Blessed Year

2011 has been a blessed year for Wiebe Pottery. We have made so many new friends and have put our pottery in lots of new hands. We have also learned some painful lessons, me especially.

Since quitting my job in June to do this full time, I have had to learn to manage my own time much more carefully. I had visions of making wonderful pottery, cleaning the house, baking cookies and having dinner ready for Mcki and Arne at night. It was all very June Cleaverish in my head. The reality was that many days I was covered in mud, tired from throwing and sleep deprived because I would think about new glazes, pot shapes, textures and marketing ideas instead of sleeping. So instead of a sparkling clean house, organized meals and fabulous pots, I was often just a hot mess wondering how this new business adventure had gotten away from me. I had to stop and figure out how to make everything work.

I am happy to say that while I still have my days, I am figuring things out. Wiebe Pottery was able to buy a small slab roller this year and we will end the year purchasing a clay extruder that will allow me to hand build and feed my creative side. We learned a lot about making and testing our own glazes (a place we never imagined we would be), and we learned that we will always be learning and it will never be perfect.

I am excited to start the new year as a business owner and for the new projects that Wiebe Pottery has planned. A small gallery off of the studio, a raku kiln, and some new venues to sell our beautiful pots to name a few.

And finally, I am very grateful to my husband who believed in us and our business enough to take this giant leap into the unknown. I honestly wouldn't be the person I am today without his patience, love and gentle guidance.

Happy New Year!

Hell is being a gardener in Montana

The weather has been decent here for a couple of days which means it hasn't rained and our property is not flooded. Because it has been so nice I decide I would plant some more cucumbers in my raised bed for the THIRD time. They have frozen twice now and I have woke to tiny shriveled plants that were, the night before, tasty fresh cucumber salads and fabulous pickles. As I am planting these tiny plants of hope, I realize that I am humming "Hell is for children" by Pat Benatar, only in my head it is "Hell for gardeners". Then I remember the pictures my Mom posted of her garden and the words become "Hell is for Montana gardeners". (Mom, I love your garden pictures so please don't take this to heart!)

When I moved into my boyfriend's (now my wonderful husband) house, it looked like the picture below.

There was nothing. I didn't understand why you would have that much space and not plant a single thing in six years. I understand now. It breaks your heart. All the hope and anticipation is wiped out in one night by a hard frost on the Fou

rth of July, a herd of deer or a tiny bunny that you once thought was cute but now only wish your air pump gun would shoot harder and farther.

The really sad part of this story is that no one told me that my heart would be broken. When I talked of planting beautiful flowers and tasty vegetables the locals just nodded their heads and gave me that "poor, poor girl" look. It is only recently that I realized it was the same look my husband gave me as I was buying plants at the nursery to create my garden wonderland.

I have managed to get some things to grow as the after picture below shows. But my little gardening heart is still broken in this mountain climate every year, and I still have not managed to get a single cucumber plant to grow here.

Pottery Snobs

Last night the hubs and I were part of the Archie Bray ceramic stroll. It was a blast and we met potters from all over the world. Some had some very kind words and others not so much.

I very much admire the potters who work and live at the Archie Bray. They have helped us artistically and also technically with our pottery woes. Because we are such newbies to the pottery world it isn't uncommon for us to take a piece of pottery to the Bray and ask what went wrong (thanks Josh!) or to ask about chemicals and why we can't get a color right. Most of the potters at the Bray are true artists, love their work and are humble about their own fabulous pieces. Their works are meant to be statements about society, fantasy, personal torture and other various topics important to the artist as stated in their bios. Some of the work is so beautiful that you get lost in the piece but is often too beautiful to fit into and survive my mountain life and some of the other work is, well, difficult to interpret. However, whatever the clay becomes, I always look at the work, ask questions and try to soak up as much "artistic" mojo as I can.

Because the Bray walk brought so many people from all over the word, I encountered my very first pottery snobs. Elitists in the pottery world who believe that if you do not have the correct education or have not studied under the right master your work is crap and you have no right to share it. A woman actually came into our display last night and picked up a mug that my husband worked so hard on and said "can you believe this "tourist pottery"". I was stunned and felt bad for the hubs who was very proud of his mug and actually did have some tourists asking to buy it. Correct me if I am wrong -- but people have been making mud pots for hundreds of years --functional pots that hold water and food and I am pretty sure that none of them were eating out of a sculpture of a human with a rat head holding a spear.

So there it is. Maybe I am the pottery snob. I want to hold my pottery and use it in my everyday life. And while I will never purchase the human rat sculpture, I will admire it for the artistic statement and the work that went into creating the piece. I would never walk into someone's space and dismiss the work they created and were brave enough to share with the world. Maybe it all just comes down to good manners and being polite and wondering who raised these rude people anyway!

Wishing for spring

Working in the studio today and dreaming about spring. It is fifty degrees outside -- warm enough to make me want to be out in the sunshine, but still frozen so I don't know what to do when I get out there. My thoughts also keep wandering back to the earthquake in Japan. I wonder how the people are coping, what they are thinking and I feel helpless because I can't do anything but pray that things get better. I always feel compelled to help when things like this happen -- do something for the greater good.

My daughter wants to move back in the house and for a moment, I thought maybe that was my opportunity to do something for the greater good. Then I came back to my senses and decided I needed to think on it some more.

We are glazing today. Pottery has been so good to us lately. We were commissioned to make some bowls for a ladies golf tournament and it is a big order for us. We were then contacted by a local hotel to see if we could make some pottery with the hotel logo on it. Orders continue to come in on a regular basis and we are getting ready for the summer Farmer's Market. It is so funny how this date night turned into a passion for clay and now, a small business.

I better get to glazing so my work is done and tomorrow and I can spend some time on my mountain bike!

February 2011

It is already February--wow! I am looking out the window at the snow covered mountains as I write this -- so ready for spring! I have been looking at seed catalogs and online sites planning my garden -- the more I look the more anxious I am getting. I hope to talk the hubs into going to the hardware store to check out a green house kit that a friend told me about.

We did our first show this weekend and didn't get the people out that we expected. The weather was miserable and people were just staying home. We did see some of our regular customers who added to their collection. It is so fun to talk to someone who has several of our pottery pieces and came to the show to add to their collection.

We made four vases thinking that they would be good sellers for the Valentine themed show. We filled the vases with flowers -- and much to our surprise they didn't get much attention. We sold one of the four. Just goes to show that you can never predict what people are in the mood for! We did sell a lot of wine cups -- my personal favorite that we make and we sold some jewelry bowls. It is funny that when we have the jewelry bowls displayed how everyone looks at the jewelry and I have to tell them it is just for display. I wonder if we should start making jewelry?

At the end of the day -- we had a good time, paid for our booth and had a little left over.