The ongoing pain of the studio move

Morning coffee on the patio is done for the year.

Colder weather has finally arrived in Seagrove. Jeff and I were able to move our gallery indoors in the nick of time. There is still a lot of work to do, but at least our sales space is out of the elements. Our necks, backs, and hands are so very sore from scraping ceiling paint. The icing on the cake came yesterday when I stumbled off of the driveway and fell on my hands and knees. This is what happens when I walk, wearing clogs, trying to zip my fleece vest, all at the same time! Today I can add knee pain to my list of complaints. Getting older sucks.

Thankfully we have a reprieve from moving our kiln until we fire again in the next week or so. I don't think our bodies could have done it this week, which was the original plan. We are quite stressed out being kiln-less during this holiday season. Typically we would be making work and firing up until the last minute. The timing of things just didn't work out for us. The wonderful thing about this community is that we have had many offers to fire gas kilns at other potteries. We just might have to take them up on it.

The Celebration of Seagrove Potters show was down for us this year... we had lots of small sales, the big stuff didn't sell. Fingers are crossed that we can make up for it in our own gallery. We need some good sales to get through the winter. Luckily, winter isn't as long here as it is in New Hampshire.
I have to keep looking on the bright side!

Progress

Anyone who visited us at the log cabin studio,  knows how jammed packed our small space was. It's now empty, and last Wednesday we did a final cleaning!

 It was a huge relief to get it done. All that's left to move is the kiln. We will fire it once more before the Celebration of Seagrove Potters show and then start deconstruction. It's a small kiln so it should go quickly.

The rest of our days and evenings have been spent scraping paint and priming walls in our new space. The ceiling is painted plywood. Power washing removed a lot of peeling paint but there was still quite a bit of scraping to do. After scraping, we washed it with TSP and water. 

Last night Jeff started to texture the ceiling with a mixture of paint and joint compound. It will help to hide roughness of the plywood. He experimented with a few textures before deciding on what looks and works the best. Such a messy job! He was covered in paint and joint compound by the end of the night. His time spent as a drywall hanger, in his youth, has served us well.

It's exciting to see our new space come together. Progress this week should be very big...
stay tuned for updates!

Team Lift

Workday breakfast omelette - green onion and Chinese chive

John Zentner plate - antique tile

Today is the final push of the studio move. Aside from the gas kiln we should have everything packed and moved by tonight. Yesterday we moved the large raku kiln, with the help of a neighbor, and our landscape guy. It's a giant, one piece, electric kiln that Jeff converted to gas. It's a bear to move because it doesn't come apart in rings, like most electric kilns. We finally feel like we are seeing the light at the end of the tunnel!
The town of Seagrove approved our sign at 505 and tomorrow it's going up. Our gallery isn't finished but we will be open for business this weekend. Since we had to dry our tent out from the rainy show last weekend, I decided to set up the booth and use it as our sales venue for the next two weekends. We can't afford to not be open for another couple of weeks... I can't survive on Etsy alone. At least not yet.

Onward...

Jeff and I are done making pots at the log cabin. We will fire the gas kiln once more before the end of the month. This weekend I started to pack the studio. I am taking time to wash my tools and tool containers. It will be good to get a clean start in the new space.

When I left my studio in New Hampshire it was very emotional. Yes it was exciting to start a new life in a new state, but I was leaving so much behind. I don't have an emotional attachment to this studio. I am happy to have had the opportunity to work here, it has been a great place to get established in Seagrove... but it's definitely time to move on to our own space.
...and to make it our own..

Boxing it up

 While packing, I came across John's sketch books from his days at Alfred College of Ceramics...

His first year at Alfred was the fall of 1969.

I am really trying to lighten up on all the "stuff" I own. I considered tossing them.

But I boxed them up instead.

Sometimes it's hard to let go.