Glaze Details

Gayla Hendrix' sink

My neighbor Sandor Katz, who is an author of several books on the fascinating subject of cultural revival, hired me to make a back-splash in his new teaching kitchen. In a 150-year-old log cabin on the north side of Short Mountain, he is growing a new home for the Foundation for Fermentation Fervor. Sandor is drawing from the neighborhood stable of creative talent, and rocking out this off-the-grid, solar fueled, spring watered temple to biodiversity. I am grateful to be included in the project.

Sandy is creating a space where the biological cultures and traditions of food preservation from all over the world are cultivated, proliferated, shared, imbibed and celebrated. Here are some photos documenting my little piece of the process.

Sandy's website;
 www.wildfermentation.com


glazing day, with sample tiles in the foreground~

Load the kiln~

fire it up~

some more tiles, drying under weights~

before pictures of the space~

good lookin boss~

yay! Thanks for all your help on the install, Leopard Zeppard. The pears and rutabegas and parsnips were delicious.

Foundation for Fermentation Fervor

Ocean Series

Lots of visits to aquariums last year inspired a sea series.
Everything is food safe and fully functional. It is microwave and dishwasher safe
cone 7 electric fired stoneware. Wholesale orders are gladly filled, with a 6-8 week delivery time. Email me to discuss wholesale prices.

The Octopus Bowl has a 16 inch diameter, it retails for $120.

Large trays, 13 inch x 9 inch, retail for $72.

This small jelly fish tray is 5.5 inches x 7 inches.  It retails for $42.

~aries~

 Octopi retail for $72. 9 inches x 13.

 These bowls have a 14 inch diameter. They retail for $98.

more small sea trays, $42.

 Assorted tiles; fully functional, ready to install.

Betty's Lake house

Fall 2011

Off the Beaten Path Studio Tour, This Month!

 We are looking forward to this year's studio tour! October 28-30. Every year, the last full weekend in October, we invite everyone out to Dry Creek for an open house. We showcase our art, our craft process, and spend the weekend enjoying company and selling our work.

 This year our stop will feature the work of Rob Harvey, who is also the owner of the farm and the builder of the wood kiln.Click here to see a blog featuring Rob's kiln and Rob's work.

 Brenda Heim and Doug Hayes will join us for the first time Click here to see Doug's website. Then click here to see Brenda's work.

Of course anytime you want to see my work, check out http://www.amypotter.com/.

There are a lot of other stops on the tour as well, so Click here to check out the studio tour website.

Jenn Sherwood's powder room sink, in Dekalb County Tennessee. Greg Overby made the beautiful walnut cabinet, I made and installed the sink and backsplash.

woman reclining with batik blanket

Getting ready for my show with Mom. There is an artist's reception on August 18th.Yay!

Three ladies washing their hair, with socks on because its COLD!!!

cone 6 electric fired tiles

Making Yogurt Cheese

We were very lucky last Thursday to have a delivery of fresh, raw Jersey cow's milk delivered to our neighborhood. I had 4 gallons of it, and was looking for a way to use it. I ran across a cheesecake recipe in a magazine, and was inspired.

I had already made the yogurt, so I just needed to strain it. Looking around my kitchen for somewhere to hang my cheesecloth, I started thinking about the inevitable bugs. We are processing tomatoes/other garden produce like crazy, so there is bugs in my kitchen for sure. It is just part of summer, but not my favorite part.

So here was my solution, and another use for my fermentation crocks, producing a cheese that is just like cream cheese in consistency, but with a yogurt flavor. It worked in the cheesecake recipe just perfectly too. The whey, if used as the liquid in bread dough, makes the softest, sweetest, fluffiest bread.

This towel over the whole thing really effectively kept all bugs out of the cheese.

The yogurt is poured into the cheesecloth "hammock"

whey filters through, the curds are trapped in the cloth hammock

lid holds cheesecloth hammock in place, keeps out bugs

tucked up the cloth, it wicks the moisture and I HATE bugs...

 

Laura Hall's Mt. Juliet master bath

wood fired vessel

Considering the evolution of fine craft

At the turn of the last century, Robert Musil said,"There was a time when people grew naturally into the conditions they found waiting for them and that was a very sound way of becoming oneself. But nowadays, with all this shaking up of things, when everything is becoming detached from the soil it grew in, even where the production of soul is concerned one really ought, as it were, to replace the traditional handicrafts by the sort of intelligence that goes with the machine and the factory."

Then, a hundred years later, I am making pottery by methods that blend factory production with subsistence craft. The kids are integrated into the lifestyle of it. Home school is a way for kids to grow naturally into the conditions they find waiting for them. Growing a garden and making useful objects are central to our life. There is a lot to learn here, even after a lifetime of it the older ones say, there is something new to learn. 

In this last hundred years, culture has "modernized" in such a way that you can drive hundreds and thousands of miles on well maintained roads and see the same chains of processed food and products cropping up in disposable boxes (square buildings) that we are now calling "America." If "America" is the same everywhere you go, why go anywhere at all?

I love pockets of culture, places where independent thought prevails. I love to move in and out of these pockets of culture and trade my handicrafts for the handicrafts of others. I love to be involved in a community that is redefining a postmodern culture in an area of the country that has been all but sucked up by the homogenization of America. 

The era that I live in: postmodern, postindustrial, neo-tribal. In my thoughts and actions, my craft and my parenting, I strive to contribute to diversity. I want to create culture based on respect for nature: observation, celebration and preservation.

Another distinct characteristic of this era that I live in, "my era," is that community is built on this aforementioned culture. Community has always been built like friendships...with folks in close proximity to each other's values and geography. This criterion still holds true; but with one difference. The inter-web is now bringing into proximity people who never would have met. The tribe is boundless, networking and cultural exchange has infinite possibility. Virtual relations become very real when the common cultural bonds tie them to reality. 

Technology provides tools. Networks of people provide solutions and actions. Fine craft provides touchstones, artifacts, reminders in a virtual world that nature is continually respected, observed and preserved.

Fish Backsplash