winter 2015

Triangulation

          A “watershed moment” is what I’m in.  How apt: Pop and I have put in our last generous offer on 5 acres of raw land a bit north of my rented studio, and honestly, for all the sweetness about it, the part I’m most excited about is the fact that it has a spring.  Possibly even two. Springs! Life-giving water jumps and springs from Mama Earth because the land is between two major watersheds and groundwater doesn’t know where to go. I have wasted absurd amounts of time staring at the ceiling at 3 am, dreaming of where I would plant the chestnut trees, where I would dig the cistern, how the water could collect, ebb and flow, be captured in swales for passive irrigation of the orchard soils, then cycle slowly downhill towards medicinal weeds and white willows around a trout pond.
          I have spent weeks researching USGS/USDA map overlays and comparable sales in the area, visiting with a permaculture-minded consultant, and talking to potential land-project collaborators, the neighbors, the county development officers, water conservation district employees, and a hilarious man who does geothermal systems, in the event that we manage to wrench the property from a greedy developer.  He’s a big fish on the line, darting left and swimming right, jumping and slashing his sword, but we are patient.  So, I’ve been particularly soaking in gratitude and potential in the past few months even as Coldwell Banker sends me emails rife with spelling, math, and grammar errors, when they remember to send an email at all.

SE facing slope- good for plants. 

Meanwhile, I learned that the one job that I covet is available 2 hours SW of me in Forest Grove, OR, a professor position at Pacific University.  I’d be starting a Design track and working next to a woman that I greatly enjoy, Terry O’Day, who some of you may remember from missives 4 years past.  I need to apply.  That’s all there is to it.  I am applying.  But if I get this job, well, uhm, basically all my time would be there instead.  It’s a long shot, no doubt.
            Meanwhile also, I am falling into a rapid friendship with a savvy dinner party organizer who, like me, has pretty much always forged her own way.  She says never mind the job, your work is compelling and you should follow your vision of having Mudshark Studios RAM press it in order to make it available to restaurants and retail venues.  A chef at one of the best restaurants in town looks at my prototype, says “this could be huge”.  Biwa just started using my simpler dishes in their regular rotation, and I just landed a similar commission from Langbaan. 

a small platter for Biwa's Fall Menu.   photo Andrea Solnecker

A small platter for Biwa's Fall Menu  
photo Andrea Solnecker

Soul-searching reveals that I’m ambitious! I want that recognition! I feel that it is a logical next professional step.  I’d get to work with my friend at his great local business and really test my capacity as a businessperson (one can only try).  I’d provide something more interesting than what restaurants have available now.  The local food and crafts movement is burgeoning, being a part of that economic model is one that I can dig, and I’m ready for the pressure.  My question is: what is the carbon footprint implicated in that project? 
            Just so long as I can occasionally escape the computer and get some mud on my face digging out a spring on the little triangle of Earth that I hope to steward.

a little local press
            Here's to your Happy Holiday!

fall 2015

Discombobulation

Last night my friend asks in a concerned tone of voice “are you ok?” after reminding me of everything that I’ve built.  I look around me: the foundation of a woodfiring oven, the first of 10 loads of horse manure laid over sticks in a garden-to-be, 80% of a bedroom built in the upstairs of a barn, 12 tabs open on the browser, paper evidence of a meeting in which an exciting plan was revealed unfeasible, a real estate broker’s business card, and rare Chinese herbs in pots patiently awaiting a prepped location. My beloved old flame from MN may or may not be visiting today, but I have a crush on someone I met on my little vacation in Eden (no, his name is not Adam, more like Adonis). Instead, I wake up to ducks having loud sex under my kitchen window.  Two different people have tapped me to co-teach classes on fermentation, PCC classes are about to start again, my Pop is visiting next week, and I’m pregnant.  Just kidding.

Raphaelle Goethals' encaustic, about 4' by 5', which I stared at for a good 10 minutes at the first Seattle Art Festival before an assistant came around to bemusedly rouse me from my love-struck stupor.

