Update on Dan Finnegan

(Guest bloggers Anna and John are sitting in for Dan today and want to give you an update…)

Without going into too much detail, Dan had surgery about ten days ago to remove the cancer discovered during his routine colonoscopy. All the fixing, patching and sewing that followed the procedure have gone exceedingly well. Dan is progressing as the doctors had hoped and Dan is up and around as expected.

For those of you keeping score at home, Dan was released on Tuesday afternoon and has been recuperating in a secure, undisclosed location (and under adult supervision!) His keepers continue to report nothing but good news on the Dan Finnegan progress report!

So far Dan’s pain has been manageable, and all his parts that should be working are working. He is being closely monitored around the clock. Rumor has it that he may be back home before too long.

The gang at LibertyTown is coordinating a revolving ‘Dinners for Dan’. Call LibertyTown for details if you wish to contribute calories to the cause.

We (collectively, all of his friends, neighbors, well-wishers and loved ones) have been successful in allowing him to focus on his recovery and that is thanks to everyone who is sending all that good Kharma his way. It continues to have a profound impact on his health, so keep bombarding him with your thoughts and prayers.

Just a Few Words of Thanks

Tomorrow is the big day and I just wanted to thank all of the well wishers who’ve been sending me their love, affection and positive thoughts. I have been overwhelmed by the support of friends near and far. Despite the impending surgery, I sit here today feeling a fortunate man to be so rich in good people. I’ll talk to you on the other side! Dan

Reality…Intrudes…

When I began writing this blog it was in part an effort to refocus my mind on my life as a potter. Running an art center and trying to be a potter at the same time often leaves me feeling discombobulated. It was never my intention to get too personal here, but rather to share some of my passion for clay and connect to more of my fellow travelers.

So, now I’m breaking my own rules here…It’s not easy to share this with you all, but this Friday I’m to be operated on for colon cancer…while it is a serious surgery the outlook is very positive and my expectation is to be back in the studio by the new year. If you know anything about cancer, mine has been identified as T1-0. That indicates that I have the lowest level (T1) and that no lymph nodes are involved. This is all good. I have a great surgeon on my side and he intends to try to do this laproscopically, which means a much less invasive procedure. I also have an extraordinary community of friends who are rallying to watch out for me and help me get through this.
I may be off line here for a bit, but rest assured I will find something to go on about before long.
One bit of preaching…if you are approaching a certain age (I’m 54) call your physician and make an appointment for a colonoscopy. That’s the only reason I found out and I count myself lucky to have learned this early on.
As an amusement I’ve included a photo from 1969…8th grade graduation. I’ve been a geek for a l-o-n-g time!

Culpepper Purple Stone

Putting down a good bed of gravel in the kiln shed has been one of many items stuck on my list for years…thanks to Mr. Michael Littlefield I can finally cross it off (NEVER use pea gravel underfoot, friends…it forever shifts beneath your feet). Purple stone is an extravagance, but I’m a sucker for pretty things.

This has been a big week for projects including this lightweight cover for our tile making operation. The mortuary table, full of wet clay, is underneath.

Every Halloween for years Laura Shepherd creates a paper mache sculpture at the entrance to Downtown Greens, the community garden that she founded There have been giant pumpkins and witches and bats and spiders and plenty of other scary icons. A couple of years ago I rear ended a fellow with my car because I had turned to see what she was making that year. Art can be dangerous!

Many years ago a consortium of friends rented this warehouse together. God help us if we ever have to move!

Tomorrow’s blog promises to break new ground…

Summer Arrives in a Crate


It seems a long time ago, but while I was in England this summer I had the great pleasure of sharing some excellent time with a few fellow bloggers. Hannah McAndrew and Doug Fitch arrived at Toff’s bearing these fantastic gifts for me! I was bowled over!
I have a wooden crate full of treasure that was shipped back to me recently by Toff and Georgie.
It was full of pots I had made or collected there, a whole bunch of Tiggy’s soap for the Emporium at LibertyTown, books, damson and cherry plum jam, and box upon box of lovely tea. But these two fabulous and robust jugs are surely the prizes of the lot. They look perfect amidst the fall foliage.
I spent this beautiful autumn day helping Anna move and then clearing up some fallen trees in the woods beside my studio. Perfect weather…’nuff said.

Leaning Tower of…

…Things Stacked On Top of Each Other. I took it down today before somebody got hurt.

A bunch of pots on the window ledge.

You remember Ellie Bird, I’m sure. Here she is with her dad, Paul Cymrot, proprietor of Riverby Books (along with his dad, Steve Cymrot.)

