The Life & Blog of Two Potters

Last night, as we were cleaning up from a truly incredible and busy weekend hosting the Vermont Studio Tour, I came into the house a little bleary eyed and proceeded to wash a cake stand, now empty of green tomato cake, and set it on the kitchen table. I’m always trying to figure out ways to reduce clutter in our small house . . . a couple of mini pumpkin and a bud vase - already on the table - ended up atop the cake stand. What a revelation! It occurred to me that there’s not always cupboard space for a cake stand, but there is probably always a plant, or some fruit, or some vegetables to look just a little cuter up there.
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The days following our biggest show of the year are ones of re-setting and attempting to ground ourselves in our life and our home. Pushing to get the kiln finished and two large firings loaded and fired and packed up and the booth built and set up and the nine days of retail sales did amount to some fatigue. I imagine it’s something like trying to stop running after a long race . . . kind of hard to slow down mentally, even when the body is exhausted.

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When there are hundreds of pots to be made for a firing in three short weeks in the middle of summer, the most natural thing to do would be to make pots AT the kiln….

I know I’ve probably said this before, but I think it might be safe to say that we are never more content than during an uninterrupted stretch of days working on our farm. This was one of those sweet days in a series of days where the sun shone on our laboring bodies, and after [...]

One of my favorite things about being a potter is finding unexpected uses for things we- or other folks- have made. This week, one of our very large platters made it into the house before it got returned to the showroom, and during its stop-over in our kitchen, has been used for everything from keeping [...]

These days in our studio, we are: - working at filling the 350 (or so) cubic feet of kiln space we have built- and getting excited to fire this spring - adjusting to ‘green glazing’, where the slip or glaze goes onto the pot in the raw, unfired state . . . it takes a [...]

It was nearly two years ago this Thanksgiving week that our family and friends gathered on our farm to help us raise our kiln shed. We are so grateful to them for their support on that day (we finished raising 42 rafters just before the sun set!) and on the many days (ahem, years) that [...]

The days following our nine-day Fair are always ones of regrouping, resettling, and let’s be honest- recovering! This past week we have: - enjoyed the heavy rain that came from the sky the day we got home . . . unpacking had to wait a day! (it’s so much easier to take a day off [...]

These days we are: -Enjoying the arrival of summer, bashful as she may be. -Finding hours here and there for brick laying, and closing the gap at the top of our form! We are: -Constructing the side entry door to the big chamber and weaving bricks in and around it. -Watching the door to the [...]