ceramics

Charitable Giving – Donating to a cause

Posted on by pincupottery

This week I want to talk a little about giving. (In the past I blogged about donating to fund raisers – and the need never subsides….

Potters tend to be a pretty giving crowd.  Visit any pottery group’s online site and you are bound to find glaze recipes, helpful hints, food recipes, how to’s, you name it.  I have, on several occasions, emailed a potter I admire to ask for a recipe or how they accomplished a wonderful, mysterious technique.   They have all responded openly.

Not only do potters share pottery techniques and ideas, however, they also share themselves and their work to help a cause they believe in by donating to charities.

Twenty years ago a couple of potters thought it would be a great idea to make a bunch of bowls and use them to raise money to help feed the hungry (Statistics show that 1 out of 8 Americans struggle with food insecurity every day).  Since then, potters throughout the country have been participating in Empty Bowls projects to help the hungry in their local areas.  I have known about this national fundraiser for a long time; however I had never learned the history of the project until the latest issue of Studio Potter Magazine, one of the best pottery mags on the market, where there is an article all about the history of Empty Bowls.

This past weekend the John C. Campbell Folk School held their annual Empty Bowls fundraiser. I imagine it was a HUGE success with all the local talent they have to make bowls! Coming to Sylva, NC on April 22, the Community Table will be hosting their Empty Bowls event. Amy Grimes has asked that I contribute and OF COURSE I WILL! I also intend to ask students at Southwestern Community College to add to the lot. The more the merrier! More bowls to sell, more money raised, less hunger in our community!

Ayumi Horie, a world-renowned potter, has organized several auctions to raise money, including one to help fund the Obama campaign; and now she is working on a new auction to help those devastated in the earthquake and tsunami in Japan. In just one week, she has been able to find enough fabulous artwork donated to help our friends in Japan!

I am certain there are many, many more potters and other artists out there donating their hard work to causes they believe in. To keep me from going on and on with links and words, let me ask that you, reader, look around and see what help is needed around you and donate to a cause – whether it be by a monetary donation, volunteerism or by buying a fabulous piece of artwork at a fund raiser auction.

To make it easy for you:
If you live near Sylva, NC, come out to the Community Table’s Empty Bowls event and have a great dinner to help get a great dinner to hungry folks in our community – April 22, from 4 to 8 PM.

Head over to Ayumi Horie’s website to get more information about how you can buy a LOVELY POT and know that your money will help victims of the earthquake in Japan! You can be anywhere in the world and participate in this online auction that will go live on Friday, March 18th and continue through to Sunday, March 20th at 9 pm EST

Go to the Empty Bowls Events page and find an event near you. Donate some fab bowls, motivate students to make bowls for the event and/or attend the event for some food and fabulous bowls to take home!

Thomas Winter Photograph of Empty Bowls

Thomas Winter Photograph of Empty Bowls. Source: Marilyn Bauer, http://blogs.tcpalm.com

Handmade Pottery Produces Great Lasagna!

Posted on by pincupottery

I have felt really guilty about my bakers and casseroles lately. Why, you ask? Well, I love to cook and eat out of handmade pottery. Did you read that? I love to cook. And I love to eat out of handmade pottery. But do I COOK in handmade pottery?! Actually, most often I do not. This is because most all of my vegetarian/pescartarian meals are cooked directly on the stovetop – like stir fries, beans in my pressure cooker, etc. I just don’t make casseroles and hardly bake anything but bread – and that bread is in free-form or in my aluminum bread pan (insert guilty smile.)

Honestly – I am afraid of making any baked good like brownies, cornbread and the like, in a pan that doesn’t exactly fit the recipe’s recommendations. You’ve read them – a 8×8 or 11×7 pan, large loaf pan 4×9, etc. Being that I am not into measuring every little item I make on the wheel, I make no ‘8×8’ pan, and therefore no brownie pan.

So tonight I took the plunge. I brought home one of my bakers and decided to make lasagna. Now, this is no ordinary lasagna. My friend Noreen owns Big Girl Winery and Farm just outside the Great Smoky Mountain National Park. She is also a lover of handmade pottery. So when she brought over 2 pounds of fresh shiitake mushrooms to add to her barter lot*, I couldn’t resist the idea of finally doing some savory baking in my baker – shiitake-spinach lasagna.