Ellie and her 1,000 watt smile!

New York Review

I am back from the show in New York, unloaded and ready to figure out what’s next. The Westchester Craft Show was a moderate success for me… it is a very high quality show and deserves its reputation for sophisticated buyers. It is a real pleasure to be included among such accomplished makers.
There were lots of great jewelry, fiber and a very eclectic and diverse group of ceramics as well as wood and glass…. I was the only one there with mugs. There are so many things about being near NY City that are so cool…ethnic diversity being one and I love to hear all the different NY accents! My biggest sale was to a couple of women from Croatia. I asked them if there was much of a pottery tradition back home and they said ‘ No, everything comes from China’ !
I’m reasonably pleased with my new booth and will do just a little tweaking before the next one, although I don’t know when that’ll be. You can never have too much lighting is one of the lessons I’ve learned.
In addition to doing business I got to spend Friday with my adorable niece, Courtney Parks. Courtney is the only daughter of my only sister and she is a delightful person. She lives in Chelsea in NY City after finishing her degree last spring.
And Andrew Coombs came from nearby Port Chester to join us for a delicious Indian meal. Andrew was my assistant for 3 years before going on to grad school. He’s now one of the artist-in-residences at The Clay Center there, teaching and making very nice pots. He’s a good guy, illustrated by the fact that he showed up to help me both set up and break down. What a gift! It is hard work and the help and company were both excellent

These photos are pretty awful, but they’re the best I’ve got.

I tried to convince Toff this summer to put fewer pots in his display and yet I can’t resist myself. What do you do when you make so many different things and you only have a 10’x10′ world to display them?!

On the Road…Again

I’ve traveled more than 20,000 miles this year.
It’s been ten years or more since I’ve done a craft show. No doubt I said I’d never do another… and now, I’m all packed up and ready to leave for New York early tomorrow morning. If you find yourself in White Plains this weekend stop by the art deco civic center for the Westchester Craft Show.

West (by God) Virginia

I took a drive yesterday to visit Gary Roper at his Washington Street Gallery in Lewisburg, WV. I needed to pick up leftover pots in advance of my trip later this week to New York for the Westchester Craft Show. It is 201 miles each way and takes me from just about sea level here in the Rappahanock River Valley over the Blue Ridge Mountains (4,000+ft.), down into the Shenandoah Valley and up over the Allegheny Mountains. The weather was perfect and the mountains are newly kissed with a rusty red color. I do like to drive, it gives me the space to let my mind wander and there seems to be a lot to wander through these days. Among other things, I’m giving a talk at the show this week on my ‘Green’ pottery practices and I’m still working out my message.


What a simple and profound sign!

West Virginia is easy to poke fun at…$100.00 is big bucks!

Mortuary Sink

I’ve always made tile of one sort or another…sculptural ones, backsplashes, fireplace hearths and lots of individual tiles. For a while my assistants were making hundreds of square feet of stamped 2″ squares. But I’ve always wanted to make more massive floor tile and today Beth and I put together our first effort. Using clay re-constituted in an old funeral parlor sink/table, we mushed gooey clay into wooden frames. The clay is a rough mix of several stoneware clays, grog, sawdust and bonding clay and has a lot of texture to it.

I made frames for 4″, 6″ and 8″ squares…the newsprint is to keep the clay from sticking when removing the frame. They sit on a slate-like table sprinkled with dry clay and we are pretty pleased with the process. I’ve always thought that my bagwall should be tile…I’m not quite sure how to pull that off, but I do want them to get strong flashing.


I also slipped and trimmed all the breadplates I made earlier this week and I wish I had a hundred to play with. It is such a satisfying technique…the wet slip flowing from the teeth of my plastic comb, thickening on the borders of the simple pattern. I slip them before I trim them.

After trimming I use a blue/black glaze…both as dots or pouring.

Lists

I’ve been making lists like the one from my last post for a long time. Many of them are between the pages of these composition notebooks…I’ve been filling them for more than 35 years.

A list of pots is more of a guideline and it’s usually a little ambitious…I always yearn to have way too many pots to fill the kiln’s two chambers.
My old nemesis was back the other day, guarding the same tree where I hide the key. It had a very symmetrical wiggle and didn’t want to back down.

There are always bugs on my pots…

Brandon Newton is opening up a gallery in the new hotel downtown and he’s invited me to include some pots. He’s a terrific young painter and I think our work will be a good fit.


