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President’s Message

‘The days are short and dark, but studios are nice and toasty because

kilns across the province barely have time to cool down between

loads as we build up stock for the fast approaching Christmas season.

‘This year has been financially rocky around the world and we have

not been immune here in beautiful B.C. We have seen a notable

drop in our own gallery revenues. Despite this, we continue to make

Junichi Tanaka’s unique Alpine teapot.

A magnificently crafted Judy Weeden teapot.

lots of sales and I'd like to remind all gallery artists how important
it is to keep the gallery well stocked with their work—the bigger the
selection the better the sales.

Let the kiln gods smile upon your work! @

—Jinny Whitehead

Ga | le ry N @wWS By Sharon Cohen

Wow, how did this year manage to fly by so quickly? Clearly, here in
the gallery we had a lot of fun, because time flies when you're having
fun! It’s hard not to have fun when you spend every day surrounded by
art and beauty, and have the enviable task of pointing out the highlights
of the art and beauty to our gallery visitors.

Christmas will be here sooner than we think, so it’s time to plan
ahead. Last year at Christmas time, we filled the exhibition space with
teapots, and it looked great and definitely worked in our favour sales-
wise. December shoppers frequently ask for teapots (which makes sense
as teapots truly are the perfect gift). In previous years, as most of our
artists make teapots, we spent much time happily escorting customers
round from plinth to plinth and shelf to shelf showing them each
artist's work. Last year, to make shopping easier, we decided it made
sense to put all the teapots together in one area, and show them with
matching mugs, in the hopes of add-on selling. Apart from the fact that
the “teapot shop” looked really eye-catching and generated a lot of sales,
it was so interesting to compare the visual properties and the techniques
used in all the teapots by all the different artists. It served to highlight
the incredible range and diversity we're privileged to show in the gallery.
From Jinny Whitehead’s subtle wood-fired teapot to Junichi Tanaka's
conversation-piece puffer fish teapot to Gillian McMillan’s duck teapot
(no kidding’), the selection boasted something for every taste.

Td like to call upon our juried gallery artists to help us out yet again
by providing us with teapots for Christmas, over and above healthy
supplies of your regular lines. There’s a good chance the teapots will
sell just as well as they did last year, so please be sure to bring us an
abundance of both teapots and mugs. As you know, any guild member
can sell mugs in the gallery, and it would be wonderful to have some
new mug artists, so this is a shout-out to all guild members to bring
on the mugs!

To the artists participating in Christmas craft shows, I wish you all
the best; I hope sales go well for you. I hope that everyone is in full
production mode so that there’s enough work for your private sales
AND for our gallery. We're hoping for a bumper festive season! @

GUILD ee
of BRITISH

COLUMBIA
a

Potters Guild of BC Newsletter : November 2011 3