News from Earth and Fire -- July 5, 2006
TGIFFAnother month has rolled off the old calendar and it's time once again for the Leesburg First Friday Gallery Walk. My featured artist for July is Vienna, VA woodturner, Bob Holtje. I hope to see you Friday, July 7, from 6 pm until 9 pm. Meet Bob and see some really beautiful wood bowls, wine bottle stoppers, pens, and letter openers.
Imagine my surprise...
Last week, I made my semi-annual grovel call to Linda Christianson to ask her for some pots and had a very pleasant conversation (as always) with her. She is building a new kiln and promised faithfully to send me some pots in September. She even said I could call and harass her again in September just to make sure. Now, she was building a new kiln when I called her the last time, so I asked how she is firing in the meantime. She said she has been leasing a kiln for a while. Since wood-fired kilns aren't exactly portable, that sounded a little odd to me, so I asked how that works. She said she's been taking her pots to someone else's kiln and firing there for a couple of years (could it really be it was that long or was I just so dumbfounded that I missed a crucial detail?).
Now, since I know she actually enjoys cutting the wood she uses when she fires herself (she thinks of it as daily exercise to swing an axe around and cut a few logs down to size), I asked "So.. do you transport the wood, too?"
"Yes!" She said without hesitation.
Do you know how much wood is required to fire a kiln for 17 hours?!
Let's just say -- a lot.
There is a dedication that exists in "real potters" that is just amazing to me. (And let's just say, I doubt Linda needs a membership to a gym to stay in shape!)
Now before I called Linda, I had tried to call Jeff Oestreich for the same purpose, but his line was busy. I was just about ready to try Jeff's number again when he called me! Since hi-tech gadgets like magic Caller ID gizmos that tell you when someone tried to call but couldn't get through don't really co-exist with artists who make beautiful things out of mud, it turned out to be just a bizarre coincidence that I was trying to call him on the precise day that he had looked around his studio and figured there were some pots there that he could send my way.
Jeff's signature piece is an elegant beaked pitcher:
Jeff Oestreich -- Beaked Pitcher ($400)
And he sent me two of them, so I was really doing the little happy dance when I opened the box this morning.
One of the bowls Jeff sent:
Jeff Oestreich -- Faceted bowl ($145)
illustrates the point I was trying to make in the last newsletter about a certain "familial resemblance" between Jeff's pots and David Crane's pots:
David Crane -- Small bowl ($56)
You can easily imagine these two pots playing very nicely with one another in the same collection, can't you?
I'm thinking guacamole in Jeff's and salsa in David's.
Hope you're enjoying your summer. Have a good week.
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