Throwing Big Pots

I decided to try throwing some bigger pots again today.  The tallest is about 22 inches tall.  As usual, I did them in sections.  It's been a while since I've worked on this scale and I'm thinking of trying a couple more tomorrow.  I also played around with some thrown, cut and re-assembled forms.  I'll get some pictures of them up tomorrow after I get them cleaned up.  The slab bases for them are stiffening up overnight so that should be first on the agenda in the morning. 

Evangelina and I spent a good portion of the day truly getting ready to open.  Cleaning, vacuuming, making sure that the glass shelves are nice and clean.  I also have been playing around with our new computer system for the shop.  We are a Mac family here and in the fall I purchased a Mac based point-of-sale program.  Last year we had so many different artists in the gallery it got a little confusing keeping track of it all with just quickbooks and excel spreadsheets.  I'm still figuring the new program out but it does seem pretty great.  The only downside is I have spent an awful lot of time doing basic data entry so that we can inventory everything coming in.  

The strange thing is that I'm actually inventorying my work too.  As a potter, I've always made my work, fired it and sold it.  Using a nice little sales slip pack from Staples I would write down the date and whatever sold and that was it.  With this program I'm actually entering each piece in...it even has a picture of each piece...at least the ones that I've been photographed already. 

The program is great for carrying other people's work.  I'm really intrigued to follow specifically where my pieces are going.   

The other nice thing is I'm looking to upload all of these pieces to our website in an online store area.  Not just a click here to email me about the work like I have now but online with a shopping cart and checkout.  I've never been sure about selling work online but, I'm curious to try it out.   Anyone had any success selling pots online? Never seemed like an easy venture to try.  I've always thought that customers...especially new customers need to see the actual piece before they brought it into their home.  

Oh, and it took about 11 months to get the picture but here is Clara Isabella following in a long tradition of potters' children....

Studio Time...

I got my clay delivery today.  Clean studio...new clay....should be a good week.  I made a few mugs over the weekend with the clay I had left.  After lunch I was able to get some handles on them.  I just need to let them set up a bit and then clean 'em up.  Maybe I'll try some new slip decorating on them.  

As I said previously, all of this work is going into my reduction kiln which I haven't fired in ages.  It's a very different process than getting ready to fire wood or salt so I'm curious to see how these next couple of weeks go.  I guess we'll see....

Anyways...here are a couple of pics of the mugs.  

Recycled Sail Bags

More work keeps coming into the shop.  Waiting at the post office today was a box from Again and Again bags in Gloucester, MA.  We met them at when we did CraftBoston last year and their work was a huge success here.  They are really great totebags made from recycled sails.  I just shot some pics of them and uploaded the images to the site.  Here's a link.

I actually made some work over the weekend with all this website stuff going on.  Well, maybe a couple of pieces.  I'll put some of those pictures up soon.  

Thursday is opening day for the gallery.  We've had a few groups wonder in the past couple of weeks but we definitely weren't ready for them.  We should be by Thursday....or at least close enough.  

Randy Darwall Images

I got the images of Randy's scarves up on our site. I'll be getting some more images up and more info about the work up shortly.

Here's Randy's work at the new webstore.

Work is coming in.

My very first summer here on Cape, before I knew what I was doing, a couple of guys stopped in the gallery. They left their bikes outside and strolled around a little bit. We started talking about pots and I was surprised at how much they knew about the world of contemporary ceramics. I was still getting used to the fact that 1 out of every 20 people who came in was looking for a mug with "Harwich Port" written on it.

It turns out I had moved down the road from Randall Darwall and Brian Murphy. Anybody who knows a little bit about the world of fiber will immediately know the work. Anybody who has ever been to any number of the top craft shows around the country, or even London, Australia or New Zealand will picture how great their work is. Of course, I was a recent graduate of Skidmore College and I never really left the ceramics studio to venture down the hall to the fiber studio so I was pretty much an ignorant little potter when they walked in. In the years since I'm lucky enough to count Randy and Brian among my closest friends. My kids are even luckier, because they get to call them Uncle Randy and Uncle Brian. Javi asks after almost every visit, "where does Uncle Brian get all that silly from?"

