I have one more big announcement for 2021. Some of my work has been purchased by the Smithsonian Anacostia Community Museum for their permanent collection. This is for a research project titled "Asian-American Foodways in the DC Area." The project focuses on Korean, Vietnamese, and Chinese food cultures in and around Washington DC. The museum is collecting artifacts, documents, and histories from local restaurants, home cooks, and producers of foodwares such as myself. 

My work was sought due to the strong influence of my Korean heritage in my foodware designs. And that I tend to adapt traditional forms to make them accessible for use on western tables. Being a lifelong resident of this area also plays a big role in my design choices.  

The items they purchased include an Ahjoshi Hanbok canister, which is an abstracted anthropomorphic representation of a Korean gentleman's traditional garment. Plus a stack of kimchi dishes with a modern hexagonal design, a bowl that incorporates chopstick rests on its rim, and two serving platters that are love notes to my home state of Maryland. 

These pieces will be catalogued and made available for researchers (and anyone else who is interested) to access online, within the next year. Along with an audio recording of me being interviewed about my work history. 

This acquisition has been in the works since last spring. It has been an exciting process and I feel incredibly honored. 

This was my first time holding a sale in my backyard. Being outdoors did have some advantages. Namely, I had so much more space! In the first couple of hours of the show, the crowd is really big and the basement can get really packed and feel claustrophobic. The backyard did not have that problem. In fact, I thought the layout and flow outside was a big improvement. Another advantage is that I did not need to deep clean my studio in advance, which usually takes four days. This means I had more time to make pots.

This year in particular, those extra days made all the difference. I ended up doing four shows this fall in addition to this Backyard Sale, which is one or two more shows than I should have done. Covid uncertainty made scheduling very difficult. So I was cranking at full-speed since mid-August just to have an adequate amount of inventory. I finished every show with a single digit number of pots, which means I really did not have enough. Even though I barely took any days off in months. And for the last two events (PMA Craft Show and the Backyard Sale) I was making extra pots with each cycle, often working until 8 or 9pm. 

Next year, I will try to plan my schedule better. Although Covid might still make that hard. 

Here’s the bad part about doing an outdoor event in December: the weather really isn’t reliable enough at this time of year. It doesn’t help that local meteorologists tend to exaggerate all the time, which means it’s hard to know when to take them seriously or not. The forecast changed every day for a week leading up to the sale. Luckily on Saturday, the temperatures were quite warm, and the rain held off until it got dark. 

This is when things turned ugly. The same storm system that caused massive tornadoes in the middle of the country arrived on the east coast. I was pretty tired from having gotten up at 5am, and had planned on going to bed early. When the winds began howling I decided to stay up as late as possible, just to keep an eye on my canopy. I only had a small inventory left, and it was all being stored under the canopy. This is one of those times when I am pretty sure I have a guardian angel, who told me to stay up late, and had me walk over to the back door in the kitchen to check on the canopy, and witness as a crazy gust of wind caused the canopy to slide over by a few feet, then start to collapse. Therefore I was able to intervene right away. 

When I got outside, the tent was sort-of on its side and no longer in the shape of a cube. At first, I tried to stand it upright, and that’s when I realized that one of its legs had snapped into two pieces. 
​ 

Here’s my display for the second day, minus the broken canopy and the five broken pots. The weather was much calmer, but cold! Things went very smoothly from here on, good sales during the day, and an easy clean up at the end, given that most of the gear was already put away. 

This doesn’t mean I will refuse to do this outdoors again. I definitely prefer to do it indoors, but if Covid is still an issue next December, I will do it outdoors again, just with different strategies in place. 

