New Pots Online!

I've spent the majority of the last week getting my website tweaked.  I hadn't really paid much attention to it recently and it was getting stale.  

Not anymore.  I wasn't going to upload pots until after Thanksgiving but I couldn't help myself.  I still have some more photos to take and more pots to put up but I'll work on that the rest of the week.  

So, check out the new pots...and the best part is...Free Shipping on everything thru December 15th.  I'll be sending out an email newsletter after I get the rest of the new work online later this week.  

It's a little early but we're heading out of town tomorrow afternoon. I'm hoping to beat the traffic down to NY by leaving when the kids get finished up with school tomorrow. Javi's school has a big Thanksgiving Luncheon over at the Chatham Bars Inn. So, he's off to school in his nice slacks, a dress shirt and a blazer. I can't wait to see it all covered with gravy in the afternoon.

Behind the Scenes Work

I've spent this week doing the unseen parts of being a potter.  Not the studio part of the job but the part where I photograph everything, start updating the website, sending out mailings and getting email newsletters out for our upcoming Holiday Trunk Show.

I was going to upload the new pots to the webstore after Thanksgiving but I found myself with some time this week so I'm almost done with pictures.  I'm doing a mix of pots on a backdrop and pots in a home setting.  I think it should help with the context of viewing functional pots on a website.  I want to have everything ready to go together instead of uploading things piecemeal.  If I can figure out the php code for a couple more changes to the site I should have it up by Monday.  

Javi had a friend over after school today who asked a question that I had trouble answering with a straight face.  I was in the dining room photographing some of the work and he walked over, looked at the setup and said, "Why are you taking pictures of a coffee cup?"  My only answer was, "Because I made it."  I'm not sure if the answer was good enough for Henry.

I wish I had this setup for photographing my work.  Perhaps with that setup and some actual photography skills, my pics would look better.

I'll let you all know when the site is ready.  

Coming Up

This is what's next on the agenda.

 

We'll be hosting a Trunk Show down in Rye, NY the Saturday after Thanksgiving. Along with my newest work, Randall Darwall & Brian Murphy will have their work and Michael McCarthy will have his most recent pots.  All of the details are on the Kreeger Pottery Website.

Randall Darwall makes truly amazing work.  His scarves, shawls and clothing are known all over the world.  The colors that he finds in those dye buckets of his are unbelievable.  

Michael McCarthy just fired the woodkiln out at Stonepool Pottery so he'll have some beautiful pots with him. 

Until then, I'll be spending my time catching up on office work and photographing my newest work.  I'll be uploading all of the new work onto our website right after Thanksgiving.  

We'll be announcing some awesome Web Specials in the Online Store for those of you who live too far to make it to the show.

Well....

...I don't really know what to say...Boston, the economy,  the new work, the new show, the new location?  It was rough.  

Craft Shows can be tough....I started doing them in 2002.  My first show was Crafts at the Castle, which this show is replacing.   On the very first day of our very first show Evangelina and I were wrapping pots and passing them off to customers as you would pass a hot dog down the row of seats at a baseball game.  

This show...not so much.  It was frustrating because this show was the first time I was showing my new work.  For me it was the culmination of 7 months of work switching from soda/salt/wood to reduction firing.

New work...new booth...new expectations....uh oh.  

I know that I can't take it personally when things don't go as planned.  Thank you to all who did show up and have added some of my new work to your collections.  I'm grateful and I hope you enjoy your new pieces.  Even though this show didn't pan out as planned I have some positive things to bring back with me.  The feedback I got on my new work was tremendous...especially from fellow artists and long time customers.

Now...obviously I would have been ecstatic to sell all of the work that I brought with me...and that was my plan.  But, that is well beyond my control.  We are beginning an interesting time for our country with an economy that has over-leveraged and over-consumed.  I have joked with my customers over the years that I lucked into pottery by taking a class one summer at Skidmore.  I always said that because of that one class I actually graduated college with a skill.  No matter how disappointing a single show is, it pales in comparison to the fact that I have created something.  My pots are here...they exist...they are real.  

So...enough dwelling on a disappointing show.  I had an entire weekend to do that. Tomorrow it begins again.  I'll start small....probably by unloading the van.  Perhaps that will lead to cleaning the studio and with that clean space I'll be able to figure out where this last round of pots will lead me to next.  

Oh...and while I was gone, did anyone happen to clean my bisque kiln full of blown up pots?  See...I have things to do.  

And to put it all in perspective...when I got home I went upstairs to see my kids who I haven't seen since sending them off to school on Wednesday.  I still had my name tag hanging around my neck which led to Alejandra asking me..."Wow...did you win a medal?"  

I said yes and I gave her my medal.

I just went up to turn out her lights...this is how I found her.  I think she has created a pre-school for her dolls.

In Honor of Sam

It's been a long day.  We still have another 1/2 hour to go and in honor of Sam, I just poured a small cup of bourbon.  One of the things to look forward to in Baltimore is stopping by Sam's booth late in the day.

Show has been interesting.  A long post will probably happen later.

One of the nice things of this show has been that I finally got to meet Kari and thank her for putting up the recipe page that helped me start with the earthenware during the summer. 

CraftBoston, Setting Up.

Well...I'm wireless blogging up here at CraftBoston thanks to my father's 3g wireless connect card.

I'm just about done setting up the booth as the picture above shows.  I just need to tweak a few things and make sure that everything is priced.  I forgot a lot more booth stuff than I should have.  I wanted to hang that large platter but I have no wire to hang it with.  I could use a few extra shelves to deal with all of the extra orange space on the walls.  And, if I could find some tape that would keep my nice sign up on the wall that would help.  But...these are all little things.  The plan is that people are looking at the work instead of the booth....right?

I'll get some pics of the work up soon.  I'm hoping to see all of you living in the Boston area.

Boston....

Tomorrow, these will be in Boston...

Tomorrow is set-up day at CraftBoston.  I meant to snap some photos of the newest pots but I ran out of time.  Don't worry...I'll be able to take some during the show and I'll even try to find some time to upload them while I'm in Boston.

So..tomorrow, I'll try to figure out my new booth set-up and get a good amount of work done so that Thursday is a little easier of a work day before the show starts Thursday night.

It should all go really smoothly because Ben helped put together an awfully cool booth. It should set up really easily and I shouldn't need to ask any friends or neighbors for help....that doesn't mean I won't.  I'll get some pics tomorrow during the set-up.

Now it's off to find all of those power cords, power strips and all of the other little things to make a booth work.