion is Jane Braswell, owner of the pottery studio that used to be the home of Wild Rose Pottery operated by Jane and her then husband Michael Mahan. They raised a family there while building a small studio/gallery, a beautiful home, and later a larger log cabin studio and apartment, and a thriving pottery business... After Jane left the pottery business the studio and log cabin became Avery Pottery for around six years. That's where we will be staying while we soak in the ambiance of the local mud.
Why Seagrove you may ask...my answer is WhyNot?....that is actually where the studio is...WhyNot, NC...I worked for a number of potters in Seagrove before I started my own studio here in New Hampshire, and one of the last days I "turned pots" in Seagrove, was for Jane at The Wild Rose Studio. Very Rustic at the time, the log cabin was only a studio with a small wood stove for heat, and clay everywhere. As I remember it the loft was freezing cold...Jane promises that it is more like a house now that a studio, with a kitchen and indoor bathroom. We can't wait to spend the week there.

Scholastic Art Awards

Last Month I took part in the jury for the Scholastic Art Awards. I felt honored to sit on the 3D jury, mostly because I had received three gold key awards when I was in high school over 30 years ago. This year was the first year that the artwork was chosen from all digital images ...quite hard for 3D, since you can't get the best view of the pieces. On the jury for last years awards, we made our selections from the actual art work. To see the pieces them self, you can get a better idea of technique, scale, and details. Digital/slide images are subject to the additional hurtle of the photographers skill...or lack of. I won't be showing you any of my early slide photos...! (it took me several years and dozens of rolls) and learning that the right pro can do a better job than I.
...but I digress.

I started thinking about my home town high school art class, and wondered what's happen there. It looks like the next generation has taken over, and all is well with a new art teacher getting her students involved in community art projects...score one for the A-TEAM.

Here is a photo of one of the pieces that I received a Scholastic Art Awards Gold Key for, in 1977...! On exhibit in the permanent collection of...MAMA...(not to be confused with MOMA)...to the left is a photo of me...working on another piece that same year.

We're planning a trip to Seagrove in March...maybe I'll go back to see what the old home town classroom looks like these days... IF...they let me through the door...!

In The Service Of Others

Now for a few words about working for other potters...

I have spent a large amount of my time at the wheel, making thousands of pots for other potters...some days painful, most of the time, a pure joy. I started throwing professionally, in Wilmington, NC, at a pig bank factory that evolved into a dinnerware production studio. I got to work out a design for a casserole form there, that I still make for myself. A couple years later, I made pots for Lanney Pelletier, a potter in Emerald Isle, NC...around the same time I was also working for another potter in Bayboro, before heading to Seagrove, NC, to make pots for a few folks up there....Turn n' Burn, Holly Hill Pottery, Tom Gray Pottery, Wild Rose Pottery, and Dirtworks.

And...then there are the nine years that I was a full time potter at Salmon Falls Stoneware, a factory in Dover, NH, that makes utilitarian Salt Glazed Stoneware styled after 19th century New England Pottery. I have made pots for SFS off and on for the last 10 years. I think that I can make pots for other potters because the thing I like most about being a potter, is touching clay...and production pottery is all about that, over and over again...thousand of pounds of clay, touching hundreds of pots... watching them appear in front of me filling my ware boards, loading my ware racks....seeing them on shelves in the retail shop...And getting paid weekly(I really like that part).
Yes...I am getting myself all worked up...gotta go...the clay is calling. Porcelain today...yum...

From The Kiln...

I am slowly adding photos to my Jeff Brown Pottery page on Face Book. So far I've been posting Studio and Show photos from the last ten years as Jeff Brown Pottery in Northwood, NH. Now I am starting a "album" of pieces I have made over the years...some new, some old, some blue, some bold... OK.... yes, I like Dr. Suess, and only a few of the pots are blue. Later I will be posting images from the years before I opened my studio...pieces I made while I was working for other potters...While I was tring to "find myself" as a clay artist.

Connectivity?

.....now that I have started this blog, I need to figure out how to tie it together with face book and twitter updates. I don't want to repeat what I'm writing but I do want to share the content with everyone that is interested. I know it must be easy, I just haven't found the right ...button or what ever i need to do........maybe i Meesh?...or just look a little harder...oh well for now I just tell you that my FB page is under Jeff Brown Pottery...I have posted photos from past years at the studio, shows and firings.

Back to work...OK?

I have been very slowly getting back to the studio. I did a couple quick photo sessions for Michele and so we can get more work on our Etsy.com pages...She sold her first piece on Etsy a few days ago....with in hours of posting it!!!

I did actually work on a few pots a few days ago. I put some goblets together, and trimmed bowls. Mostly I have been shuffling inventory...Jim Livermore is moving his Dover, NH gallery (Village Goldsmith Gallery) across the street, so I boxed up my work so he would have a few less things to worry about moving. I'll restock his shelves after he settles into the new space.

I'm taking lamps over to the LNHC Concord Retail Gallery tomorrow on my way to a studio in Mont Vernon, NH.

time to get out the door...I have a mug order to fill.

The First Day

Ok so it's not the first day...it is Jan.10th...but it is the first day of this blog, for what it's worth.