Bulldog Pottery gets ready the Potters Market

Lining the inside of vases with glaze before gluing on pedestal rings.

Our Moka glaze kiln is cooling, and we have some of these vases in the kiln firing as we write this. We have our fingers crossed that we are blessed with a successful firing, and unload some great pots. As always with a potter's kiln, no matter how many times one has fired, something can and usually does come up. Why? Well not sure. Materials change, touch changes, life changes...... moods change. But you know that is what is so beautiful about hand made pottery. Each piece is individually made on a particular day, depending on the artists feelings and environment. Bruce and I started buying pots a handful of years ago. We enjoy having other peoples pots around us. We have a lot of our own too, but it is special to see a Cynthia Bringle on our table, Micheal Kline at our entrance way, or our Mark Shapiro flask with handles on a counter top. We bought a Matt Kelleher basket form at last years Potters' Market...Love it. It sits in our kitchen. I bought a plate as well from Matt, and a plate from Kyle Carpenter. We collect plates from different artists and when we have company, we bring them out and everyone eats off of a different plate. Fun! We collect plates of various sizes and acquired a nice sandwich size from Sam Taylor this past May, and one from Shawn Ireland during this years Toe River Arts Tour.

Well for all of you that love pottery, the Mint Museum's "Potters Market" is this weekend at the Mint Museum on Randolph road in Charlotte. This one day show features 40 potters from across North Carolina. The proceeds go to the Delhoum Pottery Collection where they purchase new pieces of pottery for the Mint's collection. You can see their 2010-2011 itinerary and the list of potters at the Mint Museum's website.

We were able to get three of these vases in last night. They have incredible swelling bellies and take up a lot of space in the kiln. More will be fired next week.

Here is our Moka glaze pots before we stacked up the door. We will be unloading this tomorrow afternoon. It usually takes the gas kiln a solid day and a half (with help from us) to cool down enough to unload.

Gloria and Ed will be holding down the fort here at Bulldog Pottery in Seagrove.