Somehow my priorities stay straight: I’m making pots every day, just barely keeping up with demand.  Pre-sold work; I like this business model.  I increased the price of my fermenting crocks 15% this year and they are still selling well. I just finished 2 commissions, and stumbled into a potentially ongoing commission opportunity from an awesome little consortium of restaurants in Seattle, which includes Sitka & Spruce, London Plane (hello catering!), and the Old Chaser Farm.  And to my great delight, the bowls that I gave to Biwa Restaurant in Portland proved themselves so lovely and sturdy that I just received a large order from them to compliment a fall menu change.  This is exactly where I want to be! 
 

That's my upstairs barn bedroom in the works.  as much as I look forward to finishing it and moving in, it's not the highest priority.
So I’m ok, yes, thanks.  Whew!  Never a dull moment. 

Happy Fall to you!

summer 2015

Summer sweetness…

(editors note: my apologies, the images associated with this quarterly direct email newsletter are worth a look but missing from my archives as I re-create the missive here.  to subscribe, please see the contact page of this website.  thank you)

This year again, we were joined by a new swarm of bees.  They hovered in the sun near the forest, coagulated on a branch, and took about a day to find the cleaned boxes waiting for them.  They are going nuts in the raspberry blooms. I find myself bouncing atop a lawnmower with a ten year old boy perched behind me, outsized feet trying to stay planted on the wheel wells.  We’re both smiling pretty big, dodging the low-hanging branches of the fruit trees that line the driveway.  Real-live video games: an obstacle course of sneaky passways and quick decision-making.  Actually, he started there as ballast.  The acerage on which I live has some dips and hills steep enough that my skinny butt can’t give the back wheels enough traction on the way up.  Really what we need to do is get an excavator in here and turn the biggest hill into a natural pool… but that’s a little drastic at the moment.  Right now, we’re at ducklings in the kiddie pool level.  The little peepers spend their days below my porch and the cuteness is killing me.  I can’t wait until they follow me turning up slugs in the gardens.

Chris Pate's new work "Entrenched", a commentary on social and ecological issues.  While the woodfiring workshop and Nanagama was difficult for me, I am delighted to see such high-quality work as this emerge from the story of that labor. 

In an important note from local woodfire, the East Creek Anagama is changing hands following Nils’ passing.  The community has gathered together to fund the purchase of an easement on the land on which Nils Lou and his friends built the kiln.  Its all going down right now, and loans are still greatly appreciated.  I have committed to loaning money to the gentlemen who will make their offer on the 20 acres.  If you are interested in knowing more about how to keep this historically vibrant kiln in use by the very good people who fire her, reply and I will forward the pertinent email.  Personally, I feel an excitement about the nature of the attitude that surrounds the kiln.  It is not rarefied and exclusive.  There are lots of people and particularly, lots of students!  This is the experiential education close to my heart.
 
My friend and firing mate Chris Pate who fires at many kilns including East Creek will be having a small show with his friend Jonathan Steele at the Ash St Project during the first weekend of July.  Pate, generally a potter, has started to voice some of his thoughts about culture and environment in sculptural work.  In a recent spontaneous mezcal-fueled critique, he was largely sober, and I was impressed by his articulate thoughts on the new work.  Check it out.
 
This weekend is the last of extended days of opportunity to purchase shares in Portland’s first Community Supported Art, brought to you by the devotion of Jason Kappus, administrator of my beloved Portland Open Studios.  I am participating, as is Mandy Stigant, Therese Murdza, and a variety of other talented makers.  It's a very interesting idea, well presented and financially sustainable.  I hope to participate in the future as well. 
 
May your summer be sweet and green- mine is going to full of construction dust!
Careen

such a luxury that a few perennials are getting strong enough to clip....
 

spring 2015

the major project

(ed note: my apologies, this post is a re-creation of a direct mail newsletter.  the images in this issue were not worth re-creating here)

Famished but only halfway through dinner was when I found the makers of that special tableware under the category “inspired by nature” that I’d seen on the restaurant supply sites.  I was deep in sumptuous Instagram fine dining photos following a hashtag to Pierre Gagnaire when I saw a photo of chefs in blue aprons receiving a special plate from an elder gentleman. ..hmm… There they are. Pordamsa. The makers of that sea urchin cup for caviar . The makers of lily pads and ice sheets and a long boat-shaped dish.  All porcelain,  NE of Barcelona.. It reminds me of my childhood: the Rosenthal dining set that my parents have based on the patterns of a sea urchin as well….translucent..  their website states that they’ve only recently marketed to restaurants.
 
