New cups, leather hard and waiting to be bisqued and fired just in time for the 31st Annual Art Birmingham art fair, May 26 & 27, Birmingham, MI. Come to the show and visit BlackTree Studio’s booth. New, exciting, and unique work as always to be seen.

ACC Sign, River Center, St. Paul	Louise setting up the booth.	Morning Latte at Swede Hollow Cafe
The BlackTree Studio Booth At ACC	Young Ballerinas competing at the River Center above the Craft show.	Shoppers
Shoppers	A Crafter in His Booth

The BlackTree Studio road crew is becoming more and more efficient packing for a craft show, loading the truck (our Honda Element), unloading, setting up, and loading out afterward. We certainly are not seasoned pros like a few crafters we met this weekend, some who have been at ACC from the beginning more than thirty years. Yet, we feel very good for what we’ve accomplished. We are quite proud of our work being juried in and even more so for carrying through and making the number of sales we came away with. Sales were very brisk and being newbies, we were “afraid” we might even sell out. What a fate! We didn’t, but we sold much more than we had imagined we might.

Our stay close to the Mississippi River near the River Center in St. Paul was delightful. We didn’t explore quite as much as previous shows, the cause being a very wonderful IPA found at the lounge of the Crown Plaza Hotel, but we did get out for breakfast finding the Swede Hollow Cafe not far from downtown and wonderful walleye dinners at The Tavern located on Grand. Black Sheep Pizza came highly recommended by a fellow crafter and we ate there our last evening out. Coal fired ovens made the pizza a treat.

The crafters we met at ACC were a delight to talk to. We learned so much from everyone. The staff was exceptional and the show totally organized. We certainly want to be back and look forward to doing it again.

Catapult

Thus

Catapulted

Dateline Friday the 13th, an unusual day. Not only did I fire the Joyce Kiln, but co-workers and friends of Louise’s came by in the afternoon with their homemade catapult and lobbed fruit, toys, and ribbons from our driveway into our garden and backyard.

Very cool!

BlackTree Studio has just learned that we have been accepted into the 57th Street Art Fair in Hyde Park, Chicago. It is a great venue, and we are very excited about showing our pottery there.

It is shaping up to be a very busy summer for us and we are so psyched about the shows we are in.

Below is a listing of the BlackTree Studio schedule.

Friday the 13th. Good day for a firing.

Friday the 13th, and a beautiful Spring morning for the fifth firing of the Joyce kiln. New work cooking for inclusion in the American Craft Council Show in St. Paul.

Garlic Mustard, scourge of the woods

I must have pulled a gazillion, maybe two gazillion garlic mustard plants up by their roots in the woods this afternoon. My fingernails are cracked and dirty, my fingers stained green, and I impaled my arm on a pine branch. Yes, I’m bloodied and bruised, but it’s worth it.

Louise and I have been home from Indiana Artisan Marketplace since Monday, but today is the first real chance I’ve taken to write about our experiences, which were very good for the entire weekend. load in and load out were effortless and set-up even with the new booth configuration and more lighting went smoothly. We made new contacts during wholesale afternoon and a couple of more Saturday and Sunday, plus a re-commitment from a new gallery. Saturday’s sales were excellent, not only for smaller less expensive items, but for larger expensive pieces too. Sunday, sales were very slow but we still managed selling some nice pieces.

While in Indianapolis we stayed at the IndyHostle which was inexpensive and located in a working class neighborhood which we much enjoyed. The neighborhood reminded us our old neighborhood, Bucktown in Chicago when we first lived there shortly after gentrification started but was not out of control. Renovations were beginning in this area and the small cottages and homes were very quaint and inviting. I mentioned to Louise that if I were moving to Indianaplis, this would be a neighborhood I would like.

Lucky for us and as ususual we found several restaurants we liked. For supper we enjoyed Sobro, named after that part of town, South Broad Ripple. Breakfast was an even better find, Mama’s Kitchen located at Winthrop and 54th. Retro sixties decor, but excellent food and a very nice waitress who told us she was off to the Peace Corps in a couple of weeks. Some place called Uhzbekestan, or Turkestan?

The drive home was effortless, and the following morning we set the booth up again and decided on new configurations for the American Craft Council show. We assumed the booth set-up for Indianapolis would be final for this year, but saw a few shortcomings in the design and are now implimenting changes. Hopefully, this will be it for the remainder of the year.