They've been incredibly supportive of me, as well of the gallery since the beginning and now Evangelina and I are excited to have their work here in the gallery for the 3rd summer in a row. That makes us the only place on Cape to carry their work. And, if I can figure out the shopping cart function on our web server....we'll have it up online as well.

Well, they just dropped some work of for the season and here's a quick look at it. This flash/camera combo does not do justice to the colors in the work. I'll try to get some better images up on the website this evening. And if I ever figure out the shopping cart on the server...I'll let ya'll know.



With all of the work here....we might be able to get this girl dressed.

Another beautiful day....

Thanks to all who've emailed about the site. It's nice to know it's not just floating on some server somewhere.

It's school vacation week up here and even though Javi and Ale are only in pre-school they are home for the week. Weather-wise, we couldn't have picked a better week for them to be home. They've been outside just about the entire time and have the new freckles to prove it. I've definitely missed some of the fun outdoor time because of the website build and the studio/gallery cleanup but I did get some awesome quality time with them this afternoon. It wasn't outside, but if I hadn't of cleaned up the studio, we couldn't have spent some time in the studio.






I'm experimenting with a new (to me) form that I'll post some pictures of later. I threw the large cylinder last night and then cut and assembled it into a triangular vase form. I'm kind of excited about the glazing opportunities with the different sides of the piece. As I finish it tonight I'll try to post some pics of it.

Check it out!!!

The site is up. I still have a ton of work to do and content to add but the basic site is working.

Next, more images, uploading each artists page. Figuring out how to open the larger images and uploading some flash slideshows instead of the static picture on the left side of each page.

Let me know what you think.
Click the link on the right hand side of the page....underneath the bottle picture.

We're going live!

I'll pretend that I actually know what I'm doing and what I'm talking about regarding this website build. We're switching the server over shortly so all of the work that I've done will be on the actual internets. If you don't follow the left-wing blogs, that "internets" reference is going to go right over your head....think Senator Ted Stevens (R), Alaska.

Maybe people will actually find this blog now that it will be linked from my amazing new website. In a perfect world, around lunchtime that little link to the right will take you to our new site as opposed to the placeholder page we have had up for far too long.

In the rest of pottery world the main studio is clean. Now it's time to organize the clay storage area and see if I have all the raw materials to mix up a new batch of some glazes.

Getting There

My studio has a floor again....well, one that's not made out of trimmings. First round of mopping is done. I always do the first round with a nice dirty mop. I'll put a new one on and mop the gallery, then it's back to the studio for round two. I might actually be able to make some new pots tomorrow. I found about 100-150 pounds of clay. Definitely enough to get started before my delivery comes.

Since I was able to upload pictures so nicely last post...here are a few more. The last couple were some ideas I had at the very end of my last cycle. They were thrown and assembled right before we went away for the weekend. When we got home I noticed that I had forgotten to cover them up. I wish I could say that it is the last time I'll do that....

I'll probably play around with those ideas early on in this cycle so I can work through whatever issues come up before I'm rushing to get everything done before Memorial Day Weekend. The problem is, I'm also planning on working on a bit of a larger scale. I'm going to be firing in the reduction kiln so I'll have a little more room than when I go out to fire Mark's gas kiln out at Stonepool Pottery.

So let's see, new ideas, a different kiln than I've fired in a while and a larger scale....should be an interesting session in the studio. I guess it's good timing that I started the blog.


Here are the pics:
first, a studio that has a clean floor. I think you can actually see a reflection from being freshly mopped. That's my trimming wheel in the back.

next up is my throwing area. the wheel still needs a littles freshing up.

here's my slab roller/junk storage area. don't miss the classic studio phone on top of the slab roller

these next two images are the pots i was describing earlier. we'll see if this work goes anywhere...

Clean Up Day!

