Second quarter sales

[Mark C.]

Well I just billed my second quarter accounts that are on a quartly basis. Not all up but some

One is  the same as last years (a boom year for me last year) the others where down slightly .

Seems sales are getting back to a normal year in most outlets.

I am just now packing up my largest gallery order ever in my career . This gallery ordered twice a year. Thgis is the fall order as I do not have time thgis fall to produce it. So did it over past two months.

My fall is booked with show  and other orders and a 24 day dive trip to Indonesia . Been a few years now away from serious diving and need to get back under.

I have my largest show in 30 days and it most likely will be my last show there after 30 year run. I am not having to leave my area anymore for sales as I have all I need locally .This also will be my last out of state show after 40 years of them . I'm a little sad about it-,I could keep the door open another year and am thinking that over. Show pots are more work as you need it all-teapots to cannister sets where local wholesale and consign is much easier form wise (less forms to make). I will still have two local sales this fall/xmas for at least this year or next.

Edited July 7, 2022 by Mark C.

[Babs]

A streamlined setup!

Wonde how manyvtonnes of clay you have transformed since starting out.

Better add writing the book pnto that list.

[Mark C.]

Speaking of Books there is one being made now that is all about the place I learned the most in Ceramics. I wrote a piece for that books which is in the editing stages now.

It was called the Laundry 

In the 50's-60s it was a commercial Laundry. In the late 60s it was bought by the Humboldt State University and turned into a pot shop. It has floor drains (wood covered cement troughs that drain out). They added a kiln room off the back. The builing is one huge barrel arch roof. A really great pottery setup for teaching.

Back then my mentor Reese Bullen  (who started the Art Dept there) hired a new instructor to help him teach ceramics from Alfreds as a recent gradute Lou Marak -it was 1969. I came a few years later to that program.

They hired another Alfred grad the year I came as well  (1972). It was the heyday of ceramics for this school. It was after the war and it was ahuge open learningtyransition time in ceramics-from Volkus to Arneson clay was expanding. Thes e recenty Alfreds guys where on fire from leaning from the greats who taught and wrote at Alfreds. Rhodes and the like passed what they knew down to my teachers who passed that to us. It was a solid 5 years in immersion in all things clay and kilns for me.Many a teacher and potter came out the other side of that Laundry .

In my time I learned slip casting, low fire ,high fire , kiln firing, hand building ,slab work,clay and glaze formulation just to name a few. I Worked in work study program for years as kiln and glaze room tec.( Back then tec was not used) loading and firing kilns of all types.Salt to low fire electrics-with redution cone 10 gas as the standard .

The program slowly after many deacdes switched as did many programs to  around the country  in schools to sculture and making art-mostly low fire. This slowy in my view turned the ceramics program into a lesser one than the one I was in at that time. I have heard lots of feedback on this from students over the past 30 years

Now the University recently became Cal Poly Humboldt and humanities is at the botton of the pile now. They now have funding to build in massive science expansion 3 new parking structures and you gues it the Laundry will be scraped to put in a parking lot as Joni Mitchell once said in a song. The last 10 year ceramics professor retire this year and no one is fighting this stupid mistake. For me the university long ago lost the community support as they do not care about that.

Two of the old ceramic teachers is compiling this book on 50 years of the Laundry-its history and students. I am just one of those and one of the few that choose the production pottery route over teaching and also stayed local and am still producing . In my. time we once had over 20 full timers in this small area making funtional wares now its me. Last man standing full time. The laundry is a special place for me in my brain  as well as the people who shared what they knew way back in the early 70s with me. When folks  are buying and using my pottery they really are using pottery that came from my years at the Laundry and those who taught there at that time.

Ps this book is being complied and underwritten by a gallery In Davis Ca called the John Natsoulas Gallery. John is footing the bill

He has a press at gallery and has had a 30 year ceramic realationship with HSU ceramics and did a book on the UC Davis ceramics lab already

its a great thing he is doing for our local clay history-if you are ever in Davis Ca stop by that gallery its worth the trip-just look for the 15 foot  high ceramic cat you walk thru to enter the gallery. You cannot miss it.

https://www.natsoulas.com

 

 

Edited July 14, 2022 by Mark C.