Friday, July 30, 2010

for the love of studio potter...

i fell in love with studio potter when john and i first started seeing each other.  he had what seemed like a gazillion issues and was only missing a few from it's inception.  before he went back to potting full time he had a day job that meant leaving for work at 6:00 am... if i was staying at his place mid-week, i would roll out of bed and sit in his sunny kitchen with coffee, toast and peanut butter... devouring old issues of studio potter.  i loved reading gerry williams' stories of potters from around the country.
today i unpacked a box that had an assortment of john's books in it.  books that had been in storage in maryland and had ended up at bill van gilders.  bill returned the box to john a few years ago and the only thing we took out of it was bernard leach's "a potters book" and put the rest of the box in a closet.  inside the box when i opened it was a studio potter that i had not read!  it was the june issue from 1985... the potters that were featured were from the blue ridge mountains... one of the potters in the story is bruce gholson who is also a seagrove potter now. how timely that i unpacked it now!  on the cover is actor joe spano whose wife was (or is) a potter.

a subscription envelope was still inside the magazine... $12.95 for one year in 1985... a 2010 subscription (now called a membership) is $70!

3 comments:

  1. I know. 70 bucks for 2 issues! I met Gerry Williams a few times and loved him and his wife, I bet Jeffy knows him well. Here are 2 important points:
    a) you can buy back issues of studio potter more cheaply than subscriptions and b) us potting bloggers are the evolutionary children of studio potter---bringing folks into our lives and work :)

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  2. gerry came to the june potters guild meeting at al jaeger's in deerfield - i think it was the 2nd time i had met him... his wife passed away about year or so ago.
    i had to let my subscription go, i just couldn't afford it anymore and i have to say since jerry retired as editor it just isn't the same. it's still an good publication, just different.
    i had all jz's back issues packed in plastic totes and was going to give them away.... i didn't have the heart to so i moved them all here in NC!
    and yes... blogging has brought the clay world closer together

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  3. Yes, Gerry and Julie are awesome people Julie was very warm and went out of her way to make everyone feel special.
    Gerry started Studio Potter with Peter Sabin as an expansion of the NH Potters Guild news letter, I am told.

    It was good to see Gerry at the first wood kiln opening in it's new home at Al's. We have Gerry to thank for keeping the guild alive through the 70's and 80's.

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