On Monday, I called Creative Energies, the company that makes the Light Dome Canopy. The parts I needed ended up costing only $160. So while I was on the phone with them, I did something that I had wanted to do for many years, which is to buy another set of four legs, so I can cut off the very top part that curves in towards the roof rafters. I’m going to use the second set of legs for indoor shows, where the top part of the leg looks a little weird. You can see what I’m talking about in this screenshot:
​ 

Before, I wasn’t sure if it was possible to cut off that top part. But this weekend I found myself with an already ruined leg, so I took a hacksaw and tried it. And it worked! So going forward my booth at indoor shows will look a bit more polished, no longer like I am using the poles from an outdoor canopy in a makeshift way. 

My year is not quite done yet. I need to finish a wedding registry and deliver it later this month. I had already set aside many of those pots throughout the fall, so this week’s workload is very light. Then I need to clean the studio. Then I will take a couple of months off. I am skipping the ACC Baltimore show next February. (See, I’m already learning how to give myself a break sometimes!) My first show of 2022 will be the Smithsonian Craft Show in April. 

The Holiday Open Studio is back in person! This is my 14th one, and it will be held in my backyard this year, for sake of Covid safety. Masks are requested, not required. Everything will be generously spread out. Keep in mind, there are still some hours when the event is very crowded. 

READ THIS CAREFULLY ... if you are planning to attend, please do not enter the sale before 10am. Over the years, I've had various people trying to figure out how to sneak in early. This year I don't have a door that I can keep shut until I am ready for customers. Please do not take advantage. Absolutely no parking in the driveway! Again, every year a few people ignore this instruction. But this year there will be people and pottery in the driveway. Not to mention, the driveway is shared with my next door neighbors, and their access must be kept open. So please park your car in the street, which is free and plentiful on weekends. 
​ 

These Soap Dishes are a new design that I will be debuting! They are about 5 inches across, and will be introductory priced at $15 each. During the pandemic, one of the rabbit holes I went down was to explore bar shampoos and conditioners. I made some soap dishes for myself, and I like them so much that I am now offering them for sale. And now I'm going to be one of those people who tells you to reduce your consumption of plastic bottles! Sometimes it's hard to avoid them, but bar soaps and shampoos are easy. 
​ 

This is another new design for this sale ... a Gravy Boat! I only made two for this sale, and they are both already sold (to the person who suggested I make gravy boats). But you will probably get to see them in person, and think about whether you'd want one later. They hold about 20 oz. Introductory priced at $45 for now. 

This will be your last chance to buy the Small Blossom Dishes. They are being discontinued. They have always presented some production issues (a lot of them end up as seconds). But really the sale of these has dropped off ever since I introduced my latest hexagonal Kimchi Dish design, which I have to agree is a much more appealing design. This doesn't mean I don't want to sell small $10 dishes. I will probably come up with a new one this year, that is more in line with my current design sensibilities. 
​ 

There will be a well-stocked table full of seconds. I tested a new clay body this year, and also tweaked some glaze recipes. Which results in a lot of seconds!

Here are all the important details:

Good Elephant Pottery's 14th Annual Holiday Open Studio, Backyard Edition
December 11-12, 10am to 3pm each day
​(note that I am closing at 3pm rather than the usual 5pm)

Hope to see you there. Please do not enter before 10am! No parking in the driveway! 

But when you are offered a chance to put your pottery on TV, you take it! Many thanks to Janine and Lisabeth from the PMA Craft Show's PR team for asking me to be a part of this. This aired on Fox29's Good Day Philadelphia on Friday, November 5. The interviewer is Shaynah Ferreira, and the segment also features show director Nancy O'Meara, and fellow artists Galen Gibson-Cornell and Emily Shaffer. Enjoy! 
​

​Welcome to my little corner of The 45th Annual Philadelphia Museum of Art Contemporary Craft Show! I will at the in-person show November 5-7, and also offering a limited selection of my work online to customers in the Philadelphia area. These online orders will be delivered in person on Monday 11/8. You don’t need to be home for the contact-free delivery. I will leave a package on your doorstep, knock or ring the bell, and leave.

I'll have a much better selection of work at the in-person show. I hope to see you there! 

