Avery Pottery & Tileworks December Tile Sale

Hey everyone you know there's always something going on down here in the Grove!! This Saturday Im doing a tile sale featuring Leaf tiles and a new purple glaze and over at Chris Luther Pottery there's Kiln opening (it looks like he's going to have some great pots) on the same day so I hope to see you on this special day December 12th for a tile sale exclusively for my online customers. Buy two tiles of any style or size and get the third tile of equal or lesser value at half off!
I am very excited to debut a new translucent eggplant purple glaze on my recently created leaf tiles. There will be a large selection in 4, 6, and 8 inch sizes.
Happy Holidays!
-Blaine

Settin' Up

I set up this evening for the celebration of seagrove potters it opens friday night the 20th at 6:00 and a special auction of collaborative works is set to start at 8:00. This year I collaborated with Carol Gentithes of Johnston and Gentithes ART Pottery. I made a hand built folk art Turtle sculpture and Carol did some magic with her story telling through decoration.
DESCRIPTION:
This zealous turtle was created by Blaine Avery and decorated by Carol Gentithes. Blaine admires the introspective, thoughtful nature of the turtle who is forever the independent, intrepid nomad carrying his home on his back through the journeys of life. Carol narrates one of the turtle's journeys as he wanders into the waters of a lake where he discovers traces of human interference from the land above. The turtle is hand built from stoneware and is salt glazed. The decorations are silkscreen emulsions that are fired onto the surface in a separate firing.

The images are of the setup, not quite done I'll finish up in the morning and of the Turtle It came out great I hope it finds a home that honers its greatness!!
And I also wore my new Vibram Five Fingers KSO shoeswhen setting up I get funny looks but I love them!!! Check them out there just fun!!

Working,Working,Working, so glad I love what I do!!!

You know some days just seem to go on forever and weeks too, so I take a deep breath or two then I remember how much I love what I do! The past few weeks I've felt like this. This Time of year is always like this, tis the season!!! Anyway so far this month I have fired two loads of tiles, one gas fired kiln of pots and there is one more firing today. All this in preparation for The Celebration of Seagrove Potters. Last year was the first year and it was crazy busy. Its friday night 20th and the 21 and 22nd. I'll leave you with a few pics of judson helping me unload the kiln on monday. He loves helping unload the kiln and this time he filled up his little red wagon and pulled them in the studio, he's becoming my little helper!! To night I'll be setting up for the Celebration, hope to see you all there!!

FRIENDS!!!!!

Friends!! Great to have and Judson and I have some great ones here in the Grove! The other night our friends Jennei and Wes came over for dinner we made pizza one of Judson's favorites, I used tom grays recipe off his blog The Grays Table, there are some great recipes on there. Anyway Judson just loves Jennei and Wes. He talked Jennei into carving a pumpkin or as I call it pumpkin surgery!!! Jennei did a great job with judson doing some directing between running around jacked up on halloween candy!!
OK so I know I said in the last post, that this post would be all about pottery..... sorry you'all this is however the life of a potter right? I will be glazing pots all dat tomorrow. There!! I got some pottery stuff in!!! Trying to keep to my word!!

trick-or-treating!!!

Ok so I need to post this if you get tired of hearing about the kid well read somone else's Blog!!!! look away or do otherwise, No apologies here....

So we went to the little town of Robins down the road from Seagrove. It's another one of many rural towns around here. You could find a town like this any rural area of the county. You know the story textile mill closed no jobs, yada,yada,yada... But tonight the town really went all out!!! Some of the store fronts are vacant but the town was packed trick or treaters everywhere. Costume contests pumpkin carving contests trick or treating in the shops, police station, and the firefighters giving out candy in front of there fire truck!! Well I felt like I was in a Norman Rockwell painting. It made me remember why I chose to live here, you know sometimes you forget and its always nice to be reminded.
So this was sort of Judson's first Halloween last rear he just didn't get into it but this year...... He made out like bandit!! Yesterday at daycare they had a trunk-or-treat. I had never heard of this before. Cars in the parking lot giving candy out of their trunks? Kind of weird I think but it was fun. Its sort of a POWER-trick-or-treat candy grab he got so much candy!!! And after that he knew the drill and was ready for tonight!!! We met some friends that live in Robins with their two kids one is almost the same age as Judson and he just loves her. It was so much fun!!!
Alright!! I'll leave you with a few pictures and promise the next post will be all about or at least mostly about pottery!!!!

