Day 57.... Waiting.

It took me 55 days before I got around to making  the mold for my special pot!

It seems like everyday is just a time for waiting. We wait for our paychecks so we can pay our bills, buy some food, go on vacation.  We wait for pottery to dry before we can fire it. We have hopes that tomorrow, next week, next fall, things will get done on the house, we will call or visit old friends, we will pay off our bills or we can fire a pot.

It is hard to relax. It is hard to just rest in today.

So I got the mold done, now I am waiting for it to dry before I can cast the piece in clay. Designs jump into my mind when I try to sit and relax and be still.  Colors, vines, shapes pop into my head.  How to cast that special piece... how to decorate it... what colors should I use.  It is a work in progress and we will see what comes out in the end.

In the meantime, I plan for sales trips, try to keep in touch with my friends and help strangers with pottery questions.



Steve Earp's Rabbit

 And this is what we all do.  I came across a potters blog the other day. I was wandering on the web looking for gigs. There is a high end heritage craft fair about an hour from my home. I ran across a redware potter on their site who has a blog too. So I checked it out and there was Steve Earp. I admire his work, and then I realized I met him at a show last year and we exchanged pottery pieces. I chose a bell shaped piece with a giant rabbit on the top. I like rabbits.
http://thisdayinpotteryhistory.wordpress.com/

It seems he is a kindred spirit and shares my love of history and life of the craftsmen. I am so fortunate to meet other craftspeople. Especially craftspeople who have given up a lot of stuff to follow the difficult path of the self employed craftsmen!





In 1927, my grampa Frank, had been born and working in Brooklyn NY growing plants.  His families greenhouse was doing well, and they came to Torringford to buy a vacation home. It was not this house, but up the street in the Burrville section.  He saw this lovely old brick farm house and barns on a quiet dirt road. The soil was good old farm soil, enriched with horse, chicken and cow poop over the past 100 years. There were sunny fields and a high water table. He bought the property and dug at least 3 wells I know of to water his new greenhouse plants.



Some Albrechts in Brooklyn NY 1925ish



He wanted to go out on his own. To start a business, to be his own boss. I don't know much of his early years, but his business grew and he was able to expand and in 1960, bought his first new car, the blue Rambler.



East Knoll 1945ish... Grampa's 1st Greenhouse on Albrecht Rd





He had bought the property, set up and ran a business everyday and waited.



And that is what we all continue to do. In the meantime, I plan to share the gift I have of meeting new, interesting people. Visit Steve Earps' blog! Read about him and his pots. Support the craftsmen here in the USA. We put our hearts and souls into our work and we are very interesting people!

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Day 54... The People we Live Near To

No casting yet. Today, Today is the day I get it done.



Torringford street... Walmart now on the right



I met my neighbor a few days ago mowing his lawn. We finally stopped to chat and I found out he is the one who has our missing cat, Rascal. Rascal has been living happily in their house for 5 or so years under the name of Cleo. Ernie and his wife have lived out back for 16 years.  Has it been that long?  22 years ago, I moved back to this house and property. Our 14 acres of woods and fields were sold by then to a developer. My grampa was old and someone made him an offer around 20K.  Twenty years ago there was still a stone wall out back. It would be running through this man's house. Where his back deck is, there was an excellent pear tree, still giving us pears in 1978.  My grandfathers horse was burried somewhere near this man's tool shed.  A spring bubbled up in front of his house. My dad would put fish he caught in it to keep them fresh I guess before we ate them. The spring is now contained in a culvert and a tar road splits over it to form a loop for the other 20 houses back there.

It is quite a change.  I know most of my neighbors by sight. Over the years we have had two neighborhood parties. I know the folks surrounding me by name. I know a few up the street that lived here since I was a child. I know some of the parents of my girls' friends. I know some from my old church. I know some from tag sales. One I know because his dog has attacted me a couple of times. I know others because their dog was lost and wandered in my yard. I know some who attend my open house in November.

There are teenagers who walk by from the school bus or on there way to Walmart or McDonalds. They don't usually say hello. They look at the ground or in front of them. They are an isolated lot. I feel for teenagers. They are trapped in these developing bodies full of hormones in a world where adults tell them what to do and when. I say hello to them. I would like to invite them over to sit on the big step and talk or give them some clay to play with. But they usually walk on by.  Little kids over the years wander into the yard and want to stay and play. My neighbors have sterile, well mowed half acre lots. Some have basketball hoops and pools are a big thing for the younger set.



Albrecht Road... 1945ish

 Forty five years ago, my brother and I played out back in the woods. We had trails and forts out there. Blueberry bushes were still there. We went fishing in "Crockett's Pond", fed the cows at Connecticut Livestock, went sliding on the roads and took our bicyles everywhere. We had twenty houses of neighbors on our street.