Click here to enter my online store. It will be open from Thursday 11/4 at 4pm thru Sunday 11/7 at 5pm. Online orders will be accepted from the following counties in Pennseylvania: Philadelphia, Bucks, Montgomery, Delaware, Chester. And in New Jersey: Mercer, Burlington, Camden, Gloucester.

I taught a workshop this weekend! It was at the studio of Ray Bogle in Huntingtown, Maryland. It felt really great to be involved in a group activity again, after all this time. I also loved being in a classroom situation again. Ray first asked me about this last October, at a time when the pandemic stats were on the decline. It was originally scheduled for February. The winter surge of Covid cases caused us to push it back to August. How fortunate for me that Ray and all of these students were willing to wait another six months. And that we live in a state with a strong vaccine rollout and low case numbers, where it is still safe for groups to gather like this. 

Teaching in-person workshops is not part of my usual business plan. It takes a lot of time to prepare for these! I agreed to do this one because my workload was a lot lighter, in the absence of art fairs. And of course, because the idea of spending time with a small group of potters in a safe environment was really appealing. 

The workshop was titled Hakeme Basics, and while I was working up a plan for it, I decided to also make a video for my online pottery school. Hakeme Basics, the video version, will be available around the end of this month. 

This weekend, I will hold one last online sale for the pandemic. This time it won't be small pots only, or a limited quantity of pots. I will be offering pots of various sizes and shapes, and enough of them so I don't expect them to sell out. I will ship to anywhere in the US. 

This is my way of expressing gratitude to everyone who bought pots from me online during the last year or so, and for putting up with my narrow parameters for selling online. 

I ask for patience in terms of packing turnarounds. Depending on the volume of sales, it may take up to a week for me to pack all the orders. 

Shipping fees will be as follows:
Up to $50 = $12; $51 to $100 = $15; $101 to $200 = $18; $201 and above = $24

Just to reiterate, this will be the last time I ship pottery. Art festivals and craft shows are on track for the fall, and I will return to my "no shipping" policy. 

My shop will begin accepting orders at 12 noon ET on Saturday, July 17. Have fun shopping!
​
https://goodelephantpottery.square.site

Greetings to all the pottery fans in Happy Valley! This year's Central Pennsylvania Festival of the Arts will once again be a virtual event. I am handling my participation in the "free home delivery" model. I will accept orders to the following counties: Blair, Centre, Clinton, Huntingdon, Juniata, Lycoming, Mifflin, Montour, Northumberland, Snyder, Union. (Honestly though, if you live in a county adjacent to one of these, send me an email with your zip code. If it's reasonable, I will stray into adjacent counties.) 

My online store is opening on Thursday, July 8, at 12 noon sharp. It will stay open until 8pm on Sunday July 11, or until pots are sold out, whichever comes first. I have a big inventory prepared for this event, so I don't expect things to sell out. Deliveries will be made July 13-15. 

Enter my online store by clicking here:
https://goodelephantpottery.square.site

Visit the CPFA Sidewalk Sale page for links to all of the other artists participating in this year's event: 
https://arts-festival.com/artists 

Happy Summer Solstice! This is my favorite time of the year, when the days are as long as possible. I realized I need to post some updates as I head into the summer season.

Firstly, a report on how the book bindery sale went back in February. I went into it hoping to sell about 30 books, and I ended up selling 89! It was very different from a pottery sale on many fronts. I did not need to stock up on inventory in advance, because books can be made on demand, one at a time. Unlike pottery where it takes a few weeks to finish a pot, and it takes a kilnful of pots to make the kiln worth firing. The books were made to order, without needing to anticipate in advance which items would be popular or not. Whereas the pottery business involves so much analysis to predict inventory needs before every sale. My stated goal was to ship every order within 2 days, but that proved to be impossible. As soon as the store opened I got flooded with orders, and it took me four days to finish the initial rush of orders. After the first day, the pace of new orders slowed down, to a point where I could definitely ship everything in two days. But now I know I need to plan for a big rush at first. 