Dazed, I look up from my nook under the red light and see that the misty sky is now mazerine.  An owl has started calling.  The heater clicks.  The cat yawns. Up this dead-end road, there is no sound of even rural rush hour. There is no sound from the impassioned searching I make on my new secondhand i-phone.  There is no reason to suspect that this is an achievable goal. 
 
I think my work is on par with theirs.  I think I have developed strong forms that can be reproduced well by industrial methods. Moreover, I think there is space for my forms in the nicer dining offerings: I’ve been looking.  A few people are doing ovals, a few people are doing a harsh asymmetry. Pordamsa is doing fine specialty.  I think I can offer warm lush.  Eva Zeisel-ish friendly but classy tableware. I need to talk to some chefs and buyers for major retail.  But right now in the studio, I am finalizing the forms that I will show them, and in two weeks I have another meeting with my friend Brett at Mudshark Studios.  Lilith Rockett thinks I can do it.  Brett is completely excited.  We strategized where and how to start.  I’m obsessed with the idea and have been for years.  It will take some time but here we go! (cue Jane’s Addiction) Want to help?  Tell me the restaurants in your city/ town that seems like a good match for my new work.  It might be that more rarefied places have the budget and interest, but tell me your favorite places too- that mod but warm café that serves local seasonal foods and treats the staff well... please tell me- your knowledge is my secret weapon ..
 
OK!, back to the present moment.  Woodfiring: two things about that.  Next Friday is an opening to the very well received woodfire show at eutectic gallery.  I will be there, if you’d like to come visit.  The first opening was so jammed that Mandy joked that the next woodfire show should be called “Breaking the Fire Code”.  The energy in the room turned Steve Sauer’s coiled piece into a digeridoo if you put your ear in it.  And there will be more woodfiring in my very near future: Richard Brandt and I are leading a workshop-style firing of a small anagama at Mt Hood college this month using the decorative technique of gentle reduction cooling or what Simon Levin would call downfiring.
 
If you’d like to see the notable quantity of work that I will have from that firing, please come join me at my Open Studio on Mother’s Day weekend.  I will teach class in the morning from 10 to 1 and immediately scurry home. So, come visit after 1.30 and stay for pickles and bbq dinner and maybe a little campfire and wine.  Or come Sunday anytime.  Directions and map on the contact page of my website.  There are some very nice hikes around here, Gifford Pinchot is 40 minutes north, and some sweet waterfalls/ walking trails 10 and 20 minutes away.   

It would be lovely to see you.   