39 Down…261 To Go

It takes about 300 pots to fill my kiln and hence the making cycle is a long one. I find that I procrastinate and find reasons not to begin. It’s not because I don’t want to make pots, because there are few things that bring me as much pleasure and contentment. I think the real reason is the certain knowledge that once I’m underway, nothing else is very interesting…the obsession takes hold again…so I dither, taking care of business that I’ll soon be ignoring.
One way to delay is to make a list.

Eventually though, I weigh up some balls o’ clay and sit myself down at the wheel. It was a perfect autumn day and the view and the gentle breeze were delightful. 2 and 1/4 lb. bread plates are an easy warm-up and I made 30 this afternoon. Some of my favorite pots from the last firing were these simple pots with old fashioned slip combing.


There was a time (about 20 years ago) that I altered the shape of lots of my wheel thrown pots. I got over it and concluded that it was too much about cleverness for me and lacked the simplicity that I strive for. But these little oval pots continue to amuse me, and I plan on making a bunch.

On The Cusp

I’m feeling a little out of synch with my fellow bloggers…it seems like everyone is rushing to dry the last pots for a firing and I myself am slowly creeping towards the beginning of a cycle.
I’ve been wrapping up a bunch of projects so that I can start to make pots (maybe tomorrow… I’ve been saying the same thing each day since the weekend). The wrapping up always goes on longer than I think it will….the thing is, I know that once I start to throw a few pots the obsession kicks in and I don’t want to do anything else, so getting some items crossed off my list is big.
I juried the “Portraits” show at LibertyTown this week. We had more than 140 entries!!! and 77 were particularly interesting. That’s a lot of work to hang in the gallery and Beth and Elizabeth did a fantastic job. That and cutting wood and clearing up the property and giving my new booth it’s second coat of paint (I mixed a pint of matt and a pint of satin black) have been keeping the days full.
I built a temporary wood fired pizza oven on the stone wall at Paul and Emily’s last week. We’re going to build a more permanent one when we are sure if the size is right.

Toff and Georgie just shipped off the pots that I made this summer. This is a view of his latest firing…pretty heavy reduction, but it looks pretty rich to me. I tested a couple of my own slips and will be interested to see the results. Can you tell who’s are whose?

This my ‘temporary’ wood buck. It’s light and sturdy so I can move it around to the various wood piles.

Beth is standing in front of the wood rack…and my pickle bucket water retrieval system. I use these edgings in the salt chamber and bigger slabs in the wood chamber.

Here are a few of the teapots in my collection.

Scrumpie…m-m-m Good!

Inspired by my old friend Ken Hussell over in Conderton, I came back from England determined to make some alcoholic cider from our locals apples. Sadly, it has been a very weak crop, but we pressed what we could today and got 4 or 5 gallons all together. We used this great old chipper/grinder/press and enjoyed some beautiful autumnal weather at Jason and Lisa’s farm. I’m looking for more apples if your nearby and know of any.
After a couple of weeks I’ll add sugar to the juice and then wait a few months while it does it’s magic. Stay tuned…

What sort of footwear do you wear to write your blog? I read a review of a book on blogging recently…6 years ago there were 100,000 blogs…today there are 184 million!!!

What You Missed…

On a somewhat grim and rainy night, a small but fortunate crowd joined us at the Purina Tower building for an evening of gorgeous music with Shannon and the boys. We’ve been trying to lure Shannon here for a couple of years and it was well worth the wait. She and Jon and Matt are all excellent musicians and her writing is heartfelt and often melancholic. Plus she has a rare voice that you’ve got to hear to appreciate. Sorry if you missed it… Thanks and a tip o’ the hat to John Sovitsky, photographer to the stars!

Shannon Whitworth – Great Live Music!

If you are within the sound of this Blog you should seriously consider joining us this Saturday at LibertyTown for Shannon Whitworth and her band. Shannon played here several times as a founding member of the Biscuit Burners and now fronts her own band playing ‘Americana” music. She plays the banjo and every other instrument that comes with strings and if that wasn’t enough, she has a glorious smoky, sultry, mountain voice! And she writes….and she’s a lovely soul…and best of all, she’s a fine potter, although I doubt that she gets much time for clay these days. Come join us…I’ll give you my money back guarantee that you’ll love her!!!

Snakes Alive!

I pass through a farm gate to get to my studio and I keep a key on a nail inside a hollow in a nearby tree. Today as I started to reach in for it I was greeted by this black snake! Luckily it was sticking it’s head out to smell the roses, or I’d have stuck my hand right into it’s mid-section! I have a rather biblical response to all snakes…not my favorite! You can see the key on the lower right.

