Slow to get started but picking up speed

When we first put the sculpture of the Madonna in the studio we thought no one would ever come in to see her. Then last weekend we were in the 24 Newspaper for the weekend, on Tuesday we were on the front page of the Edmonton journal culture section, and last night CityTV put us in the Your City segment at 6:30 and 11:00 with three promos at 8,9 and ten. Traffic has built steadily with people now coming just to see the sculpture. Reaction still runs the gamut from "Huh?" to reverence.
It has accomplished the objective though in that more people now know where we are and what we have to show and that translates into more sales. We do have some really cool stuff.
Last day of regular classes for John and Kaileigh today so they were excited. For K of course it is the last day of public school for ever. exams are next week, she has only two to write, and then she is officially finished with high school. John has his summer planned already as he is in the new band that will be playing at the Edmonton Eskimos home games this year and he wants a job plus he has a one week jazz band camp so he'll be back in school before he realizes he is out.
Pottery wise this has been a good week as people are realizing where we are and what we do. Cindy even potted for the store this week instead of just for wholesale orders so that's a good sign.
Kids from one of the High Schools (Ross Shepard) here in the city got together with the Police and painted a bunch of graffiti marked walls in our back alley. Looks good, just hope it stays that way.
Our new furnace is in and works fine...unfortunately we don't need the furnace part as much as the air conditioner and that part hasn't been installed yet......I'm betting it will be November, just in time for Christmas shopping! Lights in the store heat it up to 25 degrees or more and when we prop the front door open the street noise is so loud you can't hear....yeah i know, whine whine whine!
Anyway, the weekend is here and the weather so far is not looking to bad. Hopefully a lot of families will take dad out to buy art tomorrow or Sunday!

Fingers crossed................................later, Jim

Yes, we are open Sunday!

We decided three weeks ago to try opening Sunday afternoons and seeing if anyone walked through the door. The push for Sunday openings was made by the assistant set director for "Christmas in Wonderland" a movie currently being shot here in the city. She said it was the only day she had off and thought this was probably true of many others as well so....I'm sitting here with time to blog! Speaking of the movie though, the residential scenes were shot just ten blocks from here and we are represented in those scenes by a few dozen of our beeswax candles and a winter scene painted by Bob McLean of two horses and a haywagon in front of a snowcovered barn. Supposedly the painting was hung in the living room and the candles play a big part in one scene. We'll have to wait until November when it hits theatres to see for sure.

Speaking of Sunday and things religious....our showing of the bronze bust of the Madonna della Pieta by Michelangelo has been educational for us at least. Only a handful of people have actually come in to see it. It has been featured on the website now for close to a week, rates prominently in Google search, and yet of the 600 hits on our website only one person has looked at the page with the slide show. (thanks Mom) Yesterday we had good traffic through the store and it was interesting to see peoples reactions to the bust. They ranged from the sculptor who asked permission to touch where master sculptor had created such art from stone, to those people who were only looking for "real art" and couldn't be bothered to waste more than a passing glance. Another class in marketing 101.

We should find out in the next couple of days when we can go to Prince George to pick up our Romanian Glass shipment, work by Ion Tamaian. Another gamble. Is there a market for high end art glass in Edmonton? Stay tuned.

Phoenician glass has proved to be very popular. The amber shade and swirling, organic appearance is unlike anything anyone else is showing and is really a touch with antiquity as the process predates glass blowing and the region of the middle east where the glass is made is agreed upon by most historians to be where glass was discovered thousands of years ago.

Pottery has proved to be popular this week so our idea of bringing the studio downtown seems to be a good thing. With tourist season just around the corner we hope to be one of those destination spots we are always hearing about. I'll let you know.

IM'd with my son Torrey in Iraq yesterday. Said they had a rocket attack for a wake up. Several casualties but no U.S. among them which is a good thing. Counting the days until he is out of there.

And on that cheerful note I'll go for now.

Phase Two

For those who used to read the Potblog we are back. For those of you who are new....we are still back...for the first time! Out of the Fire Studio has been in existence since 1997 in one iteration or another, and recently we moved to this location and opened up a store front, or "gallery". we were strictly wholesale potters for a number of years and then last year we decided we were not, physically, going to be able to push another ten tons of clay through the place in a year, so...we changed our focus a bit. While we still are a working pottery, we are now much more. Not only do we sell our stoneware pottery but we have original paintings by Alberta artists, stone sculpture from Zimbabwe Africa, hand blown glass from Romania, Phoenician hand spun glass, Alberta beeswax candles (as long as we have bees!....that's another story) , and we have pottery by Junici Tanaka from Maple Ridge BC and will shortly have pottery by Lilach Lotan, a renowned ceramicist from British Columbia as well. In early July we expect to have a large glass display arrive from Romania from glassblower Ion Tamian. As an added treat we currently have a Vatican authorized casting of Michelangelo's Madonna della Pieta in bronze loaned to us by a friend. Mari Sasano who writes for the Edmonton Journal called it an"ecletic collection" and our rule of thumb is if we like it it goes in the store. We are also working on aproject with artist Richard Dixon and I'll write more about that later. For now...gotta get to work. Later.

First Blog of a New Day

So Potblog lives again. This will be a short entry as we are still testing the setup. From our new location we are doing so much more than just pottery. Right now we have a limited edition bronze casting of Michelangelo's Madonna della Pieta in the gallery and we were on the front page of a newspaper today! Now if people actually come through the door the past four days of flogging mercilessly will begin to pay off. Ah...marketing. Our next great career.