Good Crowds and Great Pottery at the Colorado Potters Guild Fall Sale

I have felt a bit out of the loop the past week as a crescendo of activity culminated in the Colorado Potters Guild Fall Sale opening on Thursday night. Fortunately, the spiked adrenaline that was fueling me the last few days has subsided and I am much more relaxed today. The Colorado Potters Guild Fall Sale closes this afternoon at 5:00pm – there’s still time to find some terrific pottery from local Colorado artists. I’ve added a sampling of some of our 48 member’s work below:

Large Bowl by Sarah Christensen, porcelain reduction fired to cone 10

Sarah makes beautiful work and long before I joined the Guild, I purchased one of her mugs.  Unlike many of of the guild’s members who do not have formal educations in ceramics or pottery, Sarah graduated from Alfred.  Her work is very recognizable – she leaves a lot of raw clay exposed on the exterior of her pots, and uses glazes and underglaze pencils to create complex designs.

Large 20 inch low fired earthenware turtle platter by Kathleen Laurie

I have been fortunate to know Kathleen for a couple of years and she was one of the people who encouraged me to apply to become a member of the Guild.  She hand builds in low fire earthenware and also makes more traditional high fired wheel thrown reduction fired porcelain work.  Kathleen has such a spontaneous glazing and decorating style that I envy in both types of her work.  I have already purchased something from this year’s show, but I just might have to purchase one of her turtle inspired pieces today before the show closes.

Sampling of pottery from Guild members

There are definitely more female than male members at the Guild – I’m not sure if that’s true for a lot of clay communities or not?  The large hand built vase on the pedestal is by Walt Hyler, one of our senior members who makes large sculptural functional work.  It’s such a pleasure that there are potters of all ages at the Guild.  The large round 25″+ in diameter soda fired vase on the table below with the dried grass is by Dick Howell who is the Guild’s kiln director.

Shino fired set & more

Having fired in oxidation for so long, I enjoy seeing all the different types of glazes and firing methods that I have available at my disposal now.  I haven’t taken advantage of it much, but plan to do so this winter.  The guild is going to start doing scheduled monthly guild group firings for whoever wants to sign up through the winter which will be a great way for me to experiment without having to make a ton of work that could end up being  real doggies.

Set of reduction fired tumblers and matching tray by Willow Connery, cone 10

Willow makes gorgeous wheel thrown work and I aspire to throw as well as her.  Her craftsmanship is amazing and her work light as a feather.  My very first purchase from a guild member before I even thought of applying was one of her porcelain platters.

Reduction fired platters by Candice Kiesow, cone 10

Candice is my “mentor” at the Guild this year and I just love her!  Every new member is assigned a mentor who helps guide and familiarize newbies to the procedures, equipment, building etc. for the first year.  She has an art background and is multi faceted – working in ceramics, graphic design and jewelry.  Candice just started a blog too, which reminds me that I haven’t linked to her yet….

I was prepared for our sale to be a little slower this year given the current economy, but I was wrong.  We are selling pottery like hot cakes – yesterday we had 3 check out tables and had lines 5 deep at each for hours.  I left at 1pm, so I can only imagine that it remained steady all day long.  I don’t think I’ll have much to take home this evening when we break down.

Thanks to everyone who showed up and said “hi” to me the past couple of days.  I even met someone in person with whom I’ve only emailed back and forth for a couple of months.  It’s weird putting a face to an email address – you just have to love the way blogging, social networking sites and the internet as a whole has a way of connecting people who might never meet otherwise.

Back to regularly scheduled programming on Monday,

~Cynthia