Carolina Designer Craftsmen: this past weekend

We are home and very pleased with this past weekends event in Raleigh at the Carolina Designer Craftsmen 40th annual Fine craft and Design show. Lisa Oakely awarded us with the Cedar Creek Gallery Award of Excellence. Every year the Cedar Creek Gallery presents this award to a CDC Guild member. Last year the award went to Sandra McEwen.

Here is the description of the award:

"Sid and Pat Oakley started Cedar Creek Pottery and Gallery in 1968 on what used to be an old tobacco field. Today their daughter Lisa continues their legacy. The Gallery has evolved into one of the largest collections of fine crafts on the East coast featuring the work of over 200 of America's most accomplished craftsmen, including many of our CDCG exhibitors, whose work is on display and sold year round. The Award of Excellence is the mark of excellent work deserving of special recognition."

We are very honored to be presented this award by Lisa from Cedar Creek Gallery.

Back in the beginning of the summer we delivered some pieces there for their Art of the State exhibition. To see the two blog posts that we did about their wonderful gallery, go here, and here.

Moka Glaze Kiln.... and we are off to Raleigh

We were quite happy with how the Moka glaze kiln came out today. Here are a few pictures of the pottery. We will bring our art glazed vases and our Moka glaze pottery to the Carolina Designer Craftsmen today and we will be leaving some in our shop for the weekend. Ed and Gloria will be here to greet the Seagrove visitors. All is well and Happy Thanksgiving to you.

Check out Tom Starland's blog at Carolina Unleashed. We want to thank him for being such a great supporter of us Seagrovean potters.

Masterpieces out of the kiln

Well we were very happy and relieved this morning with how our "masterpeices" for the Carolina Designer Craftsmen came out. We have decided to put the crab handled urn into the CDC Masterworks display. We liked all of them and we are excited about the potential for more works like these in the future. A project like this is good for us. Now to unload the Moka glaze kiln. More images of those pieces soon.

Here is a close-up of the crab urn. I like the streamers and the greenish "bubbles" around the crab.

"Masterworks" - Carolina Designer Craftsmen-Thanksgiving weekend

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Above I am carefully glazing in and around all of the handles

Yesterday we glazed the three large handled urns that we made for this weekend. The 40th annual Carolina Designer Craftsmen is taking place at the Raleigh State Fair Grounds. Our fingers are crossed that we will be happy tomorrow morning when we unload. One of these pieces is destined for the "Masterworks" display at the CDC Fine Craft Show. These works are a collaborative efforts, between Bruce and I. We found it tricky trying to foresee what glazes to use and how to glaze the transitions around the handles - into the images - and then into his fossil imagery.

We were very happy when we finished that last piece. We turned off the gas kiln at 2:45 am and finished loading the urns about the same time.
We were able to tuck some of my vases around the urns.

Loading the Kiln for Carolina Designer Craftsmen..for this weekend

Bruce is waxing the bottom of the pots in the image above

The past few days have been super busy. Here are the highlights of loading the Moka glazed pottery into our gas kiln. We finished glazing on Sunday and Monday. I glazed late into Monday evening while Bruce and Ed loaded the kiln. The kiln is cooling right now and we will unload Thanksgiving Day. What a treat.

Below Samantha is glazing a creamer

Monday was stormy but luckily not raining hard when we carried the glazed pots out to the hog parlor.
There Bruce goes. I love the color of the rust on the metal next to the green grass.
Bruce is working on the back level of the kiln.

Ratatoulle kept me company all day and night. I like it when she is in a good mood.
Ed was a big help to Bruce. We usually load over two days, but this time it was all done in one day.
Ed is handing the bricks to Bruce. This is the final step of the kiln loading process and a very welcomed one.
Bruce has cut soft brick to fit in just right at the arch.

CDC "Masterpieces"' in the kiln

Bruce and I took on a project for this coming Carolina Designer Craftsmen. We have judged the timing a bit close, but that is what happens sometimes in our studio. Yesterday when I got home from the Celebration I helped finish these pieces and load them into the bisque kiln for their first firing around 1:00am. We have them soaking for around 15 hours to make sure they are throughly dry. Calling them "masterpiece" is a bit strong of a term for us, but that is what they call it so we will go with it. See below for their definition. These pieces are the first time we have brought together some of our newer techniques, new imagery on a larger handled form. Stay Tuned

The Carolina Designer Craftsmen's Definition of a Masterworks piece: "A piece that is superior in design, quality, originality, price and/or size to what you would routinely make and display in your booth. This piece must be in the same medium and style of work that you are creating now, just more elaborate and more unique. That dream piece, the one that you’ve held in your heart…that you have always wanted to make, or even a collaboration with another guild member."

Celebration of Seagrove Potters -- Gala

I wanted to load some images up from last night. I need to go eat my oatmeal and back to the Luck's Cannery to set up for this morning. Last night was a lot of fun and we all enjoyed ourselves. I will fill in who is in the pictures another day.

Celebration of Seagrove Potters -- Set Up

The North Carolina Pottery Center has a display table at the entrance with historic NC Pottery books and other NCPC information including membership.
Last night Ed and I went back to the Luck's Cannery to set out our pottery. We hit the wall around 8:45 and thought that we would continue in the morning. We met Will McCanless (McCanless Pottery) and Meredith Smildson leaving about the same time as we were. It is all up from here!

Below is our booth as we left it. Gloria and Ed will go back this morning and finish up. We need to be completed by noon so the caterers have plenty of room to set up for this evening's Gala. I am going to work on glazing for the Carolina Designer Craftsman which is next week in Raleigh.

I went around really quick to see if I could find any smiling faces. There were a few left right before Ed and I left.

Below is Chris and Lisa Luther of Chris Luther Pottery

Dan Triece of Dirtworks Pottery came on over to see what was going on and expressed a how do you do to all of you.
Here is Randy and Sherry James of Dixieland Pottery. You may remember them from a previous post that we did back in August about the Luck's Legacy Kiln Opening. They were just about set up and putting a few finishing touches on their booth.
Michelle Kovack of Kovack Pottery is set up beside them.

Paul Ray of Ray Pottery is sporting his Alice Cooper t-shirt, we like it too.

Sheila Ray (Paul's wife) is hanging out talking with David and Alexa Fernandez of Seagrove Stoneware.
Blaine Avery of Avery Pottery and Tileworks is getting set up and ready to display his pottery.

New Vases

We unloaded a kiln this morning with our art pottery glazes. Bruce and Ed are at the Luck's Cannery setting up the booth. When they get back we will go back over with some more pots that Gloria and I have been packing up. Gloria is up at the shop packing right now wondering where I am.

When Bruce gets back he will start cleaning these vases up for tomorrow.