Loose Leaf Notes

This year’s Thanksgiving season began with the traditional ‘over the river and through the woods’ drive to Zephyr Farm (1 mile) where my son Josh, my husband and I had turkey with all the fixins, including my friend Jayn’s award winning mock mince meat pie that I wait for all year long.  At our gratitude circle before eating I thanked my hunter husband Joe for the two deer in our freezer and the Occupy Wall Street protestors for standing up for democracy by and for the people.  In the evening we played a game called Celebrity that involved acting out charades of a C3PEO robot walk, a Jimi Hendrix guitar solo, Ghandi in a loincloth and more.

The season of giving thanks continued the next day with warm and sunny weather and a banner turnout for the first day of the Sixteen Hands Artisan Studio Tour.  My Asheville potter son Josh is the newest member of the artisan tour collective and our house is one of the stops off the Blue Ridge Parkway.

I gave thanks for all the friends and art lovers who came out to shop local, for the warm sunny weather and the take-out lunch from Mickey G’s that Joe and I purchased while in town getting ice for Josh’s Wedge Brewery keg of IPA (which I also gave thanks for).  After unpacking the salsa and chips, hummus, grapes, olives, cheese and crackers for tour guests, we ate our lunch in the yard since we no longer had a kitchen table because our kitchen and living room had been transformed into gallery showrooms.

Josh’s guest artist Melissa’s daughter and her father and step-mother were among some of the first tour goers to arrive and I got a family shot.  Melissa had some withdrawal when she sold her first piece because it was her favorite.  It was a lidded jar with a camel handle, purchased by a local landscape artist because it reminded her of her recent trip to Egypt.

Later Melissa was asked to sign one of her ceramic candelabras with a permanent marker. While wrapping the piece, she told the story of giving Obama a vase when he was in Asheville and stopped to eat BBQ.  He said ‘Thanks. I’ll give it to my wife,’ said Melissa, who was more excited that her candelabra was a gift on its way to Panama than she was about the possibility that the first family owns one of her pots in their private collection.   “The secret Service probably threw it in the back of the president’s car and it was never seen again,” she guessed.

“Smile. I’m blogging this,” I said to my friend Cassie who was browsing through shelves of pots with her family. She (who made the decision to move to Floyd in part after reading my blog) was one of a couple of dozen of Floyd tour goers who came out.  There was a steady stream of people throughout the day, including those from the area and others, mostly in town visiting family members for Thanksgiving, from North Carolina, D.C. Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Alabama and Georgia.

At one point in the late afternoon, I was resting in my bedroom with a cup of tea (and a second piece of Jayn’s mock mincemeat pie) when I heard Joe call out, “Colleen, bring your camera.”  A little boy named Josh was inside one of our Josh’s big pots and a small crowd had gathered on the porch to take pictures.  At another point there was a little boy in a tree and a couple of girls started raking our yard. One got in the wheelbarrow.

The day wound down with a visit from some of the 16 Hands master potter apprentices and another game of Scrabble, the third in a series with two more days of the Studio Tour to go.

Those who still had energy (including 7 year old Willow) went to Dogtown to see the African Showboyz put on their show of tribal drumming, dancing and swallowing glass.

Post Notes: The tour continues throughout the Floyd countryside Saturday from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. and Sunday from 12:00 to 5 p.m.  You can check out the other Sixteen Hands artists and download a tour map HERE.  Read more about past Sixteen Hands Tours and Josh’s work as a  potter HERE.   Watch a video clip HERE.