For the second consecutive year some very fine local potters, Steve and Bonnie Barisof ,  have organized this event to benefit schools in Pakistan and Afghanistan. All proceeds go to the Central Asia Institute created by Greg Mortenson, author of Three Cups of Tea and Stones into Schools.

In the words of Steve and Bonnie:  If you haven’t heard of him or the books, you have been missing some really wonderful and uplifting reading.  It is about an attempt to climb K2, the 2nd highest mountain after Everest, how things went wrong for a climber on his team, how they had to quickly descend, and his getting lost. He somehow came to a very remote Pakistani village, was given food and shelter, and after he recovered asked what he could do to repay them.  They asked for a school for their children!  The rest of the story is about how he managed against great odds to actually do it.  Today, about 17 years later they have helped to build 130 schools in Northern Pakistan and Afghanistan, and they are all safe!  Why?  How come?  Read the book, all of our foreign policies could take a chapter out of his books.

More information on the February 11 event can be found in this  on the 3 Cups of Tea website .

This weekend’s activity is partially responsible for my not posting for awhile. In addition to working diligently in my studio, I’ve been getting ready for this year’s Relay for Life in Campbell, CA. My husband and I participate  annually in this event sponsored by the American Cancer Society.  Although my donation web page doesn’t show it, combined with the off-line donations I have received, I am very close to making my goal.  This is a team event and we will be walking the track for 24 hours to show our support of our friends and relatives who are battling cancer and to remember those who have lost the fight. No better way to say it than this year’s ACS Relay motto: Celebrate. Remember. Fight Back.  If you would like to support us you can do so at either our team page or my personal page. Here are some pics from previous years:

Two wheels occupy most of the space inside.

View of the studio from the outside.

The  rest of my studio is spread out – bisque kiln in the garage, glazing area, glazes and glaze kiln at the home/studio of another potter, and my “showroom” is in a spare bedroom which is also used to house our exercise equipment.

Which brings me to tomorrow’s dream – a bit more space in the wheel area would be nice, but a more important need would be to have a small showroom for displaying and storing finished work and a glaze /firing area that would house an electric kiln for bisque and a gas/propane kiln for the glaze firing. And a ware cart (or two) to transport pottery from one area to another. Some of the newer lightweight kiln shelves would make it all just about perfect!

In the meantime, I’ll just appreciate what I have!

That evening, I visited the Clayart room at the Wyndham where there was an exhibit from the permanent collection of AMOCA – American Museum of Ceramic Art. As a lover of teapots, I took some pictures of these beauties:

You can also include something current like an exhibition you are in or something about a new work you just finished. Like when I made these tumblers as a special order, I could add “I just made some terrific tumblers as a special order that were so comfortable to hold, I’m just had to make some more”.

I made tumblers like these as a special order. It's a new shape for me.

I’m still working on my 10 second introduction. We were asked to create one for the Hollister workshop and since that time, I have formed an Art Marketing Salon with 4 other artists whom I met at the workshop. Our first meeting focused on critiquing our 10 second introductions. Not surprisingly, we all still needed to work on them a bit more — either the words or the delivery. So we determined that we would continue to work on them and start each of our meetings by delivering them.

And now you ask – What is an Art Marketing Salon? How do you form one? What does it cost? You can read about what it is and how to from one at www.artbizconnection.com . It only costs you your time as you need to make the commitment to fully participating. And at the end, you and your fellow salon members will have a complete art marketing plan. You provide the committed group and Alyson provides the material at no monetary cost.

Our art salon met for the first time last week. Ours is a small group – five members – two ceramic artist, two watercolor artists and an artist who specializes in woven art. They are all wonderful artists and I look forward to meeting with them again this week. At some point, I will post about each of them so you can see the wonderful artwork that they are currently producing.

One interesting thing came out of our last session. As we were rattling off our 10 second intros, Mark (our host’s husband) who had been listening to us, brought a timer into the room, saying that 10 seconds was longer than we thought! And it is an evolving entity. Alyson says it took her two years to come up with her intro and it still changes a bit as time goes on.