winter 2014

Seeking Assistant

Glass of wine or otherwise, it is with a surprising amount of enjoyment that I track my expenses and incomes for this full year at my new location.  Rent is up, but I’m on Medicaid now.  Construction materials are up again, but so too is that heretofore mud puddle of the category “pottery income”.  That last is so far up that my sudden interest in accounting is spurred by questions of taxes. The studio is hardly making a profit yet, though the light is definitely brighter at the end of that tunnel. But for the future, is sole proprietorship sufficient? Do I become an LLC? What can I write off? My bank guides me towards Score. Should I anticipate an employee, even??  Any mobile young potter out there truly good at throwing porcelain? (oh, I’ve set myself up for some punny replies, haven’t I?)  If you can throw my crocks as well as I do, you might have a job!  I’m only half joking, actually.  Please forward to someone who might be seriously interested and truly capable.  I’m about to make space where they could also do their own work.    
     So no, this issue does not announce my holiday sale.  Go buy great pots directly from lots of other people! I have shifted to keeping retailers stocked. Eutectic Gallery has my pots.  Portland Homestead Supply continues to sell the crocks, as does Mirador Kitchen and Home.  I am delighted to have added another retailer, Milk Glass Market in north Portland.  In fact, if you’d like to meet up with me there some Saturday, do drop a line, as I anticipate loitering either there or at Sweedeedee’s for late lunch after work.  Brief conversation with the owner Nancye confirms my suspicions: people are increasingly spending money on artisinal kitchen equipment.   As the dedicated Sandor Katz titles his book: The Revolution Will Not Be Microwaved.  YES!
      I have also been learning about vermicompost!  Find an excellent audio series on the topic here. We have rescued a neighbor’s horse, a beautiful ravenous creature. The girl child is excited about the prospect of riding her. Me, I am more excited about how she makes a lot of scoop-able units of high-quality manure!  So I have strapped together an insulated straw-bale box to compost some of that green pasture gleaned with her agile snuffly nose.   As expected, the learning curve is steep: the core temperature at the moment would absolutely fry little red worms.  Vermicompost seems to me a lot like fermenting, in that one is working with the wild array of biota to create an end product that is synthesized to the needs of the system in which it is used.  For fermented foods, the nutrients in the veggies are rendered more available to the body.  In vermicompost, the nutrients in the soil are rendered more accessible to the plants.  Nature reveals her secrets in marvelous ways. 
     I wish all of you a warm holiday season full of loved ones sharing delicious (and nutritious!) food..   ... photos below, courtesy Jane Hashimawari, are of the seasonal kaiseki for which she and fellow chef Will Harper rent my woodfired set.  Her website for ticket info (they go fast!)                         

my brother Jason restored this '69 ambulance, frame up. 

interior: it is now a box of light!

Richard and Pate made a southern kaiseki dinner- find their work at the Compound sale

kids playing horse

bonfire with the tribe

fall 2014

Arms Akimbo

A quick assessment of the body indicates that it has been a fine summer: I am tan, scratched from gardening and blackberry hunting, and bruised from tending a campfire that lasted till 4 due to marvelous storytelling.  Only minor construction work has been completed but my fermenting crocks are selling as fast as I can make them and a commission from a chef has led to some important R&D.  I had a major kiln malfunction, weathered it, and am now looking at buying a bigger one.  Here is a link to a kickstarter campaign that I threw together timed for the XOXO fest in Portland and a friend’s reply, the OROR fest.  He organized a promotional event at the Holocene on Sept 9...promises to be hot! do drop in for a visit...  Me, I am ready for a bigger kiln with a computer in which I can load a more sensible quantity of crocks and fire them with greater energy efficiency.  If the kickstarter doesn’t pick up the tab, I’ll apply for a grant.  This is the first year in which there is a very real possibility of paying my studio and basic living expenses based on the labor of my love for porcelain and healthy communities, and I am deeply excited to be finally achieving a life goal.  Whatever support you can offer would be fabulous. Thanks in advance!
            Meanwhile, swirling around me are the happy children (aka pterodactyls) of my tribe-by-default. Here is a typical summer scene:  I hear the cries of a mock evil tyrant punishing some prisoner as I find bush beans among the flowers.  That was preceded by the sound of hammering and the occasional reconnaissance shout (ostensibly to the plebeians) by one eight-year-old boy or another.  I look up to see a regal young ruler issuing decrees from the top floor of a tiny two-story play house/ tool shed with a 75 square footprint- he is to scale. Nearby, Greta yodels out “goaty-oaty-oaty goats!!”  And they issue only mild complaint at being summoned for the next round of freshly plucked maple leaves delivered by the hands of giggling bipeds.  Who are summarily plunked into a hammock and sent into dizzying squealing arcs... summer camp for five year-old’s! Various tiny humans, lead by the graceful teenage daughters of this family I live with/near.  Boys flying down hills and into the sun, arms akimbo, superhero costumes a hindrance: what fool would put a zipper in the back of a onesie?  Even if it is yellow? Dying of curiosity (and needing to retrieve some applewood prunings for a summer camp craft project of making bows and arrows), I venture into the tool shed, so newly appropriated as royal residence/ dungeon (the aforementioned upstairs).  I got past this frightening sign:
 
I found and retrieved what I needed, strategically decorated their dungeon with some other snarled branches I had there (helping them with the ambiance, you know), took note of the monster drawn on a box, the plastic handcuffs and broken garden tools, and crept out. (Miraculously unscathed!)
 
