2016 potters announced!

The 42nd Annual Pottery Show and Sale will take place the weekend of December 2, 3 & 4, 2016

Featuring:

Peter Beasecker Chittenango, NY •  Andrew Brayman Kansas City, MO •  Bruce Dehnert Layton, NJ •  Adam Field Helena, MT •  Julia Galloway Missoula, MT • Tyler Gulden Walpole, ME •  Chris Gustin Dartmouth, MA •  Perry Haas Helena, MT •  Mike Helke Stillwater, MN •  Tom Jaszczak Penland, NC •  Nick Joerling Penland, NC • Karen Karnes Morgan, VT •  Michael Kline Bakersville, NC •  Justin Lambert Jupiter, FL •  Robbie Lobell Coupeville, WA •  John Oles Jacksonville, AL • Sang Joon Park Cresskill, NJ •  Doug Peltzman Shokan, NY •  David Peters Helena, MT   •  Mark Pharis Roberts, WI •  Donna Polseno Floyd, VA •  Liz Quackenbush State College, PA •  Seth Rainville Dartmouth, MA •  Noah Riedel Helena, MT •  Deborah Schwartzkopf Seattle, WA •  Mark Shapiro Worthington, MA • Rob Sieminski Phillips, ME •  Kevin Snipes Athens, GA •  Jack Troy Huntingdon, PA •  Adero Willard Chicopee, MA

2016 Potters soon to be announced!

Stay tuned...

Bruce Dehnert on the Annual Pottery Show & Sale:

"Risk-taking is an effort fraught with that Mind’s Eye fail, where what I envision making goes to hell-in-a-handbasket and something else is suggested. Old Church is one of those places that supports and celebrates the follow-through. Therefore, I love the place and its people. It’s a nowhere-like-its-ville. And for a potter this as close to space travel as it gets. Would YOU go?"

"The annual pottery show is unlike anything I've ever seen anywhere."

- Lynda Burke, community member

Robbie Lobell on the Annual Pottery Show & Sale:

"Being invited to the Annual Pottery Show and Sale was a turning point in my career as a potter. Karen Karnes and The Show have educated a sophisticated audience over the past 40 years. Working towards this high-end annual show required my very best work – for the buying audience as well as for my fellow potters. The Show, the potters, the Art Center staff has become an integral part of my community, my best friends. Several shows have been patterned after the Demarest Show, but this Show & Sale has no equal, as it remains about the people -- yes the pots -- but very much about community."

- Robbie Lobell

Mary Barringer on the Annual Pottery Show & Sale:

"The people I have known and the pots I have seen at Old Church over the past thirty years have meant a great deal to me. When I was a young potter, the show offered me a place and a way to imagine what lay ahead, and my encounters there with an attentive and informed audience have bolstered me through many doubts and thin times. Most importantly, the feelings of community and fellowship - of sharing in something larger and longer than our studio lives - have been fundamental to my experience.

It is a poignant but hopeful fact that the show is not quite as unique as it was forty years ago. It was an idea whose success has spawned many offspring - from other, similar organizational events to the pottery trails springing up all over the country. What remains unequalled is the large, far-seeing, and deeply passionate spirit of Karen and Mikhail. Their synergistic energy gave the show its discerning eye and its beating heart, and will carry it into the future."

- Mary Barringer

Rob Sieminski on the Annual Pottery Show & Sale:

"How to speak of these many years of coming to Demarest?

back when I was, skinny and my pots were lean, and so full of excitement and the craziness of youth and it’s certainty, my friend Mitch Lyons and I drove up the New Jersey Turnpike and together walked into the unknown of the Art School at Old Church... what to expect? what would we see? would anyone come?

it was a leap of faith in response to a request from Karen to participate in what she called...

 “ this little show we have”.

into the parking lot we came, opened the back door and slowly found our lives altered in the most wonderfully crazy and inexplicable ways as the time passed.... through the years, so many pots flowed in and out of those doors so many hands and hearts left visible in baked mud... such love and thought and effort expressed in countlessly varied manners... all coming to this place, at this time, for this weekend coming from the mountains, the cities, the suburbs, the plains and of course all those folks from, you bet, Minnesota... so many different people, all here, all believing in this weekend Temple of pottery... all believing making pots was indeed a noble undertaking and proving it in spades... the spine tingling reassurance of it was intoxicating... and that was before the conversations, both verbal and visual, the dinners and parties that cemented such a wonderful sense of community and its wide breath... entrees of expansion and learning... here at,  “ this little show we have”

as if that wasn’t enough... the dessert arrived... people began lining up outside, early, to get in first, lots of people and more and more of them they came from all over and kept coming... full of questions, lathered with interest, knowledgeable , curious and appreciative... wanting to buy  things!!! not just look, but, ravenously buy the pots our love and thought and effort held close by others, living in the world and speaking to countless numbers of people, daily, for the price of a quiet glance, in a brief moment, after a long day... all because someone chose to want them and share them in their life, thereby completing our cycle of object making... is this not the best dessert imaginable?

here at... “this little show we have” "

- Rob Sieminski

Jeff Shapiro on the Annual Pottery Show & Sale:

"As for the Old Church Demarest show, it is unique in many ways. The fact that the quality of the 30 potters/ceramic artists is always so high stands out amongst any other group shows. The show has an educational aspect in that it allows the visiting audience an opportunity to learn and interact with the potters and artists that is otherwise not available.

And finally, for me perhaps a bit selfishly, it allows me to spend time with old friends, see fresh and excited new faces as in the younger generation that is coming up, and spend time with people who I have admired over the years, but perhaps have not had the chance to meet."

- Jeff Shapiro

Aysha Peltz on the Annual Pottery Show & Sale:

"I have been attending the Annual Pottery Show and Sale since I was an undergraduate student in Western NY. Friends and I would make the drive to Demarest to see great pots and talk to potters. I considered this trip an important part of my education. It was always exciting to be able to see such a large amount of good work in one place and talk to the makers- I was always a bit star struck.

Now, as an invited artist, I still feel a similar excitement at being able to see such a large grouping of incredible pots and catch up with friends both old and new. "

- Aysha Peltz

Matthew Metz on the Annual Pottery Show & Sale:

"I think the things that excite me about coming to the show are pretty similar to the public’s. Pottery in the US has become incredibly and wonderfully diverse.  The show here has always been reflective of that. I look forward to seeing what old friends are making this year, and who is new to the show and the field. Invariably, I leave Demarest with new pots to join others in the cupboard, all of them filled with memories and stories."  

- Matthew Metz