Seventy years ago, my mom picked blueberries, apples and strawberries, played around the cows and chickens, rode her bike up the dirt road that ran by our house and took lots of photos of her pets, plants and friends with her Brownie camera. There were no other houses or neighbors on the street.

One hundred years ago, there were twin boys living here. Reginald and Winthrop played with their dog, picked blueberries, walked these fields and woods. Climbed these trees. The road ran to our house and from their up was a dirt trail. No neighbors.

Reginald and Wintrop with family blueberry pickers 1910



The Torringford school where Taco Bell is now (1910)



One hundred and fifty years ago, Jennette, Maryette and Martha lived here. The little girls only had cousins to play with. Cousins lived down on the "other" road. I am not sure what they did for fun. I suppose they picked blueberries. Back then, they went to church on Sunday. A mile and a half up the road was the old white church where neighbors gathered to share food and faith. One quarter of a mile up the road was the one-room school where the girls would meet up with neighbors a mile away. There were a couple of stores where neighbors gathered for news and gossip and to exchange goods.

A Torringford Street... Albrecht Road? 1910

I wish we had a local store or cafe where the neighbors would meet each other once and a while.  We have a quicky mart, owned by an old neighbor family. I meet some neighbors there, but there are many travelers stopping in for Dunkin' Donut coffee or a coke. They hurry in and hurry out.  Where the school house was is a Taco Bell, but I haven't been in there yet.  I meet neighbors at Walmart and Price
Chopper on the other corner.  There is where the neighbors meet. In the food isles. Amid strangers from "down town" and strangers from out of town.

I wish there was a cafe on the corner. Somewhere I could walk up for breakfast, sit with my feet near a wood stove or slide into a booth with my neighbors and talk about the gas prices and what is going on down town.  We could have local musicians come in on Saturday Morning and jam. The friendly owner of the cafe would make home made soup and pie, and you would put it on a tab.

There is a Panera bread 1/2 mile up the street, but it has sterile isolated booths and predictable food and coffee. I want to meet the neighbors. I want a place to socialize. I want the neighbors to have a place to go for a cheap real breakfast or to unwind after a work day instead of watching TV at home.

On the other hand, I think I could be happy living like a hermit most of the time. I enjoy just staying home with my yard and work, my dog, cat and family.

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Day 47... Where is this all leading to?

No, I did not cast my special project yesterday. It was cold and rainy. Sixty degrees in the barn is not warm enough for me!  Instead, I cleaned the attic.

The attic of this old house is filled with almost 200 years of stuff.  There was the tape loom, that I took down to reproduce and is now one of my favorite hobbies... weaving tapes like the old days. Before zippers and velcro, folks used buttons and ties for their clothing.

Then I met Eleanor Bittle. She is from Pennsylvania and a wonderful person to talk to with a knowledge of tape looms. I met her at the Mercer Museum in PA. She got me going on the loom business.

Above the one I found in the attic. It is a flat pine board. Crude holes and slats that are now warped. I made a replica below and painted it with milk based paint and a imaginary sketch of my great grandparents, George and Elizabeth Jeppe.

There was also a walking wheel in the attic. I thought my sister may like to take that home as she spins.  Somewhere I have a photo of my daughter Erin using it.

There is a knitting basket that was my grandmothers, a wood block stamp set that was my uncles. Lots of stuff.

There is way too much stuff. Me and my girls are savers, and it was to the point I couldn't walk through to open the windows. It sure is hot up there in August.

The attic is like strolling through the lives of all the folks who have lived here. You can imagine them putting cherished stuff up there, saving it for next generations to share.

We started a tradition in 1982 of putting hand prints on the wall opposite the attic stairs.  We now have Erin, Emily, Isobel and Meta's hand prints. The new generation to enjoy this old house.

A list of all the people who walked these floors and slept between these walls:

Simeon, Experience, Hamlin, Experience, Ransley, Clarissa, Betsey, Sally, Roswell, Luther, William, Nathaniel, Olive, Jenette, Mariette, Martha, Alice, Nellie, Louise, Alpha, Jennie, Reginald, Winthrop, Walter, Corabelle, Paul, Helen, Charles, Frank, Julia, Irene, Phyllis, Newell, Isabel, Richard, David, Regina, Donna, Barbara, David, Alan, Erin, Emily, Josh, Isobel and two little babies, unnamed because they died way too young.

And then there were all the visitors! Hundreds! I have friends whose house has been in their family since 1786!  Their house is really cool. It is brick too. Their stairs are so worn that they have turned into bowls!  Our house has been in just two families. It was also rented out twice. There were two sets of twins here. Babies were born here, people died here.

