Volunteering with the Guild

True story. Volunteering with the Guild made me a better artist. Me, being Sarah Shore, your webmaster, blog master and trying to be your PR chair. Some 20 years ago I moved to San Antonio from the north country (Iowa to be exact). My only experience with clay came from a few semesters of college course at my small college. I was a painter and was quickly getting bored with it. After years of teaching clay to my students I realized I really enjoyed the process. What did I do next? Join the Potters Guild. Through the Guild I met so many excellent artists. By volunteering in various ways I got to know them better. Talking shop kept my brain buzzing with ideas. The beauty of clay is that you never really stop learning. There is always another technique to tackle, new teachers to take classes from. Volunteering for the first time is like starting school in the middle of the school year. You are the new "kid" and finding how you fit in may take awhile. Start out with what you are good at. There is a list of committees on the website. Our next two big events are the Juried Exhibition and Empty Bowls. My first volunteering job was with Empty Bowls.
 Committees

What is RSS Feed

"RSS (Rich Site Summary) is a format for delivering regularly changing web content. Many news-related sites, weblogs and other online publishers syndicate their content as an RSS Feed to whoever wants it." http://www.whatisrss.com/

By registering adding your email address, you can receive updates for this blog. I currently have my gmail account and this blog registered for rss feed. Many sites have a feed set up. You can decide how you receive it. I have them up on the bookmark toolbar.

San Antonio Clay Festival and Sale

The Clay Festival was a big success. The day started out cool and muggy.  Early morning set up was very well organized and everyone was set up once the Farmers Market was open. The day progressed into a bright warm day. The traffic from the Farmers Market continued in a steady flow all morning.  All the hard work from the exhibition committee paid off. There were volunteers during the set up and throughout the day.  Participants have nothing but praise.

Cecilia Castro-Hancock  “I just wish to thank everyone that was involved in the organization and detail preparation for the Clay Festival. I think that everything went very smooth and was well organized. The collective collaboration, camaraderie, and in general the friendly faces was a plus. Sara you organize all the event WONFERFUL!!!!! Thank you”

Jill Wilson “Sara and Wesley,  Many thanks for your efforts getting us in and out of the Pearl parking lot.  That could have been a nightmare situation, but it was beautifully organized.  I heard lots of favorable remarks from friends who came to the new location.  They all seemed to think the move was a great idea.  They also commented about the quality of work from all the artists. I bet you have far more applicants than spaces next year.”

Pam Amaduri  “Absolutely, Sara, you did a phenomenal job!  Everything was smooth as can be.  Thank-you.  Thanks as well to Sara and everyone who helped pull it together”

 Patricia Scrivano “You did a terrific job organizing the sale. Pearl Brewery is the perfect venue. We had a lot of traffic, and the Pearl is a pleasant area. Thank you so much for all you did to make the sale a success.”

Taaffe Caton “It was amazing and so well organized!  Thanks to all of you who made this a great sale.”

The Exhibitions Committee wants to remind everyone to fill out the sale survey. The survey will be used to help improve the next sale.

Interview with Lucy Springs

Where did you grow up? If from here….have you lived in other cities? I grew up in Laredo, Texas.  

What brought you to SA? My job with Southwestern Bell Telephone Co., brought me to San Antonio after the traffic department shut down in Laredo. I was given a choice of moving to Corpus Christi or San Antonio, and here I am.

How did you discover ceramics? I actually discovered ceramics in the 6th grade. We handbuilt a small bowl that our teacher fired for us. I applied a green glaze to it and I thought that was the coolest thing. I gave it to my mother for mother’s day and she still has that bowl today.

What kind of jobs have you had? Ok, are you ready for this? I worked for Southwestern Bell for 25 years, beginning in 1975 and took early retirement in 2000. I was hired on with TXU Communications in 2001 and helped set up their new offices in San Antonio, but it was short-lived, they shut their doors a year later. I then went to work for Southwest Integrators as a Call Center Supervisor. I only lasted there 3 months. It was a commission only job and I wasn’t used to having commission only pay! I left that job to work at Texana Machinery, a construction equipment company. I was hired as an administrative assistant and was promoted after one year to finance manager. The slow economy took me to Holt Cat as a Business Operations Asst. in their Used Parts Division and again, it was so slow I was bored. Lucky for me a friend called and asked if I would like to help her straighten out some operations issues she was having at Dayspring International working for a Doctor of homeopathy so I did.  I left there in Oct. of 2010 and am currently enjoying unemployment . We shall see what 2012 will bring in the way of employment. I am not cut out to stay at home for too long.

How would you describe your voice? Your style. I would say that I am a pretty laid back person. Strong in personality when I need to be, otherwise I go with the flow, enjoy observing people and learning from those around me. In my opinion, my style is a bit eccentric, not conforming to the status quo, but at the same time following a balanced approach.

If you could come back as animal, which would it be? Why. I would come back as a zebra or a giraffe. They are both beautiful, sleek looking, graceful and mysterious.

What kind of future do you see for the Potters Guild? I would really like to see some of the seasoned potters collaborate more with the younger ceramists and shake things up a bit. Maybe have more demonstrations for the membership both from our own experienced potters and some visiting potters. We have such a wealth of experience within our own ranks, I would really like for us to explore that more so we can all learn the different styles and approaches to this medium we love so much.

If you could travel anywhere, where would it be? Europe for sure. I was in Zurich a couple of years ago with my sisters and just loved the scenery, walking everywhere, take the tram or train wherever we went. People walk much more than here in the states to get around. Everything seemed much cleaner and the air seemed much more pure. I could see myself living there.

If you could travel to a different century, which one and where? It would have to be the 16th century in Puebla, MX. The introduction of Talavera, the clays they had access to and the entire Majolica process is so interesting to me. I would love to have had access to this in such a simple environment.

In what ways do you stretch yourself to make your work grow? I really have to be in the mood to stretch myself. Lately, I have been researching alot of ceramist’s work and then attempting to throw similar vessels, but with my own flare. I have also begun to explore glazes a bit more. I took John Britt’s class at Castroville Pottery this past summer and he opened up a whole new world for me. Although, I still find it a bit of a challenge, I know the only way to learn the process is to delve into it and do alot of test tiles, which I will do in my own time.

What are your goals as an artist? My goals as an artist are to keep practicing my forms and continue to explore the alternative methods of firing which I love, like aluminum foil saggar. I have some ideas that I want to explore in 2012, so stay tuned, ok?

Updated Website

The Guild's website has been updated. It is applying new forms of web navigation within the site. There are panels of information views can click and expand. The website hasn't been given an new look for awhile. Hopefully it will be easy to update. I'm hoping the Guild will find it useful.

The newsletter is dead! Long live the blog!

For many years now San Antonio Potters Guild has produced a newsletter for their guild members. This was a wonderful way to share the news of our members. It promoted workshops, feature local artists, and keep us up to date. In the beginning this was mailed to everyone. We moved to a digital format some years ago. Technology has made it possible to share our guild with more efficient way. This blog will replace the 6 monthly newsletter.

The benefits of having a blog instead of a newsletter is limitless. The blog can provide instant updated information on events and happenings. New postings can be updated daily or weekly. Members will be able post comments on stories or add to information as needed.

At present I, Sarah Shore, will be writing the content of the blog, but soon featured bloggers could contribute to this blog. I would like to have featured stories of guild members, video demonstrations, workshop profiles, and many more.  It of course is a team effort and I hope to gain team members willing to post stories throughout the month.