Thanks to my 3 wonderful alarm clocks I was wide awake by 6:30 again. I've never been a morning person...don't think I ever will. I do find however, that when I do get started first thing in the studio I actually get work done. Crazy...I know. I've already emptied out a couple of cans full of junk from the studio. It's trash day here and I don't want to miss it. Now, it's time to clean up the gallery a bit. The question is...how do we get this place back to being the top contemporary craft gallery it is?



Now, this is what it should look like within a couple of days...(minus the old paint colors)



So, it's back to cleaning, mopping, sorting, organizing, storing and stuffing things away. I'm hoping to get some pictures of me actually making pots up here in the next few days. Before I can upload any pictures of the studio I'll have to clean it a little more....it's a tad embarassing how messy it is right now.

What's Next?

It's been a few days straight on the computer so I think tomorrow is calling for something a little different. I've got all 3 little ones asleep so I might try to duck into the gallery and clean up/move some stuff around and call it cleaning. Tomorrow I think it will be a day of gallery and studio cleaning as we do get dangerously close to opening up shop for the season.

The website is moving along and as soon as I can figure out how to change the hosting server we'll get the new version up even though it's not quite done. The basic pages are up and seems to work.

Off to start cleaning....

Oh, and did you hear the Pennsylvania primary is tomorrow? But, let's be careful not to turn this into a political blog....maybe that one will come later.

Springtime at Kreeger Pottery

>

> I can't spend the entire day inside. Here's a picture of Ale excited
> to be wearing her new dress. I hope this email posting works.
>

Progress

Thanks to a nice little program called dreamweaver and an even better friend named Bruce the site is coming together. I'm hoping to get at least part of it up by the end of today. I am slowly but surely figuring out how to work with dreamweaver....but nothing would have looked as nice if Bruce hadn't written the code for all these templates and links and all of this other stuff that is way beyond my level of computer knowledge. That's what I'm enjoying about dreamweaver....it works.

It's another beautiful spring day on the Cape. I have spent the morning in the family room, plugging away at the site. Javi has spent the morning by digging a huge hole next to the shed out back and then drawing quietly on the desk next to me. It's kind of nice, now that he is able to entertain himself so well. Perhaps, it is time to bring him back into the studio so we can work in there together. Oh yeah, the studio....the heart and soul of Kreeger Pottery. Time for another major clean-up. Before each working cycle I always tell myself that I'm going to work differently, that this time I will control myself, clean up after myself and stay organized as I work. After each cycle, I tell myself that next time I will. As I poked my head into the studio this morning I noticed that I still have trimmings on the floor and bins leftover from unloading after CraftBoston. I'm not sure when that delivery of clay comes, but if I don't organize my studio soon, I'm not sure where that 1000 pounds of clay is going to fit.

This time, I'm going to stay organized while I work....maybe.

Website

I think that I have finally figured out why I never updated the website. It's not easy but at least it is time-consuming.

New Website Coming?

Well, Bruce and I are actually going to update the site today.  Of course, he has to finish painting his addition and its one of the most beautiful spring days that the Cape has had in a long time, but we might actually get the work done. What could be better than spending most of the day inside working on computers....it's not like I had two winters to get this thing done.

I'll post when we get some new pages up on the site.

Blogtime

Well, I guess it's time to figure out Blogger.  I've been reading blogs for long enough, it's time to start blogging myself.  I'm getting ready to update my website and I thought it might be interesting to start blogging about what we're doing here at Kreeger Pottery.  I've been meaning to update our website for about 2 years but finally it's going to happen with a little....well, a lot of help from my good friend Bruce.  

Evangelina and I are eagerly awaiting the beginning of summer and we have some great work coming into the gallery.  We should be opening in about two weeks.  I have a bunch of good work left over from getting ready for CraftBoston and a ton of ideas for some new work.  I am actually out of clay in the studio, which I don't think has happened since I  got my first delivery in the fall of 1997.  

Tomorrow we hopefully get some new pages up on the kreegerpottery.com website and maybe even a link to the blog.

After that....new pots and new posts.