I have a short drive to my country hideaway (11 miles) and the view quickly changes from old town architecture to vinyl suburbia and then vast fields of corn and soybeans, all before I venture into the woods and my studio. Just now the farmers are working long hours harvesting the corn crop and the smell that it leaves in the air is truly of the earth.

I’m on the cusp, at the tipping point, on the verge of beginning a new cycle of making pots for a November firing. Once I start throwing, obsession kicks in and I lose interest in other projects, so I’m wrapping up my display building and getting the studio ready to roll. Autumn is here and the energy level is high!

A New Display



I sometimes watch Ebay for interesting pots and recently scored a major haul!! These were originally purchased from Winchcombe in the ’60’s and have the lovely, soft matt glaze called “mw” by those in the know. It was later altered with zircon to please a client (Crank’s Restaurants) and was never as nice after that. It got ‘waxier’ and less ‘buttery’. Someone outbid me for the plates. I don’t believe that any of it was ever used! Quite a serious purchase, but they would have cost pennies in those days. They were in Chicago when I bought them and now they are in Fredericksburg.
This October I am going to be exhibiting at The Westchester Craft Show just north of NYC. It’s not too far from my old helper Andrew in Port Chester and my niece Courtney in Manhattan and my old stomping grounds of Poughkeepsie and Mahopac and Clinton Corners. I haven’t ever been a big fan of craft shows and except for my early days when I went to wholesale shows, I really haven’t done many. Most of my pots have been sold right here in the ‘Burg for almost 30 years. It’s been more than 10 years since I’ve done one and this looks to be a very high quality show and I’m feeling fortunate to be included. But I have to create a brand new display and thats what I’ve been up to this week. I’ve stolen ideas liberally from Toff and then modified them to suit myself. Later this week I hope to get back on the wheel and begin making for a November firing.
I started by making a bunch of small pedestals and here are the before and after photos. I like the mitered edges and masking taping them together makes it easy to glue them up. I will paint these black in the next day or so.

The bare bones of this new set up… trestle tables made from luan doors with pine boards on top to create shelves. The back is all open for storage etc. Every thing will be black…a mixture of fabric and paint. Most of my pots being rich oranges and browns should be pretty striking, I hope. If you look back on my business card ideas, it really should work well. I still need to figure out lighting.

Bill Thornton’s truck. A national treasure!

Castle Hill Workshop Report

Brendon, Jim, Cherie, Linden, myself, Pam, Shelle, Gail, Elaine and Stewart.


Here’s the firing team from last week’s workshop at Castle Hill in the town of Truro on Cape Cod. It was a wonderful group and we worked very well together, sharing lots of laughs, good food and good conversation about pots and wood firing and glazing and health care!
I’m a wee bit weary from the trip, but it was a wonderful and gratifying 8 days. This was the first time I flew and then rented a car to teach a workshop and I managed pretty well without all my toys. The weather was cool and the air was salty and the skies bright and blue.
The firing was pretty smooth and the results were lovely. Everyone got some real beauties. There were a bunch of big pots included that were made during Kevin Crowe’s workshop earlier in the summer and I think that they were all very successful.
The kiln is called a train kiln and I’m afraid that you must jump to Hollis’s blog to see a complete picture of it. We fired it in 31 hours using mostly hardwood, which probably isn’t the ideal fuel, but it did work. I think more softwood would have helped heat the middle.
Most of what I teach at workshops is the fundamentals of making classic pottery forms with strong handles a nd lids with an emphasis on fine craftsmanship. I also ramble on about my days as a young lad at Winchcombe and how that opportunity has influenced my work. And of course, the subject of pie often comes up…

Martha had to leave after we fired so she’s not in the group photo. Neither is Ray, who had some of his first pots fired in this kiln. Martha is a musicologist with several books and other writings to her credit! She’s glazing this oval pot of hers with Linden in the background.

The kiln is built a few miles from the studio on property owned by the Federal Gov’t. The former Air Force base was built to monitor the nukes that we feared were coming our way during the Cold War. The same nukes that we hid from by hiding under our desks at St. Ambrose grammar school back in the day! It is an eerie place and this was the gate we went through at 6 in the A.M. to light the kiln.

A before shot.

This building was renovated and a concrete pad several feet thick was poured at the cost of $80,000.00!! That’s what happens when too many people have a say so. Someone has decided that the site could become a cultural and scientific center, but interfacing with the U.S gov’t makes it difficult. It certainly has potential, with lots of random buildings throughout the property. It is bordered on the east by a cliff leading to the Atlantic. The winds can be troublesome, but we were more than lucky to have a still couple of days to fire.

