Guild Show Recovery

Although I wish I had better sales to report, I still had a pretty good time at the Craft Fair of the Southern Highlands. Seemed a lot of folks were in Asheville from out of town to see what is no doubt one of the most colorful leaf seasons we've had in recent years. It's always nice to be at a show amongst friends. My friend in pottery & blogging Joy Tanner was there and I sure did enjoy chatting and trading with my neighbors Jeff & Crim Bassett of Bee Global. I was thankful to have some of my students from Odyssey Center for Ceramic Arts drop by the show as well as a surprise visit from my West Virginia University ceramics teacher, Bob Anderson. It was great catching up with him. I still hope to make him proud.

Bob built a comprehensive ceramics program at WVU over the course of his thirty-some-odd years there. It's, seemingly, one of a few BFA & MFA programs left that truly supports students who seek to make functional work. I learned a great deal about craftsmanship at WVU, particularly through the Production Methods classes I took there. In a typical "Fine Arts," program the word "production," may be poo-pooed. To me, production is synonymous with "practice." You can't excel in anything without practice. And if "art," isn't back by good craft, well then, I'm really not inclined to consider it worth much of anything, let alone being worthy of being called "art."

Thanks for coming along on my tangent. Back to the Fair. Since it wasn't gangbusters, I'll have to knock out some work before my long awaited vacation in November. I'm hoping to fill an order to a new gallery in Illinois as well as an order of logo coffee mugs to a chain of coffee shops on NC's east coast. The Marshall Handmade Market is coming up as well. More to come on that, but save the date for November 20.