November 21, Thanksgiving Practice!

Hidden pottery?

Who needs a shirt?

My brother-in-law has now his second of three businesses geared towards better living, and so running dog pottery has joined up.
Sewn green will be producing the official RDP apparel. If you find yourself interested, check out Bob's site, specifically the organic cotton 101 page which has some really interesting facts about organic grown cotton.
Bob's other enterprises:
1. natures pasture
2. sewn green
3. green envy




Shirts are available for purchase from my online store.

Other great news,
the two pieces in the post below that were accepted into the Illinois State Fair Professional Art Exhibition came out as award winners!!!
The jug won honorable mention, and the jar won first place in the crafts category.

Gettin' Stuff Done!

I'm excited to announce that the two pieces above have just been accepted into the "Illinois State Fair Professional Art Exhibition!" These two piece have been dubbed with the titles of "Obesity Jar" and "Obesity Jug."
"Bruce Grimes, professor and raku artist at Cedarville University, in Cedarville, Ohio. He has
juried many professional shows in Ohio, and Texas when he lived there. Work is to hang in the exhibition August 14- 23, 2009 at the Artisan Building on the fairgrounds."

The above piece and the group shot below were a collaboration with local florists "Blossom Boys." I worked with Ryan and Steve just last April as they produced the floral arrangements in my vases for the "Steak Night" event we held. The center pieces that night were beautiful and a big hit, as we raffled one off and sold the others.

These pieces are now for sale at their shop in the Beverly neighborhood of Chicago.
9911 South Walden Parkway,
Chicago, IL 60643
773.779.4400

Fountain Square Arts Festival 2009

This past weekend i exhibited work at the Fountain Square Arts Festival in Evanston, IL. Last year at the fair, there was a horrible storm that destroyed a large number of artists booth displays and their works; as well injured many people from debris flying around.
This year on the other hand was the yang to last years ying. Brilliant weather; hot bright sun and a cool strong breeze. On Sunday, the winds picked up in the morning and were very strong and so, caused great hassle and scare to many venders, but soon calmed down.

Above is a picture of my booth display.
I was able to slip away from my booth for a moment to snap a picture of a friend from Eastern Illinois University, Jacob Grant's booth.
Also, I stumbled across this potters shop by happenstance in Hannibal, MO maybe a year ago, and so it took me a minute to connect the dots when i came across it again so far away; Steve Ayers below and his booth display.













"Jacob Grant pottery display"














"Ayers Pottery display"

Pat Hutti is up to something!

UPDATED!!!-
pat wrote,
"My friend Vicky (Teacher at Uncw) built this kiln with her grad instructor Seo (Teacher at ECU). Seo designed the kiln and altered it from ideas from John Neely train kiln or coffin kiln design. It has two chambers and two burry boxes which is a little different from John's design of only one burry box and one chamber. In my experience coffin kiln's can provide a variety of different surfaces. One can fast fire them or one can slow the flame down and create a lot of reduction if wanted. Vicky's firing schedule was somewhere between 25-27hrs. Right after we got done loading she put fire in the kiln. She put more fire than what I am used to because I have a fear of blowing up the wadding and cone packs. I and others believe that the early part of the firing is when you create most of your fly ash from 100 degrees to 500 degrees some where in there. Now I think this because one, the draft is much slower in the begin allowing for the ash to land on the pots. And when the kiln is hot it seems as if the fly ash is less and has a harder time of sticking to the pots when the draft is greater. Now, the last couple of sentence might be b.s. but this is what I believe. I do know that Vicky's kiln in proportion of firebox and chamber is more firebox than I am used to seeing. I was told by a friend that in general woodkilns should be 1/3 firebox 2/3 chamber, Well insulated, 45 degree angle from fire box to chimney. Now I also thought that Vicky's kiln fired faster to temperature because of the larger firebox. So, I guess there is up and downs to that. So I guess the moral of this story is there are a lot of different kiln, different firing, different surfaces. " -Pat Hutti


My friend Pat Hutti just sent me some pictures of his newest work. He has moved to North Carolina and is working at Coastal Carolina Clay Guild. We met at Eastern Illinois University, but he finished he degree at Southern Illinois University in Edwardsville . Being a grad. of SIUE, he is an addict of the wood fire, and so, he is actively seeking out any and all opportunities to participate in wood firings. Currently i do not know the specifics on who's kiln this is but the above are pictures of some of the work that came out of the kiln below. I'll ask Pat for the specifics and update this post, but I just wanted to get this up and show my support. Great job Pat, the work looks get and is ever evolving.

