Today my husband and I drove up to Asheville to set up my space at the new Kress Emporium II.  It is located at 27 Patton Ave. 2 doors down from the the original Kress.  The store is smaller and the spaces are small but it has a great mix of artists.  I just love downtown Asheville, it's so artsy and fun.  

After we finished setup, I took my husband out to lunch for his birthday.  He's such a trooper for spending the whole weekend at my job. (The CCM Pottery Festival was Saturday)  

Last Saturday I had a booth at the CCM Pottery Festival.  It was a beautiful day with many joyous shoppers.

A few weeks ago I had the pleasure of teaching three 5th grade art classes at Smithfield Elementary on how to make a hanging wall vase.   Each student had their own style with some very minimal texturing of the slabs and others went all out and stamped like crazy.  I was amazed by some of the students that had an obvious artistic talent.  I few days ago I received photos of the finished product.  I hope the students enjoyed the day as much as I did.

The teacher Sarah Lindberg has my total respect as I watched her teach three first grade classes while I rolled out slabs each day, then she helped me with the 5th grade classes.  

Last week I glazed pieces for three galleries.  In addition I made a few pieces for my show stock.  These three vases along with many other nice pieces will be taken to the Carolina Clay Matters Pottery Festival on May 14th.   

Today I started an order from a new gallery on Ocracoke Island.  At the end of  May the Village Craftsmen will start to carry my pottery.   They have ordered a great selection of my pieces.  In a few weeks I will be glazing orders for 3 galleries.  I am glad to be busy.

Next week I will be teaching a local fifth grade art class.   I will be there 4 days for 4 different classes.  So, in 50 minutes each class I have to teach a slab project on making a hanging wall vase.  I will go in early to roll out slabs for the students.  This was set up through our local pottery guild (Carolina Clay Matters)  as a way of helping out local schools to teach clay to their students.  What I found interesting is that every school in our district has a kiln and some don't even get used because the art teachers may not even know how to fire the kiln.  Check back in a few weeks to hear about my experience.

Also, only one week left to receive FREE SHIPPING by using the coupon code (newwebsite) at checkout.  expires 4/15/16

Over the weekend I received another order from The Mind Gift Shop.  They must really sell the egg separators well because they keep ordering them.  So even though I have quite a few on hand, I went ahead and made some more.

Today I am not having artistic feelings so decided to take the day off from making anything new.  I should make some long fruit bowls tomorrow so that I have them for the CCM show in May.

Today I was out in the studio again and made a few pitchers. The video above gives you a bit of an idea of my process.  Today I also listed one of these pitchers in my store.

Tomorrow I will be making vases.  I always have a bit of fun with vases.  Each one is unique.  Perhaps there will be pictures on Facebook tomorrow.

You can see my blog archives from 2009-2015 you can check them out here.

I am really excited to get my new website finished.  This year I decided that I am going to try out having a shopping cart directly off my website.  For a little while I will keep a cart on Etsy as well but I am curious to see if anyone is keeping up with me on my  website.  

This week I am back in the studio.  My studio can get really cold in the winter so this year I decided that I would just stay warm as long as I was able.  Well, this week it's in the 70's here so I no longer have any excuses to not be working.  The photo above shows what I did a few days ago.  I had to start with throwing because I needed slip for any handbuilding projects.  I recorded a video and posted it to Facebook and Instagram. 

This year I decided to do very few shows.  Most likely I will only do our local guild show in May and October.  I started selling to gift shops and galleries a few years ago and I was fairly busy last year filling orders for them.  Of course I also love to sell directly to customers via my website.  It's so fun to send off pots all over the country.

I would love to hear what you think about the website and if there is anything missing or could be better done.  Or compliments.  :)