Here’s something completely different….. dinnerware that is 100% humor free! We just rolled out a kiln load with this really wonderful set of these ohata khaki glazed dishes for our own use at home. I really love this iron saturated glaze and it makes me want to make more of these simple pots. If anyone out there reading this is looking for a new set of dinnerware, send me an email and we can talk prices.
Last week was a good one for my daughter, Robin. It started when her riot grrrl band, “Lust Cats of The Gutters” received an impressive write up in famed rock critic Everett True’s blog. A few days later the Denver Post Reverb music blog featured their song, “Nothing Cool Happens on Dates” in the “steal this track” feature. Then a few days later their debut CD (it’s really just a demo they recorded a while back in our basement) got a positive review in Denver’s “Westword” newspaper. How cool is all this?!!!! And to top it all off, she turned twenty-one on Friday!
Posted 4 months, 1 week ago at 10:32 pm. 1 comment
Yes, I am using this adorable baby to shamelessly sell pots. The customer who sent me the photo gave me permission to use it under the stipulation that I “don’t turn it into one of those creepy animated baby commercials”. No problem. I’m barely competent at Photoshop software so I assure you this is as far as it goes.
The above plate is a great example of how a good input can lead to a lovely gift item. All the words were written by the customer and my job was to simply put her idea on the plate. At first it seemed like a tall order, but the dinner plate size lends itself well to ambitious designs and this one was surprisingly easy to implement once I got working on it. The only thing I need to stress to those of you who want me to do things like this is that you need to think of the idea because my brain kind of locks up when I’m asked to “do something funny about golf”, or whatever.
I love this new mug because of the “hook” at the bottom right. I would bet that we’re going to get customers at fine craft galleries asking the salespeople, “Do you have one of these without the bloody severed head?”
And my new Wally adventure was inspired in part by the fact that I’m training for my first ultra marathon. On May 1st I’ll be doing a 50K (31 mile) trail race in Larkspur, CO. The week before last I put in an epic 90 miles in seven days and this design came into my head during one of my long runs. I love the subtext of the joke which is, “If I were to just eat, think and exercise correctly, amazing things would happen to me.” This joke is available in mugs, plate and bowls at my online store.
Posted 4 months, 3 weeks ago at 6:32 am. 1 comment
Halloween is for exhibitionists and St. Patrick’s Day is for drunks, but my favorite second string holiday is April Fool’s Day because it celebrates my profession: humor. I love the fact that nobody even knows the origin of this holiday which was first recorded in Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales in 1392. In honor of this day, I have painstakingly added a bunch of weird odds and ends items to my online store. The above piece was a collaboration with my former assistant John Lacey, and it was exhibited in the 2002 Colorado Men in Clay show. The thumbnails below are just some of the pots that are available on this hallowed idiot’s holiday. It is important to note that if you don’t see them in the online store, it means that they were snapped up by an earlier shopper. Better luck next year!
One of my favorite April Fool’s Day memories is that of a prank that Lori and I pulled on our daughter Monica when she was in the first grade. We have a family tradition of pulling practical jokes on our kids on April Fool’s Day, and they generally (but not always) have gone well. This one could have gone bad, but Monica’s keen sense of mischief saved the day. The joke was simple: we put a note in her lunch that said: “This coupon is good for one FREE PUPPY! Simply take it to the principal’s office and give it to him and he will give you a puppy!” Yes, it’s a knockoff of that great joke about the “free horsie” coupon in Shel Silverstein’s, Uncle Shelby’s ABZs. Monica handled this prank wonderfully well. First she showed it to her teacher who laughed a lot and told her to go to the principal’s office. The principal was, of course dumbfounded and couldn’t produce a puppy. Monica’s memory of this event is that she wasn’t traumatized, and I think she “got” the joke. The fact that she loves pulling pranks nowadays is a testament to the fact that this wasn’t a case of child abuse. Either way, the statute of limitations is long gone because Monica is now in a freshman in college and doing quite well. I wonder how her roommates are doing today?
Posted 5 months ago at 8:51 am. Add a comment
I received a phone call last January from Valerie Howell, the owner of The Evergreen Gallery. She was looking for an artist to paint an egg for an upcoming fundraiser for the Evergreen Downtown Business Association’s 3rd Annual Egg Painting Contest. I agreed to do it, and the next day I went skiing and came up with the idea for my egg: “Wally and the Easter Bunny ponder the transient nature of reality”. I made an extra one just in case something went wrong, and it is for sale for $80.00 in my online store. The Wally egg will be on display along with twenty other works of egg art by local artists at the Evergreen National Bank in downtown Evergreen during the month of April. There is a contest for the best of show, and I’m hoping that Wally makes it on the podium. More on this story as it develops.
The Evergreen Gallery has been carrying my work for over fifteen years now, and it always has an excellent selection of my pots on hand due to the fact that my pieces are on consignment and it’s easy for me to drop by and give them my latest designs. Valerie Howell and former owner Meryl Sabeff both have an excellent eye for art and craft and the selection of artists is outstanding. It’s well worth the drive up to Evergreen to see what they have on hand. For those of you reading this from outside of Colorado, the best way to visualize Evergreen is to think of the TV show, “South Park”. Co-creator Trey Parker grew up in nearby Conifer and the small town in the show is an homage to our fine mountain community… really!