Yo! What's up with my finger nails?

I've been wondering about my finger nails and potting for a while now; and I think I may have found something close to an answer. After sessions of throwing pots, I notice (usually a couple of hours later or the next day) that my finger nails are longer and in need of a trim. I feel like I am always cutting my nails. Also, I have a heightened sense of a quality nail clipper verses one that has lost its edge. It appears that after making pots, with hands exposed to water for longer periods of time, that my nails have actually grown longer. So I can't help but wonder if this is possible. And with this thought in the back of my mind, and over time, i also think that my finger nails are getting thinner. I am thinking that maybe if they do in fact grow faster with more exposure to water, that they are also thinning out as they are stretching out...

I was on my way to a night out last Friday evening, in the passenger seat, with friends in the back, clipping my nails; when one of the other passengers all to her own, commented on how often i trim. I expressed my thoughts, my wife doubted my speculation, we discussed, another passenger blackberry referenced, and my wife got burned according to the below Q/A.

What follows is some "whatever" information that i found on the internet, obviously none of it is for sure, but all is interesting and furthers my thoughts. The Q/A seems like it might be somewhat reasonable, though I'll have to get in touch with Kassie!?!

"Q: How do you make yours fingernails grow faster?

A: Scientific evidence shows that when exposed to water for long periods of time your finger nails grow faster. The tough protein called keratin begins to form quicker because keratin is made of 67% water. Also, Tyler is full of bologna. Kassie is obviously the smarter of the two. Rubbing garlic on them makes the keratin grow faster, also. Get the garlic cut it up in pieces, make the juice of the garlic comes out and you rub that on your fingernails leave on for about 30 minutes then wash your hands. Everyone knows that tapping your fingers makes the nails grow faster. Ask any pianist."

"I was actually just talking to a guy at work about this. he works in the dish room and always has his nails in the water. Anyway he said that his nails have been growing faster since he has had them in the water all the time."

"No water is actually drying to the nails."

"If you want your nails to grow faster, take prenatal vitamins. Your hair will also grow faster."

Steak Night has come and gone.

Steak Night turned out to be unbelievable. Saying thank you does not seem like enough for all the support we were given throughout organizing this event, but thanks.

The night was very full; a healthy, teaming crowd. World Music was more than accommodating and the room pulled together very nicely.
And we all feel very proud.

Thanks too:
Natures Pasture (meat)
World Music Company
Beverly All Stars
Blossom Boys
Beverly Bakery
Tranquility Hair Salon
Armanetti Town Liquor
Mark Villalobos (wine)
(mvwoodworking.com)
Maureen McCabe (asparagus)
Core Fitness
Beverly Yoga
Beverly Spin
Dale Vanderbloomen
(catwoodstudios.com)
and all the friends and family that helped out big time!
Hooray to us all!

We all feel like this was a great thing and are definitely thinking about the next one.
Thank you for coming and showing your support.
Daniel McCabe
runningdogpottery

Steak Night is coming!!!

Holy tons of work!!!
Steak night is almost here,
this Saturday, April 18th.
We've been so busy with all the preparations; we're really excited to see how all of our hard work ends.
Besides tons of awesome pots to make, planning an event like this requires more of everything else.

Here are two shots of some of the work in progress.

I've also been super busy making some extra pedestals for the evening, and the list goes on and on.

Soooooo, the great news is that we sold out last night which makes us feel even better about everything we've been preparing.
I'll throw up some pictures of the event after the 18th.
Hope to see YOU there,
Thanks everyone for your support!
Daniel McCabe

March 7th kiln load

Just unloaded the kiln and got this little fellow out of it. I'm pretty excited about it, these are newer handles for me which i'm still elaborating on. This kiln load was fired to cone 7 (electric).

Fast paced life brakes for no one!

I thought I might kick off my first blogging experience with an image from last summer.
Poor little sucker really worked his way in there,
and i had to work his way out with a shovel.

Pottery is awesome.