Shiitake-spinach lasagna

Leftovers - Shiitake-spinach lasagna in a Pincu Pot baker. Notice the puffy handle (see my last post if you don't get it)

On my way home from Pincu Pottery after a long day and really fun time with my 5 young students, I stopped at Ingles, my local grocery, to purchase the required ingredients.   Here is the quick and easy recipe for working folk (If I weren’t working I may have made my own noodles, sauce, etc.):

Shiitake-Spinach Lasagna

1/2 package no-cook lasagna noodles

1 can organic pasta sauce

about 20 fresh shiitakes, sliced

4 cloves garlic, smashed and chopped

1 15 oz. ricotta

1/2 small bag of shredded mozzerella

Parmesan cheese

1/2 small bag frozen spinach

1 egg (organically grown by Sleepy Hollow Farm, a Bryson City organic farm just outside the Great Smoky Mountains!)

nutmeg

oregano

ground pepper to taste

Preheat oven to 375 degrees
Mix the ricotta, mozzarella (minus about a handful), egg, spinach together. Add some black pepper to taste and a pinch of ground nutmeg. Saute the shiitake mushrooms in olive oil until slightly soft (5 min.) and at the end, throw in the garlic to soften. Mix this in with cheese mixture.
Place a little sauce to cover the bottom of the baker.  Then add one layer of noodles. Add a layer of cheese mixture and sprinkle with a little oregano. Add another layer of noodles. Then add some more cheese mix and then more sauce. One more layer of noodles, then sauce then extra mozzarella and Parmesan cheese on top.
Cover with tin foil and bake at 375 for 55 minutes. Take off the tin foil and turn on broiler for 5 minutes or until cheese on top gets crusty.
ENJOY!

Pincu Pottery Lasagna with Shiitake and Spinach

YUM! We each had seconds! (the photo was taken with poor lighting and with a video camera, so please excuse....)

So now it’s your turn – I need more recipes to use in my bakers/casseroles! Please post your favorite no-meat casserole recipe in the comments! Thanks in advance!

* I will barter for pottery. It needs to be win-win, like me getting fresh shiitake mushrooms, honey and wine from Big Girl Winery. Just ask – I may be interested!

Clay Guild in Western North Carolina

Posted on by pincupottery

Tonight is the second meeting of the up-and-coming clay guild for Western North Carolina (WNC) -West of Asheville including Haywood, Jackson, Swain, Macon, Clay and Cherokee counties. We will meet at 6:30 PM at Southwestern Community College in Bryson City. Of course it will be a Pot Luck and full of fabulous food. We will all bring our place settings to show off our pottery and keep the throw-aways to a minimum.

We are hoping to organize enough interested folk and raise some money to help market the area as a place to visit and purchase fabulous clay art and/or a place to learn how to play with clay. Handmade in America calls this a ‘Creative Economy’ and could help boost WNC’s economy! Judi Jetson, Director of Creative Economies for Handmade states, “Current research says the way to win in rural economic development is with a 3-way combination of outdoor amenities, creative professionals and entrepreneurship. This Rural Growth Trifecta is the key to our economic recovery.”

Hank Shuler, one of the organizers of this guild, wrote a wonderful press release for this meeting that points out within the 6 counties West of Asheville there are 5 established schools for learning to make pottery, along with a number of established clay artists and up-and-coming artists that are studying at these 5 institutions: John C. Campbell Folk School, Southwestern Community College’s Heritage Arts Program, Haywood Community College’s Professional Crafts, Western Carolina University, and the Bascom.

I would love for this group to market through an annual Drive-About where studios are open to the public for a weekend festival of buying and browsing the wonderful clay art around the area. I imagine it would be similar to the Minnesota Pottery Studio Sale and Tour in the Upper St. Croix River area or the Art of the Pot in Austin, Texas, or any number of similar tours.

Another group of clay folks that I envy and would love for our group to emulate is the NC Clay Club. These folks meet monthly at various members’ studios and talk clay, eat together, host workshops, etc. They even have a blog that keeps all members and the public informed of the wonderful things going on. This club is located in and around the Asheville-Penland area, an incredibly clay-art dense geographic area. I hope our far western NC area can grow to be similar to this clay-collector destination!

Speaking of workshops….. though we haven’t officially established this guild (until tonight!) we have had opportunities to raise money to bring visiting artists to Southwestern Community College. The SCC students have participated in various art sales, including the WNC Pottery Festival and our own Mountain Shapes and Colors show; and while selling their wares, they have donated a percentage of sales to the ‘guild’. We hope to continue this on a larger scale in order to bring clay artists from around the country to offer workshops in our area. This small coffer allowed us to host Rob Withrow and Ted Cooley last week during the Face Jug workshop.

So come out and support this new clay guild! Help spread the word that there is FABULOUS CLAY ART WEST OF ASHEVILLE!!!!

If you have any thoughts on the guild – whether it be ideas for it or people to contact, etc., please leave a comment!