The Empty Bowls Project is a nationwide effort by potters to end hunger. Lillstreet Art Center
is proud to host this 6th annual event to benefit First Slice, a local hunger-fighting
organization. Just a quick FYI… First Slice is also a great place to get a snack, a sandwich
or a piece of pie… or two! And they’re conveniently located in the Lillstreet Gallery...
a little too convenient to my studio if you know what I mean!

Join the festivities and share a modest meal of soup and bread, served in a handmade bowl
donated by a ceramic artist that you may take home as a reminder of all the other bowls
you will have helped to fill. So not only to you get dinner – you get a bowl!!! And you feel
great doing a good deed at the same time!

Bowls are $25 each, and there is no limit to the number of bowls you may purchase.
Sales begin at 5:00pm on a first-come, first-served basis. FYI – several of the donated
bowls will be mine! There will also be a silent auction of artist-crafted items…
and I’ll have a donated piece in the Silent Auction as well. Anything for a good cause!

The Empty Bowls Project – at Lillstreet Art Center
4401 North Ravenswood (at Montrose), Chicago, Illinois 60640
Just a few steps east of the Montrose stop on the Brown Line.

And by the way… did I mention that the stack of bowls that have become the
“poster child” for Lillstreet’s Empty Bowls Project are actually mine as well?! Go figure…

I made the bowls several years ago when we were still at the old Lill Street location.
Emily Murphy and I went to a workshop with Australian soda-firing guru Gail Nichols
at the Northern Clay Center in Minneapolis. I was kind of “new” to the soda process and
still learning a lot. She showed off some of her bowls that she threw and fired on their sides.
I was intrigued enough that when I got back to the studio, I made my own version of the
inspirational “Gail Nichols Bowls.”  All bowls are similar, but each have a different soda
flashing effect. Some more subtle. Some more dramatic. Some blasted with soda.
And not a single stamp to bee seen anywhere… like I said, it was several years ago!

And if you stop by my place, or come to my Holiday Home Show,
you can see this full stack of bowls still on top of my kitchen cabinets!