Posted 5 months, 1 week ago at 3:00 pm. Add a comment
Two of the top selling themes in my line of pottery are coffee and drugs. “Holy Shit! That’s good coffee!” was one of the very first jokes I ever put on a mug and it’s still selling really well. So it is with great pleasure that I debut one of the best cartoons ever on the topic of mind altering stuff: the “Tell me about your drugs” mug. The words come from one of my favorite songs by Robyn Hitchcock and the Egyptians, and I think this is one of my finest “collage of images” designs. What I really like about this one is that it makes you think about the good and bad aspects of drug use. Some drugs are wonderful: music and art have the ability to take our minds away and return us to the real world in better shape than before. But drugs, gambling and alcohol are clearly on the other end of the spectrum. I’m thinking about marketing this item to the psychiatric community as it could be the perfect gift for the people who deal with these issues on a day to day basis.
And my new Wally design is pretty darn timely. The bizarre mystery about what is causing random Toyotas to speed up and apparently attempt to kill their owners reminded me of the dialog between astronaut Dave and Hal the computer in “2001: A Space Odyssey”. Until they find out what is actually causing this phenomenon, my explanation is as good as any…
Posted 5 months, 2 weeks ago at 10:10 am. Add a comment
This week we’re decorating pots like mad and next week I’ll debut a new line of mugs. While I really like my standard cylinder mug because the shape lends itself well to my cartoons, I’ve always wanted to produce more engaging shapes. So last week I threw a dozen or so new prototypes for the new designs. The pressed letters in these mugs will accentuate the themes of the pots, and I’ll leave it a mystery for now as to what these vessels will have to say when the kiln is unloaded next Tuesday. Stay tuned!
Posted 6 months, 3 weeks ago at 11:52 am. Add a comment
Sticks is more than a couple of great galleries in Des Moines. It’s more than a team of over one hundred artisans producing spectacular furniture and objects decorated with heartfelt imagery. It’s a force of nature. For those of us who make a living in the fine craft world, Sticks is the pinnacle of what a fine craft business can be. Started in 1992 by Sarah Grant, the company derives its name from the found wood it uses to create its objects. From it’s simple beginnings as a candlestick and holiday ornament line, Sticks has risen to the level of design team nonpareil as evidenced by the installation pictured above. “The Furniture City Sets the Table for the World of Art” was collaboration with Sticks and Stephen Fry, president of The Concept Design Group. It sits atop the Blue Bridge in Grand Rapids, Michigan and took 8th place in the 2009 ArtPrize competition. Who says crafts have to be humble?
Sticks has been carrying my work for over eight years now and they are a steady, dependable account. Wally’s finest hour with Sticks came in January of 2004 when they had me come up with a couple of custom Wally adventures for the Iowa Caucus. We shipped out just two dozen pieces, and we should have made more. Sticks is located across the street from the state capitol and the response to these pieces was amazing. They sold out very quickly. The media folk liked the MTV joke, and the Greenpeace design was presented in public by Sticks to the Governor of Iowa. It’s a real honor to have Sticks carry my work all these years. And if Stephen Fry and his design group ever need another concept for a bridge or something, Wally is available!
Posted 7 months, 2 weeks ago at 6:55 am. Add a comment
I have two distinctly different bits of news from the running world to share today. The first is on the lighter side and was in fact published this month in the section of Colorado Runner Magazine called “The Lighter Side”. Last summer they ran a contest where readers were asked to send in their funniest running stories. I had a good one so I wrote it up and sent it off. Lo and behold, it took first place and I won a free entry to The Rock ‘N Roll Marathon in Tempe. I ended up selling my entry to the race, but it was fun to see the story in print. My memorial beat out stories about getting shoes stuck in mud, using a maxi-pad as a shoe insert and a bout of uncontrollable diaherria at a track meet. (EEEEEW!) So I think the best tale won. You be the judge:
“I was a junior at UC Santa Barbara it was the first week of organized workouts for the intercollegiate cross country team. We were taking a couple of the new members on a run that finishes up on the beach. As we descended a trail that leads to the beach, we practically ran into a couple making love in the sand on the beach. We all breezed passed them silently and the new guys were totally floored, to say the least. Later, we made a lot of jokes about ‘the natural flora and fauna at UCSB’.”
My other sports news is about the passing of Coach Sam Adams. He died last Monday at the age of 78. I was fortunate to have been coached by “The Rock” during my four years at UCSB, and he was a great guy to know. He was quiet, gentle and humorous. His forte was the decathlon. In the late 70s I was there to see him coach star pentathlete Jane Frederick, who was America’s best throughout the late 70s and early 80s. The film, “Personal Best” was based on her life, and it’s like a time machine for me to watch as a lot of the track scenes have Jane and other athletes I knew from that era. Sam, you will be missed!
Posted 7 months, 2 weeks ago at 2:52 pm. Add a comment
