Saturday Market opens April 4th! Look for us in space 349 for whimsical and functional stoneware pottery, hand made paper and hardbound books. New this spring from Pulp Romances, new watercolor cards and pocket sketchbooks.

Inflation

I hate raising my prices. I like the idea that my work isn't precious, that it will live on the table every day, rather than up on a shelf in a china cabinet. Unfortunately, I can only hold the line for so long. Clay and glaze prices are up, shipping is way up, electricity and gas don't get any cheaper. Last year, I adjusted prices on my higher-end pieces: casseroles, bakers, colanders and serving bowls and cookie jars. This year, I have to tackle the tableware.

Effective April 1, the following changes will go into effect:

• Painted mugs will go from $25 to $27
• Tall mugs, soup bowls and stew mugs will go from $27 to $30.
• Toddler bowls will go from $23 to $25
• Dessert plates will go from $26 to $28
• Dinner plates will go from $30 to $33
• Cat food dishes will remain $15, but pie plates, which I missed in last year's round up updates, will now be $35 instead of $33.

Items on order before April 1 will be charged at the old prices, but Saturday Market will open with the changes in effect.

Encore Pattern of the Month:

Now Bear With Me...

Someone asked me my sign the other night. (This still happens in Eugene.) I said "Off Center Ceramics, Whimsical and Functional Stoneware Pottery. You've seen it, there's a bear on it."

I admit I was being difficult, but I still don't see why my favorite animal didn't get a place in the zodiac, Greek or Chinese. Though come to think of it, he's actually right in the center of things: the little bear with his tail on the Pole Star. Visible the year round, appropriate in any season.

Like those classical astrologers, I don't have only one bear on my pots. Ursa Minor is probably the fishing black bear, based on a National Geographic photo of black bears catching salmon in the Tongass National Forest. My version appears on coffee mugs, soup bowls, stew mugs, dessert and pie plates, and occasionally covered casseroles and square bakers, even pitchers.

Ursa Major can actually be any of a number of possibilities: grizzlies salmon-fishing on a cookie jar, a shy bear cub in a birch tree on tall mugs and serving bowls, a curious bear investigating a honey tree (or hive box) on honey jars. A mama bear and cub, showing their bear butts as they head away from the viewer. There are a lot of possibilities, and I keeping playing with them, trying new variations.

After all, who doesn't like playing with bears?

See previous patterns...