Meanwhile also, such a dear friend of mine is visiting for a whole month and I find myself in turn giggling childlike as she puts a spinney maple seed wing on her nose and teases me.  So many forms of love…

go eat sashimi at Biwa!

glaze r&d - a commission

research club at silver falls

red huckleberries along the lewis river

KDU COMIN! BOT YOU BONTE COM OWT! (with seven-legged arachnid) 

summer 2014

Ahhhh, summer in the country…… the excruciatingly slow buildup of spring levels off and its time for construction projects.  But not before I am teaching a workshop at the well-loved Oregon College of Art and Craft!  This is for me a marvelous opportunity and test: am I ready to take my teaching to a national level? I think I am.  As I work in my studio in the same method that I will demonstrate to attendees, I think far beyond the technical details and into the context in which they sit: economy and variety of movement for long-term health, analysis of quality and quantity of time spent vs. reward offered, and the arc of developing forms within the context of life experiences.  I plan on stimulating some good conversation, so if you’d like to join us, please do!  The title is Throwing and Stretching: On and Off the Wheel.  Here is the link.  Dates are june 20,21,22.  Please sign up by June 13th to ensure adequate enrollment! Cool, thanks!

I’ll save more stories for later, and leave you with some photos of the dinner at MoCC.  Truly, a high point of my life.  Thank you Gabe and Kina, Dan, Ed, MoCC, and all the friends who came to join us and indulge!  Gabe, Dan and Grace (head chef) are right now! in Japan doing primary research for Biwa. Follow their adventures on instagram @biwapdx, facebook biwaportland. 

actually, I do have one more bite: I am stirring the possibility of offering myself as a contractor for the construction of a re-designed Tin Man Kiln.  Just had a meeting with a machinist about the burners.  So, potters et al.! if you know someone interested in building a kiln that is essentially woodfired but more like woodfire lite (in terms of labor and surface), give them my contact info.  thanks!

Have a wonderful summer!

Careen

spring 2014

Simple Japanese Food: A Dinner to Benefit the Museum of Contemporary Craft

I have long wished to see arms full of my pots serving up delicious love in grand fashion and now, the moment has come!  Just before the last firing of the Tin Man, I received word from a friend who works at Biwa that he was organizing an educational exhibit at MoCC and that Biwa would like to make a special dinner in conjunction with it.  There was extra space in the kiln, so I threw it into turbo, making about 170 pots in a few weeks to round out a dining set suitable for about 25 people.  They debuted just recently at a 10-course Kaiseki dinner pop-up at one of Portland's finest restaurants; the photos here are back stage moments of that event.

On April 9th, the set will be highlighted again.  Here is the press release:
To accompany “The Unpredictable Nature of Fire” exhibitions at the Museum of Contemporary Craft and Biwa Restaurant, Biwa owners Kina Voelz and Gabe Rosen, Biwa service director and potter Dan Kunnecke, and potter Careen Stoll have collaborated to present a unique opportunity to experience hands-on the everyday beauty in the utility of wood-fired pottery.
 
Served on Careen’s beautiful wood-fired dishware, this multi-course dinner of traditional, natural and elegant food (and sake!) is inspired by Kina, Dan, Careen and Gabe’s experiences of living and eating in Japan and their wish to put Careen’s pottery to use.
 
We are so excited to do this and hope you will please join us for this special dinner.

There you have it, good people.  Made with love, down to the last pickled nibble, and who better to benefit than such an big-thinking museum?  Its a dream come true for me...

Dan and I are artist residents for the month of April, switching off weeks making pots in the window of their store.  I'll be there the second and fourth weeks- please swing by and feed the monkey!  I will also have current work for sale. very white, a few spring colors...  April 3rd is the gallery opening, and May 1st is another good time to see us there.

As you noticed, I've gotten myself situated with MailChimp, so you can modify your subscription.  I am delighted that you can still reply! I love hearing back from you!!  also feel free to comment on blog posts as they arrive- discussion is great. If you are interested in receiving the occasional postcard or forthcoming pickling zine, please e-mail me your physical address and you will end up in my database as a "fan".  And please add me to your own mailling list if you have one. 

