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. 

In the name of Covid safety, I held my annual Open Studio outdoors this year. Take note of the canopy in this photo, it becomes the star of this blog post later. 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 few 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, barely taking any days off. Still, I really did not have enough. I pulled out all of my tricks for making my displays look fuller than they were. For the last two months, 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, winds were gusty but it wasn’t raining.

On Saturday night, things turned ugly. The same storm system that caused 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. The angel told me to stay up late, and had me walk over to the back door in the kitchen to check on the canopy, so I there watching 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. 
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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:
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(Click here to watch the 1 minute video titled “Fast Motion Booth Setup”)

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.

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. 
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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. 
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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. 
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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!