Our first peek. This is the middle of the kiln with pots stacked to the front and rear.

Nice shino glazes.

Brendan has been exploring these loose, almost battered pots and they have great feeling. It is his most personal work. We agreed that a paler clay might be more suitable, but there’s no doubt that he’s on to something exciting.

Elaine’s beautiful decanters.

#200 in a Series

200 blogs written in little more than a year! I’m not certain what it says about me that I have set aside the time to write about my self, my work in clay, and the ideas that rattle around my brain that many times?! But I do know that I have grown to count on the news from my fellow creative souls out there. I love the quiet of my studio in the woods, but I also enjoy the knowledge that so many of us are exploring and creating in similar or at least familiar ways. So, onward to 300…

I’m still decompressing from a huge crowd at our First Friday exhibition opening. I’m guessing that we had 500-600 people attending this evening, which means we were full up all night. This was a two-for-one with the work of Hal Wiggins and our very own Artist-in Residence, Elizabeth Siever. Elizabeth has worked very hard in her first year as A-i-R and she has found a wonderful new direction in her painting/collage work depicting wildlife with the emphasis on wild. It is a great show and sales were brisk!
I spent the morning in the Circuit Court building as a member of a potential jury pool but was not selected. The building itself was designed by James Renwick Jr., the same architect that designed the “Castle” on the Mall in Washington, DC (our nation’s capitol).
I’m flying off in the morning to Cape Cod to teach a wood firing workshop for a week. I’ll be reporting on that trip when I return. Stay tuned…

…and the Winner Is…

Don’t feel spurned, gentle voter, but this my new favorite, a last minute entry from Anna that we both really like. The only question I’ve got is…should the handle be ‘off the page’ or on?


This week has been filled with out of town visitors, a new water pump for my truck and hanging the new show in the gallery at LTown. I haven’t been in the studio in a while and I’m off Saturday for my workshop in Cape Cod. It will be good to see Hollis and some of my other friends there.

Vote Early…and Often!

Anna is helping me to design a new business card and brochure. She sent me these 5 to look at. I like them all, so if you have an opinion let me know. I’d print them all if it was feasible!



Old Friends

I’ve added a bunch of blogs to my blog list. I’ve been reading them for a long time, but I just figured out how to share that fact with my faithful readers this evening. So, if you haven’t done so already, check ’em out. Hannah McAndrew, Matt Grimmit, Shane Mickey, Brandon Phillips, Aaron Sober and Tiggy, the soap maker and Matt’s main squeeze.

And the photos are for you birdwatchers out there…


Reacclimation

I am not a summer kind of a guy, and I have been struggling to find much momentum or energy this August as the ‘dog days’ have really got me down. A couple of days ago the heat index made the temperature feel like 113 degrees Fahrenheit! It is impossible weather and I long for the cool rainy skies of England. I have lived in Virginia for more than 30 years now, and it’s obvious that I will never get used to heat and humidity like this…some folks around here tell me they like it!!
In spite of my lethargy, there are some things going on worth noting.
I’d first like to draw your attention to my friend Michael Kline’s online pottery sale. Michael and I have an exhibition running at the Washington Street Gallery in West Virginia right now, and his online sale opened yesterday. It looks like he has sold some great pots already, but there are plenty more available and if you don’t live with one (or more), pull out that wallet and get you some!
If you live anywhere near Cape Cod and you have an interest in wood firing, I will be leading a one week firing workshop at Castle Hill starting on September 7th and I believe that there are one or two spaces available if your interested. We’ll load and fire (40 hours) first and then I’ll do a throwing demo and show slides while the kiln cools down. It should be a nice time to be on the Cape (and cooler, I hope!).
I have slowly been working my way back into the studio; coil building a big bird and a couple of other things as well. If you’ve been following this here blog you might remember that I recently made a bird based on the old Martin Brothers “Wally Birds”. (Steve and Nicky have the first one which they call the Maltese Falcon). For some reason, making these shapes bigger has become my mission…I’ve always hankered to make large garden sculpture and this might be the right idea for that.
The other news is that I was diagnosed with Lyme’s disease a couple of weeks ago. I don’t think it will be a big deal, but I do have a couple of classic symptoms that hopefully will be remedied by the anti-biotics that I’m on. I’d like to blame my lack of energy on it, but I know it’s the weather. Autumn is just around the corner, thankfully.