One thousand

We had a great turnout at the building wide open house, and had wonderful time at the Awaken studio open house last weekend.

My Etsy sale reached 1000.  I did not expect this four years ago.  I started the Etsy in November 2007.  I stumbled upon the Etsy while googling the other potters, and found someone was actually selling the pottery on the website. I was very fortunate to get into the Etsy early, when not many potters were there. I am actually a member of Etsy old timer team. Now, I see there is over 1000 potters selling Etsy.

I had two firings since my last post.  I made the saggar about one inch taller and wider with the refractory clay, and the oxidation is back...  And one of the saggar is split in a half.  I am back to drawing board on this.  I will put a piece of wood inside the sagger at next firing to see what happens. I used to fire with pots wrapped with straw soaked in salt water for a couple day in a saggar to get nice flashing effects.

My

Kiln opned.

Opened the kiln today.  Good firing. Adding some piece on Etsy soon.



Our dog is feeling the spring...... Our daughter's souvenir from Taiwan trip.

Etsy, Thief and Poetry

When I opened the mailbox the other day, there was a package waiting for me, in it, a book. I have been selling my pottery on Etsy for one year now. This was surprise addition to my venue, and expanded the geography of my customer base. Last December, the basement at home became the shipping center, and I mailed out as much as seven packages a day. It has been a learning experience, getting packing materials, packing the pottery, shipping method, etc. Then, one day, in the middle of January, I got an e-mail from a customer asking about his order that he had not received. I checked the FedEx tracking, and it showed it was delivered in December three days after he ordered. The package was left on the porch. It was a large package- 30inches long! There is no way he missed the delivery on his porch. We speculated a “thief” stole the Christmas Gift! I claimed the FedEx as missing, and offered a refund to the customer. He chose to pick other pieces more than he originally purchased gracefully. Then, we decided to make sure the thief was not getting away with this package. I found that I can set the date of delivery in addition to collecting a signature. The customer got the package safely two weeks later. His gift was over one month late, so I offered “no charge”. He e-mailed me how we overcame the thief and offered a mysterious note on the payment, “I offer the art for the art”. I had no idea what that meant. Turns out he was the Poet Laureate of the US in 2004. Now I own the book composed by the former Poet Laureate of the US - signed and forward. How cool is it. FedEx recently accepted my claim and reimbursed me.

The book was An Invitation to Poetry, A New Favorite Poem Project Anthology. This comes with the DVD, interviewing the participant of the project with his/her favorite poem. It is very interesting, and strong story of them interweaving with their favorite poem, how it became favorite. Art, and maybe the craft is the reflection of the artist or the craftsman him/herself, and appeals to the people who sense and share their life. If you are looking at the painting, you may feel the happiness of the painter, or sadness of painter when he had a brush on his hand, and his inner expression appeals to you. This brings up the level of the painting to the next level. This is true to the poem and song, as well. Pottery is a bit different creature itself. When you throwing the bowl, it reflects my mood, physical condition, etc, and the clay responds to that, and have the shape defined. During the firing, we lose the total control of the process, the nature (fire, wind, moisture, etc) dominates and adds the characters to each pieces.

Back to the book, I do not have my favorite poem, unfortunately. I had my favorite book, Pearl Buck's Good Earth, translated “Daichi Vast land” in Japanese. I do not remember the story, but the title remained in my heart like the poem. I grew up very small house in Tokyo,and had constant argument with my parent for my own room. I never had my own room until 18 when I moved out. After reading the book in high school days, the images of the huge land occupied my head. When I was 19, I backpacked around the US in 50 days just to see the huge landscape. I met and talked to so many strangers, a guy bicycling across the US, a summer kid camp counselor and her lone camper, a soldier visiting his family, a girl who had runaway from her host family, my relative family who were a key part of Datsun, and list goes on. I still remember the overnight crossing from Denver to Omaha watching a thunderstorm over the flat land. The trip molded me, and I learned about not only the huge landscape, but the good people.

Kiln unloaded

I dodged the bullet, so to speak. One third of the kiln was under-fired slightly, that the thermostat and cone were indicating . The kiln was stalled and the wind started to make me nervous at that time. I was more worried about the bad oxidation and glaze crawling , but most pieces were fine. I can re-fire them later.

Now, I have pieces to list on the Etsy. This will be the first 2009 pieces, as well as the first kiln load in almost one month.


And, this is my new teapot. I am quite pleased.

Kiln unloaded

I dodged the bullet, so to speak. One third of the kiln was under-fired slightly, that the thermostat and cone were indicating . The kiln was stalled and the wind started to make me nervous at that time. I was more worried about the bad oxidation and glaze crawling , but most pieces were fine. I can re-fire them later.

Now, I have pieces to list on the Etsy. This will be the first 2009 pieces, as well as the first kiln load in almost one month.


And, this is my new teapot. I am quite pleased.