The process of making books is also different from pottery. After spending those first four days making books for 8 hours per day, I did not have a single sore muscle or body ache. I did learn, however, that I cannot listen to audiobooks while making books. I needed my concentration to avoid mistakes with measuring, cutting, or sewing. Hopefully that will change as I gain more experience with it. 

My plans for this summer is to do one more book bindery sale in late July or early August. I was really happy with the designs I sold in February, and some of them will get small upgrades for the next sale. I'm hoping to develop a design for a weekly planner later this year, which will be available around the holidays. It will be based on the weekly planners I used when I was a graphic designer. I don't really need them anymore as a potter, but they will be well-suited for anyone with a desk job. 
​ 

And now for a solstice update on the pottery studio. After the book bindery sale, I went back to making pottery. I had a list of requests to follow up on after the Holiday Sale. I am blessed to have customers who were willing to wait 3 months for their pots. Then I held another "Small Pots Only" online sale in April, and one more "Free Home Delivery" sale for local customers in May. I admit that I am shocked that this format still worked after a whole year! Pottery customers are an exceptional class of people.

Going forward, I will do another "Free Home Delivery" sale for the State College, PA region, in conjunction with the Virtual Central Pennsylvania Festival of the Arts, from July 8-11. (I will write a separate blog post with more details.) I'm preparing a large inventory for this show. When I get home from making these deliveries, I will put any remaining pots for sale online, for customers anywhere in the US. That's right, I will mark the end of the pandemic by doing one last big online sale, and not just with small pots. (I'll make a separate blog post about this as well, with all the details, when it gets closer.) As much as I hate to ship pottery, I do need to show gratitude for those who bought my pots online when art festivals were not available. Just to be clear, this will be the last time I ship pottery. Of course, I reserve the right the eat my words if the pandemic takes a different turn. But right now, it looks like art festivals and craft shows will be back in the fall, and I will return to my "no shipping" policy. 

As for the fall, I have been accepted into two nice shows, though still waiting for confirmation that these events will be allowed to take place. Things look optimistic. I have applied for two more shows. So I am hoping to have four shows total on the schedule. And I am planning a Holiday Open Studio, just like the ones from before the pandemic. Details will be posted on this website as soon as they are confirmed!

​Again, I hope you enjoy the warmth and the long hours of daylight! It's been a very strange year, and we should be proud of ourselves for making it through. Let's keep our fingers crossed that things continue to go smoothly. Oh by the way, keep your fingers crossed for me, because tomorrow I am belatedly celebrating my 50th birthday by doing something exciting and scary. I'll report back when it's over. 

For a limited time, Good Elephant Pottery is becoming ...

Good Elephant Books!

Offering hand-bound, archival quality books, in a small number of designs. All books will be made to order. My goal is to ship every order within 48 hours, volume permitting. If your order will take more than 48 hours to ship, I will keep you posted via email. Allow 2 to 7 days for transit time after shipment. Orders will travel by USPS for a $5 flat rate shipping fee. I am shipping to US addresses only.

Because the books are made to order, items will not go out of stock, unless I run out of cover cloth materials. The larger books (journals and ledgers) may run out of some cover color options. I don't expect the smaller books to run out of materials.

This is totally different from a pottery sale. With pottery, I need to build up a big inventory before the sale, trying to calculate in advance what folks will want to buy, and items sell out quickly. This is refreshingly simpler! What makes it simpler is that a book takes less than 24 hours to produce, and it's possible to make just one. Whereas a piece of pottery takes weeks, and I can't finish it unless I have a kilnful of other pots to fire. 

This store will accept book orders for a few weeks, until I go back to work in the pottery studio. Or, until all materials are depleted, which I don't anticipate happening.

More book sales will happen in the future, this is just the first.

Start shopping at goodelephantpottery.square.site