Starworks

We had a fun night tonight. Judson and I went to starworks for their annual gathering. If you don't know what starworks is checkout their website. Its a business/arts incubator creating green jobs and promoting tourism in the region.
We had fun, had some great food met some new people and saw the usual suspects drinking lots of free beer..... AKA the Seagove potters there is something about free beer that really brings out the potters!!! But I had to leave early to get the little boy to night night. We got the hear some great music. The music was a guy named Joe Robinson from Winston-Salem man could he play the trumpet!!!! Judson was mesmerized dancing and clapping couldn't take his eyes of them. He was so cute he pulled me aside and said "hey daddy will you get me a trumpet" so I promised him i would what else could I do you should have seen the way he looked at me makes your hart melt.
Then after the food and music we went to the other side of the old hosiery mill to see a glass blowing demo. It was fun and first time Judson saw glass blowing. Nothing like hot glass, glory holes and flames to captivate a crowd! We stayed out a little late but this only happens once a year and I still had him in bed at a reasonable hour. We have to rest up for trick or treating this weekend!! I'm excited this was my second favorite holiday (if you can call it that) after christmas when I was a kid.

Claymakers Workshop

I had a great time at Claymakers doing this workshop great people!! Great place!! and I had a incredible lunch at this cafe called TOAST. I love doing these workshops there lots of fun I am planing on doing more in the future so if any one out there has a need for workshop let me know!!! and the best part is I always lean something from some of the people attending nothing like getting a bunch a of potters together to get the ideas flowing!!!! Oh and Tracey here is a great picture of a finished Bull Bowl!!

Awesome

Ok I had to link this, I taught workshop Sturday at Claymakers in Durham. I had a great time with some really nice people and Tracey Broome wrote the nicest post on hear blog about it thanks Tracey!! I have to get the images off my camera and I'lI post something myself tomorrow. And hey who dosn't like being Awesome? Flattery............ feels nice. hehe

Kiln opening

The salt kiln came out great!!!! Incredible firing, here are some pictures of the pots and turtles. It was a busy day lots of people through and some great sales. Its always nice to see some old friends and new ones.

Kilns firing

Its been a long last few days decorating, bisque firing pots, and loading the kiln. But its all in the kiln firing as I type Now off to glazes some new tiles in some of the new glazes that I tested a few weeks back,pretty excited about that!!! Some new colors bright and shinny!!! This is the fun part decorating firing, new glazes and unloading fresh work out of a hot kiln!!!

Sliped and ready to go!!

Lots of coffee today!! Long night last night finishing up things in the studio up until after 1:00am.
It's nice though when it gets dark out and quiet you start to hear sounds that you don't usually notice and when I'm focused on the rhythm of work your mind starts to wander in an almost meditative state. Some how its relaxing through all the chaos of a messy studio and pressure of the deadline. Your eyes on the end visualizing how all the pots will look fresh from the kiln hoping everything will live up to the picture that you built up in your head over the past several weeks. There's a lot of hart and sole that goes into what a potter dose, I hope people can see it in my work and connect with it on some level. you cant dictate what they will take away or see. You can only hope that feel the presence and relate to you and "it" in some way.
I got all the bowls sliped and there fast drying. Trimming some more bowls today that will be and unglazedand painted with black slip patterns and imagery animal effigies and such I love using that word "effigy" that one of those words that just fun to try to slip in a conversation, try it some time fun party game!! I may have to skip bisque firing on them to get them in the kiln for next weekend. I would rather have bisqued pots but I'm down to the wire!!
Also throwing a few mini bows to day.. crazy I know it's hard to stop and get out on the "making" mode.

You got to get your turtles in a row......

I got judson to bed early so I went back down to the studio to finish off the very last turtle. And it"s a Big one!!! He is the largest alligator snapping turtle on the slab roller. The three on the slab roller are some of the biggest ones I have ever made they stand about 20-24 inches tall and over 36 inches wide!!! Wow!! They took about 100 pounds of clay to make each they were a bear to make and flip over, there al made upside down and then turned over when there dry enough. There is another picture of the smaller ones I'll have for the opening on the 10th and 11th I'm hoping to fit two of the big ones in the kiln one is for a collector thats been waiting a long time, the other is for the opening and the third is my back up!! Hope they all make it though when they get this big you never know... I love to see them all lined up I call them a flock of turtles!

