Today I was contacted by an Estate Sale coordinator. She was asking if I sign my pots with the signature “Gary.” After a little double-checking, I found out that a collection of my work is going up at an Estate Sale at the end of the month. Hopefully another pottery-lover will snatch them all up to start their own collection!

I find it pretty cool that she could track me down purely by my signature!
Although I’m still not quite sure how I feel about my pots being in an Estate Sale???…
I guess better than a Goodwill or Salvation Army, huh?

Click here for the link if you want to go snatch them up yourself.
I’m sure you’ll get a great deal on them!

It might be freezing here in Chicago, but it’s never too soon to start planning
my annual Spring trip to Minnesota for the BIG POTTERY TOUR!!!

So excited… my poster arrived today for the St. Croix Valley Pottery Tour!!!
Fifty-one amazing potters at seven studio locations. All along the beautiful
Upper St. Croix River Valley. Beautiful scenery. Beautiful pots!

If you want to get excited too, click here for their website! www,minnesotapotters.com.
And then mark your calendar for May 9th, 10th & 11th… Mother’s Day Weekend…
and I’ll see you there with shopping bags in hand!

Okay, so I’ve been snowed in for two days with sub-zero temperatures in Chicago.
And I’ve now been on Pinterest for those same two days.

Now I wouldn’t say that I’m addicted or anything, but it’s only been two days
and I’ve already pinned over 800 pictures!!! I’ve even added two more boards.
One of my “biking sunrises” and another of “nature’s art.”
Sure, they’re all my own pictures so far… soon I’ll need to start pinning someone else’s
pictures when I run out of my own!!! Don’t let the addition take over!!!

So do a search for me on Pinterest and see what I’ve been up to.
Look for “Fire When Ready Pottery” and “Gary Jackson”… or “garyjackson1353“.
Click here for a quick link to my stuff on Pinterest.

Okay, so now I have “official” Fire When Ready Pottery Pinterest boards you can follow.

Yes, I’ve been snowed in and uploading all day.
Five different Pinterest boards full of my pottery images for you to pin & share!
Just do a quick Pinterest Search for the following…

Fire When Ready Pottery

Fire When Ready: Stamping

Fire When Ready: Mugs

Fire When Ready: Tiles

Fire When Ready: Textures

And more to come… although I’m still not sure what I’m doing?!

So I did a little digging around on Pinterest…
trying to figure out how it works, and how I can get started.
I did a quick search and was surprised by the results!!!

If you do a Pinterest search for “Gary Jackson” or “Fire When Ready Pottery”
you’ll find that I’m pretty well represented already! I was surprised how many
of my images came up under each of the categories. So I still don’t quite know
“how to do Pinterest”… but I sure am glad that someone else does!!!

Click here for Pinterest “Gary Jackson.”
Click here for Pinterest “Fire When Ready Pottery.”

So I made a new friend & customer today… thanks to Pinterest!!!!
She found a picture of my new textured wall pillows on Pinterest, apparently admired them and then tracked me down. We connected through e-mails & phone calls to set up today’s studio visit. She brought her designer daughter (with her color-matching PMS color book) to pick out two groupings of textured wall pillows. And now these pieces have found a new home… thanks again to Pinterest!

I’ve never really thought about it, but maybe I need to consider this Pinterest thing?! I “kinda” know what it is, and I’ve heard many customers mention seeing my work on it. But maybe it’s time that I need to start using it myself. Seems like all the cool kids are doing it?!… or am I already too late to hop on this bandwagon?!

Getting ready for my Christmas at home with my family.
MOst of my presents are wrapped, by nbags are packed and I just finished making my hot fudge cheesecake I’m bringing with for Christmas Dinner. I hope I can wait that long… might look bad if I showed up and there were already a few bites missing. huh!?!

Seems like so long ago… but in my last soda kiln, I fired some new work including these textured wall pillows. I’ve been trying to come up with a new piece for the holiday Home Shows. Something new for people to hang on the wall. I’ve already made ceramic masks and tiled ClayQuilts. Oh, but what to do next… and I came up with these. I started by making these textured round tiles that hang flat to the wall… with a little depth to pop them off the wall. Here’s a quick “teaser’ of a few of them as I was unloading the kiln.

I made them in three different sizes.  My hope is that people will make their own collections, and decide how to hang them on their walls in all different configurations. I threw together this first one on my living room wall as an example for the first Holiday Home Show. It’s a quick “constellation” of textured tiles.

And now I’ve thrown together a few more examples of how they can be used.
Random constellations. Random groupings. Different sizes. Same sizes.
Straight lines. Trios. Doubles. Singles. So many ways to play with them on your wall.

Pick & choose… plenty to choose from to make your own “constellation.”
I had fun making them, so there’s a pretty good chance there will be more coming soon!
Yet, I’m still trying to figure out how I’m going to show them at the summer art fairs???

With my second Holiday Home Show this coming Saturday,
I’ve been getting a few new pieces out of the kiln just in time… limited quantities!
This last batch of glazed pieces comes from a cone 10 reduction gas kiln.
Some of them have some pretty sweet glaze runs & chemical interactions.

You can grab one of these beauties this coming Saturday at my place!
The SECOND Holiday Home Show
Saturday, December 14th from 10:00am-6:00pm.
If you need home address specifics, just send me an e-mail or Facebook message!

A quick glimpse “before & after” a cone 10 reduction glaze firing…
just in time for this Saturday’s Holiday Home Show.

Here’s a stamped platter leatherhard “before”… and glazed “after.”

And here’s a stamped bowl leatherhard “before”… and glazed “after.”