Ceramics Monthly this month

So, this months issue of CM was pretty enjoyable for me. I found two good articles that I could relate too and pick some info. up from. One was on a Gallery called The Dolphin Song that its owned and run by the Meisinger family. Danny Meisinger is the potter and he wrote a good personal article about being a potter who was very content selling his work to his surrounding community. This gallery sounds like such an interesting place full of all sorts of natural hand made items and very environmentally conscience in nature. He writes about being in his 20's and hearing a slide presentation by Clary Ilain about selling pots to her local boy scout troop. He than goes onto to hit all the points of doing shows, selling to galleries and how nice it is to own your own shop and not be pigeon-holed into doing just certain items. I would love to be doing what he is doing! He did point out that the old building they are in always needs lots of renovations and upkeep so he did paint a realistic view of running your own gallery. All in all the whole take on giving back to his community and being such a visible force in his downtown really sounded great!

I think this piece hit home for me because every year around this time I donate my time and resources to our youth at the Episcopal church where we attend. Our church supports our local homeless shelter along with a orphanage right down the street from our home. Our youth do a lot of fundraising for both these organizations and since my time is to limited volunteer either place I help out by making a huge number of soup bowls for a chili fundraiser around Super Bowl time. This year I'm excited to do a "mug-a-thon" for Valentines day in which the youth will sell my mugs along with some organically grown coffee from a monastery. Pretty cool huh! I always like doing this "project" each year because it give me more time to play with my work and I feel good about my donation to our community. And hey...would I want to give up a chance to make some mugs?

The second article that I liked in CM this month was on a potter by the name of Meg Oliver and her quest to set up a studio after grad school. I liked this article because I don't think that CM does enough to promote young potters in the magazine unless they have won a lot of mass appeal. Meg Oliver COULD be one of these but I can't say I've seen her pots everywhere so I enjoyed reading the events that have lead her to set-up shop in Woodstock NY.

I made clay last night and spent the morning messing around trying to get some images downloaded and getting my tax stuff together. ( My tec guy is out of town so I was on my own. That also meant I was lone parent tonight with homework, feeding, bath and such so I couldn't make it out to my studio at a decant time.) So tonight after I get off the web I plan on sitting down with a huge three ring binder that has I'm sure a thousand of glaze recipes in it and see what I can find. I"m still planning ahead for my salt work so there will be some glaze tests in my next kiln. More on that later!