Annual Fall Kiln Opening-mark your calendars!

This year Blaine Avery will be featuring salt glazed turtles and hand built animals. There will also be a large selection of new hand painted pots from the salt kiln so expect the unexpected. Blaine hasn't made his very popular turtles in some time and is working on some new creatures, so plan to get first glimpse of the new creations before they are gone.

Saturday, October 10, 2009 at 10:00am
Sunday, October 11, 2009 at 11:00am

Avery pottery and Tileworks
-Blaine Avery-
636 Potters Way Rd
Seagrove, NC 27341
336-873-7923
averypottery@embarqmail.com

Test Glazes..... And Turtles

Hare are some of the test glazes some promising results but the bummer is that the matte glaze I have been working on crawled and pealed..... very weird I think I may have messed something up when mixing up the base so I''ll have to start over! And I am working on some turtles for the kiln opening that is scheduled for October the 10th and 11th I haven't made them in a long time and they are so much fun! Also be on the lookout for some new animals sculptures for that weekend......... I'll tell you more about that latter but Im excited! .... I almost forgot to mention that I have donated one of my large turtles to the Zoo To Do Auction that is this saturday the 12th this if a fun event a great fundraser for the North Carolina Zoo and I'm looking forward to going. See you there.

TESTING!!! 1-2-3

OK so mixing test glazes is probably one of my least favorite things to do in ceramics, well besides book keeping but thats the business end that i would rather not talk about no fun at all!!! I love the results but the rather tedious process is what gets me. Weighing out .025 grams of this colorant and 1 or 2 grams of another one or two then mix paint on a tile and do this over and over again it makes my brain hurt!! So I did this today lets see about 100 times!!! So now I'm done and it feels good I always love the way I feel after I'm finished and can't wait to see the results. The tests are new glazes for a new line of tiles I'm working on I'm very exited about it but it will probably be next spring until they are in full swing. I'm looking for some funky fun colors that maybe even make your eyes hurt a little!!! Look out!! I had a great day lots of folks through the shop!! And nice people too!!! Thats always nice.... Here's is to laboring on labor day weekend hope you all have a good one!!!!!
Cheers
Blaine

More architecture......this one is amazing!!!

I hope y'all aren't getting board of this stuff, bear with me for one more post I cant help it!! I got my head stuck in a rut been thinking about some new designs for tiles. This is another of my favorite buildings its across the street from Grand Central at 122 east 42nd st. Its the Chanin building the Terra-Cotta was fabricated by Atlantic Terra-Cotta Company. To give you a idea of the scale the Terra -Cotta frieze is eighteen feet high. I couldn't get back far enough to get the whole building in but the detail is amazing. I love the snakes at the bottom. The next time your in new you look up everyone will know your a tourist but who cares!
Enjoy
Blaine

The Big Apple

I was In the Big Apple AKA... NYC the other week for my brothers wedding, Thought I would share some pictures of my trip. I had a great time met some great people saw some I haven't seen in years and went to see some great museums and some incredible architecture.
The first museum I went to was the American Folk Art Museum I love this place I couldn't take pictures but ome of my favorite things that I found was a plate by George Hubener redware potter in Limerick Township, Montgomery County, Pennsylvania,1757-1828 with an inscription that read...."Out of the earth with understanding the potter makes everything" very cool. The outside of the museum is amazing it is clad in brass plates about 4x8 ft. that are suspended off the building about 6 in.
The next place i went was the new Museum of Arts and Design its located on Columbus Circle its a great building with a Glazed white tile facade it is a nice museum and walking around the lower part of the park and Columbus Circle was fun.
One of my favorite things to see when I'm in the city is look at the Terra-cotta buildings I there are several i went to see but my two favorite are the Flat Iron building this is probably the most well known Terra-cotta skyscraper.
But a must see building when in NYC is the Bayard building at 65 Bleecker st. it is the designed by Henry Louis Sullivan he was a mentor to Frank Lloyd Wright and the most well know architect of the period. and surprisingly this is the only building that he designed in New York City.
If you want to know more about terra-Cotta building check out the Bible on the subject Terra-Cotta Skyline by Susan Tunick its an incredible book.