We love sharing our annual group photo taken each year at our signature Clayfolk Show & Sale. Here’s the one from the 2015 show!
The 40th Annual Clayfolk Show & Sale has once again exceeded expectations! Thanks to all of the participating Clayfolk members who served as Chairs, worked on committees and work shifts, and created the outstanding ceramics which drew thousands of customers the show.
Click on image below to for your personal use.
Join us for what promises to be the best and largest Clayfolk Show & Sale in history. Over 70 clay artists will be featured, 40 years of history celebrated and potters from across the state will show their work throughout the weekend.
Check out the show details here.
My husband’s job brought us to the Rogue Valley in the mid 70’s from Portland. Fresh out of art school I still had much to learn about the pottery world and making a living from clay. In Portland I had been working at a group pottery studio and I missed my pottery friends terribly along with the many places to sell finished work. As I set up my studio and met other clay artists I kept thinking that there was potential for a clay community. So a couple of us planned a potluck meeting where we invited all the clay artists we knew, just to see if we could get something going. From that small beginning Clayfolk was born, with the only requirement for membership being an interest in clay.
Forty years later, it is wonderful that Clayfolk continues to be a place where clay artists can get together to share ideas, knowledge, and great potlucks. The annual Clayfolk Show features an impressive variety of work in clay that always confirms for me what an amazing group we are and how wonderful it is to live in a community that appreciates and supports the ceramic arts.
Photo: Bonnie in 2008 from Mail Tribune article.
Details about the 40th Annual Clayfolk Show & Sale.
Visit the Clayfolk 40 years of history page for more stories and photos.
Elk Creek Pottery friends, Michael Hammond and a bunch of people up Elk Creek (on
the way from Medford to Crater Lake) had a huge studio, communal living area above
the studio and several kilns including experimental small wood stoked underground kilns,
mostly made by them with infinite craziness and dedication. Michael lived in a partially
underground house with dirt floor, woodstove and home made furniture. They often
invited the Clayfolk potters to a wild wood firing at the creekside. A smallish Raku kiln
was started off with a portable propane burner, then we all took turns feeding it wood
kindling to get it up to temperature. After a long evening of firing we would heat some
bricks in the kiln, pluck them out with tongs and run down the bank to a willow sweat
lodge that had been previously set up. After steaming ourselves pink, we jumped in the
ice cold creek. There was a wood cook stove brought to the party as well as an upright
piano. In the morning they cooked us breakfast on the stove and different ones played
the piano. This would go on for days.
Another memory was the chicken coop pots (1976-77-ish). Barbara White (later Boye),
Doug Black and I cleaned up an unused chicken coop on Barbara’s mom’s property up
Sardine Creek by Gold Hill with linoleum for floor, 3 pottery wheels, shelves, and a
handcrafted sign. We fired our pots in Central Point with a woman from whom we later
bought her kiln. Nancy Claypack and others had a pottery community up the creek and
we all got together to confer about pot )and party. Barb, Doug and I called ourselves
“chickencoop pots” and we sold mostly planters to local garden shops. I lived on the
property by this time in a 1937 school bus and Doug had a tiny trailer. At one point we
decided to build an underground kiln like we saw at Elk Creek on Barb’s mom’s place.
We borrowed a pug mill and clay mixer from Elk Creek Pottery (millions of pound
each…groan–probably the origin of all later back problems) and made large soft bricks
with a mixture of fireclay and earthenware. We then leveled a spot and stacked bricks
in a circle igloo style to make our kiln. (how hard could it be right??) Our plan was to fire
it in place with wood waste from local woods around us. (cool huh?) a few weeks into
the process and ready to put in the capstone and it began to rain….rain….rain….and the
whole thing caved in. What a mess. Needless to say Barbara’s mom was not too
impressed.
Clayfolk was just getting started then because I remember a show we did in a building
(now gone) that was part of the old Jackson County Fairgrounds. Barb got an idea to
borrow fruit boxes for display which worked out very well. Al Dockwieler uses them to
this day at the Clayfolk Show. She also suggested that we all put pictures of ourselves,
“the artist as a child,” up in our booths…everybody did it and it was very fun to see.
Details about the 40th Annual Clayfolk Show & Sale.
Visit the Clayfolk 40 years of history page for more stories and photos.
JOHN DODERO
The first Clayfolk show I participated in was probably in 1978. As i remember a lot of the potters were folk I had done shows with in Oregon or Northern California, so It was a congenial atmosphere , just like setting up in another city for another show.
It was one of the first collective shows around so having to work together to put the show on was a bit unique, but as always everyone put their shoulder to the wheel and we pulled it off.
The most vivid memory was the venue, if you can call it that; due to the scant budget we were setting up in one of the old county fair buildings that was located off Stuart on south pacific highway 99 in Medford, around where the Veterans park is now. Some of us had to set up in what was a livestock area, straw on the floor, stalls and all, guess that defined your space, but it was very cold and FUNKY! But what the heck, it those days we were use to setting up in a gutter somewhere at a street show and took it all in stride.
Visit John at Booth 54 at the upcoming 40th Annual Clayfolk Show & Sale.
Details about the 40th Annual Clayfolk Show & Sale.
Visit the Clayfolk 40 years of history page for more stories and photos.
Dan Minard, 2007
I began participating in Clayfolk shows in 1993 when I lived in Ashland. Those 22 years since have seen some changes, including a move north to Eugene. I remember my first show was in a vacant store near Sears at the Medford Center. Ray Foster, Phil Fishwick, a few others and I spot painted the walls the day before set up day.
The next year we moved out to the Jackson County Fairgrounds. I remember many things from those earlier days. We all worked hard for the show as we still do. I was Chair of the Sales area for several years on, then off, then on again. Everyone worked well together. Clayfolk always had a strong community and strong community support too. In a way our success has grown out of that.
I’m happy to be participating again this year in Booth #56.
Dan Minard
www.bluffcovepottery.com
Details about the 40th Annual Clayfolk Show & Sale.
Visit the Clayfolk 40 years of history page for more stories and photos.