Someone once asked me if it was scary living in such an old house where so many people have died. In an old house, most of the occupants died at home.  I am more afraid of the living.  We had a family funeral just the other day. A very nice man died way too young. We all have a 100% chance of dying.  What is important, is how we live why we are here and how we treat each other.  There will always be hard and sad times, but somehow we persevere.  I have a slide show on my computer when it is in down time. All my photos flash randomly in front of my eyes as I pass by the computer. Photos are always of good times, people we have lost make me cry, people laughing make me laugh, places I have been, and I think, Life is good. Home, friends, family. Life is good.

And today, while I am still well and getting around, I will go out and make some pottery, pack my students work to take back to school, cast my special pot... maybe.

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Day 45... Time Spent Traveling

I am back! I just spent 6 days in West Virginia. at a Living History conference. What a beautiful place!  It is so nice to travel around and see different parts of the country.  If only our world wasn't so big, then you could go to West Virginia for a weekend, or San Francisco for supper, or Minneapolis for the Monday night square dance, and be home the next day to weed the garden and feed the dog!

And, be home to make pottery. In an effort to save my house from the tax man, I have signed up for 16 more "vacations" this summer and fall!  So where the heck is my special project? I am trying to find time to work on it. Tomorrow I will make the first plaster mold.

In the 1600s, many of my ancestors on both sides packed up their belongings and left their homes in England to travel many miles across the sea.  They could not go back to weed the gardens or feed the dog. They traveled so far that most never went back to their homeland again.

The folks that built this house, their ancestors also came from England in the 1600s.  First to Boston, then to Windsor CT and then just a days journey to Torringford. 

The history of pottery in New England is very fascinating. It had a lot to do with traveling constraints too.  English coming to the Boston area started making pots right away. My favorite quote is...

In Salem MA in 1629. Rev Higginson wrote in a letter home,

“It is thought here is good clay to make bricke, and Tyles and Earthen pots, as need be. At this instant, we are setting a brick-kill on worke to make Brickes and Tyles for the building of our houses.”

Potters had to be in one place to do pottery.  Clay is not very portable. Back then, you used the clay you had, built your shop usually within walking distance to your clay pit, and found other odd jobs to do in the winter when the clay froze and was unworkable. And then there were those hugh kilns! They were not portable at all and took a lot of time to build and maintain. Small pottery shops had to get all the potting done in the spring, summer and fall. Most potters had other things to do too. They weeded the garden, pruned trees, mucked stalls, chopped wood. 

Eventually, the apprentices, sons and nephews, moved to new locations to start their own pottery businesses.  The inland roads were in terrible condition till the middle 1800s.  Yellow clay had to be hauled up by ship from New Jersey, New York and Pennsylvania. We do not have yellow clay here in New England. The feldspar that makes up clay, is contaminated with lots and lots of iron, making the finished pottery red, soft and porous. 

The earliest attempt to make a harder yellow stoneware clay was by Isaac and Grace Parker in the suburbs of Boston in 1742.  They had been making red ware. Isaac knew the importance of the harder yellow clays and took out a loan for 125 pounds to ship clay up from Martha's Vineyard. Forty year old Isaac built a kiln of the clay, hundreds of pots and fired it up with cords and cords of wood.  The kiln collapsed from the high heat and all the pots were broken. They hired an experienced stoneware potter, James Duche,  from PA and he came to live with the Parker's and their 10 children. Another attempt failed and in the fall of 1742 Isaac died!  Yikes. Grace was left with 10 children, the Duche family and the 125 pound loan to pay back. They did not give up. They shipped clay up from Pennsylvania and had a good firing. However, with the onset of the French and Indian war in the middle 1700s, ships were needed elsewhere, the cost of shipping was not feasible and Grace started selling off her property and goods.  In 1776, Grace died and the attempt to make stoneware here in New England was put off for another 100 years when the roads improved and shipping costs went down.

As you can see, history does not change. It cycles. I am finding more and more difficult to do pottery in the winter. Heating the 200 year old barn with all its drafts is not feasible. What with the cutbacks in every ones pay checks, my wholesale orders are almost non-existent, everyday folks are buying pots made in China at Walmart and gas prices are cutting out our tourist business.

I have had to change my lifestyle to a traveling demonstrator.  Hence the 16 more trips that I will go on this summer. I can pack all my pots, wheel, tents and supplies into my tiny Nissan Sentra. Some refer it to a "Clown Car" when it is packed and tables and poles sometimes on the roof!  But, it gets about 32 miles per gallon of gas. 

My dream is a New Ford Transit, painted yellow with blue holding bands and blue feathering....



 But for now, its back to the barn to make some pots, work on that special project and see if I can pay off my taxes first!

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