Summer is here and I will spend the month of July at home making lots of pottery for upcoming fall exhibitions. And teaching kids pottery, Tuesday nite Handbuilders club and my occassional Potters Wheel student.

Its a busy month, but I hope to spend some time enjoying my yard. The garden has been visited by a lovely elegant Doe. She ate the tops off 4 of my 8 sunflowers. I now have dog hair decorating the surviving sunflowers and most of my bean and pea plants. Sigh. If she wasn't so elegant and beautiful, I would call my brother, the hunter over. But no, I will just try to get her to move on.

I have some new clients for my pottery. White Memorial Foundation in Litchfield will now be offering some face jug birdhouses, garden sculptures and other decorative and usefull pottery pieces.

Stop by to see a wide variety of new pottery and tour the 200 year old pottery barn...or sign up to take a class. Click on my web site to see more about the pottery and classes... www.eastknollpottery.com

Old Deerfield Village 2009

Old Deerfield Village's craft fair was not very well attended this year. The forcast predicted heavy rain, but as usual, the forcast was wrong. The sun came out between patches of clouds, and the light misting was a relieft to the heat.

Sold out all of my new little red birds. They look great in your garden or house plants and people also bought them for flower arrangements. Their bright red color attracted many customers.

Lots of mini pots were made and sold too. It was a good weekend for me with sales. I saw many old customers and crafters to catch up with. Talked to some other potters about our craft and ate lots of blueberry perogies.

Home again for the month of July to make some stock and teach children pottery making. And, I hope to finally get my greenhouse up.

My new Face Jug Birdhouses were a big hit also... adds a little fun to your yard and attracts the birds too!

Treadling at Mercer

Reggie the potter, daughter Erin and granddaughter Isobel, the youngest apprentice at 17 months old, working on the old wooden treadle wheel at Mercer Museums Folk Fest in Dolyestown PA.

Mercer Museum 2009

Another great year at the Mercer Museum in Pennsylvania. This is a wonderful place to hang out for a weekend. The crafters are experts in their fields, fashioning with enthusiam furniture, baskets, pottery, weavings, soap, paintings, so much more and even home brewed beer over a wood fire.




The lifestyle of the traditional craftsmen are in a world of their own. They have studied and practiced their craft. They have sought the simpler way of making useful and decorative crafts.

People have told me I can get a motor for my potters wheel instead of the slow steady kick of my wooden treadle, but that would defeat the purpose. The idea of starting a craft from scratch, a piece of wood, a ball of clay, a hank of wool... and slowly and meditatively turning those raw materials into a work of art; semetrical, smooth flowing lines, perfect balance... is not something to be rushed, but worked on subconsiously, meditatively, slowly. The craftsmens hands caress their work and instill a bit of themselves into it.

And the end product reflects the craftsmens lifestyle, practice, patience and skill.

Campfire Cookery

I have moved on to experimenting with campfire cooking.

These are my pottery crocks for cooking on campfires. My first attempt, was to throw some greased pottatoes in the crock on the left and stick it near the coals. It took about 40 minutes and they were soft and great!

My second attempt was not so good. They must have been too far from the coals and after 2 hours, yes they were soft.

Tonight I mix together 2 eggs, 2 cups of milk, 1/2 cup brown sugar, 4 tablespoons of butter in the crock. Then I crumbled a dry loaf of french bread crumbled into chunks. A handful of raisons and half an apple then went into the mix. 1 hour near the coals and it was perfect.

In the other crock, I placed 1 inch cubes of potatoes, carrots, pork, shredded cabbage, garlic, onion and salt and pepper. I stuffed it in and filled the crock with beer. This mix took about 1 and 1/2 hours to soften the potatoes.

The crocks held up well, no cracks even when the flames got 2 " to the crocks. I wouldn't suggest the flames get any closer, and most of my logs were coals when I put the cold crocks in. The lids kept the steam in and both turned out quite tasty.

Spring Again!

After a cold winter, working in my Cellar Cave under my house, I am ready to move back into my Barn Workshop!



I have spread wood chips on my parking lot, they were free thanks to my son-in-law. Hopefully they will keep down the mud... we'll see how they work out.



Some new things I am working on are the marbled tiles and small trays. I was inspired by a friend, John Bielik (periodpaper@yahoo.com) who does beautiful marbled paper. (You can see him and his work on my web site: http://www.eastknollpottery.com/id18.html.



Colored clay slips are placed on red clay tile and shaped into fields and flowers with the use of a pin. Also, I am working on a line of new Bird Houses. My face jugs were so popular last year, I decided to make some with a useful purpose and to help out the birds.

Happy Spring!

Marbled Slipware... Part 1

Will Spring Ever Get Here!
Connecticut has been cold for months. I wake up, look at the thermostat outside my kitchen window and say, "Oh look, its 20 degrees". Again. Sunny days are nice, but I want the snow and ice in my driveway to go away. I want to sit on the porch in the sunshine. I want to plant seeds.

My winter project... rather, one of my winter projects are these slipware plates. They are decorated with colored slips on red clay. Liquid colored clay is positioned on the wet red clay coating and with the use of a pen point colors are dragged to produce lovely flowers, leaves and swirls. Come see me working on these this year at my many demonstrations, web site http://www.eastknollpottery.com/.