Home again, Home again....you know the rest

I got in last night at 11:30 from my NCECA trip. Boy was I glad to get home and see my family! I had so many epiphanies on this trip, I don't even know where to begin. I guess every adventure is a self discovery of yourself.

Anyways...where to begin! Here are the items I ended up sending to our show. If I didn't explain before what the title of our show was it was "Circle of Eight-emerging artist and the People who have influenced them". We all thought it was a pretty good concept and we all wrote wonderful paragraphs on why we choose who we did.

My influence was Linda Christensen, who is from Minnesota and makes woodfired pots. I met Linda back in grad school when she came to ECU as a visiting artist. Linda and I make totally different pots and I can't say we have the same sort of personality either. I guess this is why I just love her so much. She was the first potter who I felt like didn't take what she did so seriously and was able to say she just enjoys throwing and may not do it the right way, but its her way of doing it. She was so giving to everyone at the school and in critiques.She never made anyone feel like there work was horrible or insignificant. She is someone that keeps her opions to herself but encourages what you are trying to do. I also took a workshop at Arrowmount with her last summer because I felt like I needed a connection and some answers from another female potter that was a mom ( which Linda is). She once again listened to everything I had to say and really answered my questioned about how to get ahead in this business while trying to be a mom and a women. She also did'nt sugar coat it for me or say it was easy. She admited that it alot of luck and very hard work...which I'm learning. So....that is why Linda's simple, wood fired pot is up near my very active, busy low fired work!