Pots by the Pound and Other News

Fall has brought a flurry of activity with it! We got a last blast of summer weather last week, including one day in the upper 80s. This was fabulous for the tomato garden, and I am daily processing and freezing that harvest. Ditto the pole beans!

Claywise, I am getting ready for the next big thing: Maine Craft Weekend. I've skipped it for the last couple of years, but this year I decided to take a different approach. Instead of treating it like a little brother to the Maine Pottery Tour - getting out the good shelves, etc. - I decided to hold a much needed studio clearance sale.

"Clearance sale" sounds so janky, with a side of desperate. To make it a little more fun, I added a twist: I am holding a Pots by the Pound sale. Here's how it works:

Pots with red stickers are $1; pots with blue stickers are $2; pots with yellow stickers are $5; and so on. Customers choose their pots, then weigh them, all together - red stickers with red, blue with blue, etc. Got five pounds of red-sticker'd pots? That'll be five bucks please. I'm counting on the fun and the novelty to bring people out, and my promotional efforts, of course! I really do have a lot of seconds and demo pots that I am tired of looking at.

Once that is done, I have four events to gear up for: the Holiday Pottery Shop(Starting late November), the Portland Pottery Holiday Show (Dec 14 - 16), Art on the Hill (Dec 1-3) and...wait for it...ACC Baltimore!

I used to do this big wholesale show every year. It made my financial life much smoother: write the orders in late February, spend the next few months filling them, call them back for holiday orders. I knew that I could count on at least as much as the orders I had written coming in for those months.

The last time I did ACC Baltimore, the show coincided with the North American Blizzard of 2003. As you can imagine, the blizzard put a damper on the event. Baltimore is not like St. Paul or even Portland; they don't expect 30 inches of snow. The whole damn city was shut down for four days.

Now, being snowed in at home is one thing. You saw it coming, you dutifully bought your milk and bread the day before, you hunker down with your books and wait it out. Being snowed in in a hotel room...that's a whole 'nother thing. When I say the city was shut down, I'm telling you, even the Seven-Elevens were closed! I ate out of vending machines the whole time, with the pickings getting slimmer by the minute.

They didn't cancel the show. Of course they didn't. So we dragged our asses and our wares into the hall to await all the people who weren't there because travelling in a blizzard is a Bad Idea and they wisely stayed home.

Anyway! That sucked really hard, I lost a bunch of money, and later that year my van broke down. I haven't had an appropriate art-fair pony since then, until now. Now I ride the Grey Lady into battle!

If you can't tell, I am pretty excited about this! Art fairs were once my main gig, and though it's hard work, it's also exciting and ever-changing and immerses you in an intense, if brief, community with your fellow artisans. The thought of returning in part to that life gladdens my heart...and makes my back ache, in anticipation.

But first things first! Today I am painting my ware shelves and making wine chillers and sugar bowls, and sending out postcards for Pots by the Pound. Hope to see you here!