I built a new website.  I am moved by my new life situation to broaden my activity into teaching workshops, wild gardening, and generally stoking the fires of ancient knowledge.  There are, as usual, too many words on the new site, if you'd like to check it out.  But also plenty of pictures to help.  I'll be blogging mostly on the permaculture page for a while as I cozy up this barn and learn with Peter about the joys of my new patch of soil. 

hope to see you are the annual open studio!  I have made pickles for tasting, and will have a few pots for sale: whatever doesn't sell at MoCC and other random out-takes. Just come to enjoy the peace and fresh air, feed the goats, explore the local waterfalls, maybe play in the hammock.  bring your kids- its all good. :)

winter 2013

Bitoey takes the helm on day 5 of the King’s Cup.             photo Carolyn Kovacs

Hello from Thailand!  After the successful launch of the porcelain pickling crocks this fall, I have  joined my Pop aboard the Argo, a 110′ schooner sailed by college students attending a program called Seamester, which he founded.  She sails around the world: the students join for one semester, attending courses in oceanography, marine biology, leadership, seamanship, and scuba diving.  This semester is ending at Phuket Island in the Andaman Sea with the King’s Cup Regatta; I blazed out of town as soon as I could after my own class ended to join them in time.  What an awesome treat!  I’ve been aboard a few times, but have never able to sail with her.  Like a good pot, a sailing ship comes alive in use.  Argo is a beautiful functional vessel.

As I contemplate wearing  the mantle of a social entrepreneur, I think peripherally about my father’s example. His entrepreneurship is in business: Seamester provides experiential education.  The adventures are challenging, direct and dynamic, involved with immediate skill-based realities as well as interpersonal subtleties.  The undulating blue steel waters connect your passage to exotic places but also confine you to this pressure cooker of your own and everyone else’s story.  For as long as I can remember, my Pop would talk with me about how intention becomes action, thinking outside the paradigm, and following my own star.  I believe that I have, and now I am ready to incorporate the meta of that experience into what else I can offer to my culture.  Business may not be my strong suit, but experiential education is what actually happens around a kiln like the Tin Man.

Back to sailing… about 100 boats raced for the King’s Cup over five days, in different classes- ours was the classic class with one other competitor, and we were smoked every time by them, but no matter!  Argo was designed to be gorgeous topsides but ultra-safe and utilitarian (read: heavy and slow), and running rigging is manual.  What that means in operation is that it takes at least 8 people to haul in a sheet (rope adjusting a sail), as you can see in the following picture.  All those pink shirts are tugging as hard as they can on what they can grab of a line that controls one of the most forward sails with no mechanical advantage, and then the last person in line secures it in place on a cleat.

On the fifth day, we invited 20 Thai kids to join us.  Coming from all over the country, these were the young sailors who competed in their own race in the prams (affectionately deemed bathtubs with sheets). Paired up with the shipmates, the Thai kids participated as much as possible by tugging on lines and steering.  It made sailing extra-crazy and impossibly sweet.  And when we crossed paths with our competitor, we all lined up on one side of the boat and did the wave.

Meanwhile, my work is around town- Eutectic Gallery has pots from the Tin Man in their holiday-friendly gallery display, as does the Jasmine Pearl.  Mirador Community Store is the place to find pickling crocks if you are in town.  If you are passing by Blackfish Gallery, you’ll see a few choice pieces in the fishbowl.  But the Etsy store is closed, I am sorry to report.  If you are interested in purchasing a crock but do not live near Portland, please contact me, and I will take your order and send out a gift certificate to a friend if you’d like.  If you could, please contact in a new email thread instead of replying to this one.  New members (pickling aficionados) to this newsletter, hello!  Until I have a new website linked to mailchimp, this is a direct quarterly email, and I hope you enjoy them!  I am certainly delighted to have met you at recent events, and look forward to offering more tools for your healthful food preparation in the future.

Sawatdee Ka from the Land of Smiles!

Careen