After three very busy days I think that hosting ‘Art in the Garden’ here as one of ten open gardens was very worthwhile. While we had a heat wave I wondered if there would be any colour at all and it was too hot to do garden maintenance except in the evenings. Now that we’ve had some rain and it’s cooler I can relax and enjoy poddling out there in the garden without pressure, when I’m not in my studio.

Last Friday my TriCity pottery friends came here to deliver their clay creations. My second cousin Randi-Lee, the ‘Barefoot Gardener’, and her friend Kim spent much of the day here too, helping to decide where and how the artwork should be displayed. Randi-Lee was here earlier in the Spring doing an ‘upcut’ on a large and out-of-control maple and was keen to make my garden into a ‘potter’s garden’. She brought out from its home in the Commercial Drive area a fine ten-gallon Medalta pickle crock as a display plinth. Perhaps I’ll use it as a glaze bucket now. Also displayed in the area by my kiln shed were two smaller Medalta crocks which come from the Saskatchewan homestead of our common grand and great grandparents. I like that.

Saturday brought serious rain as the first of over a hundred visitors began to arrive. Keen gardeners all, they ignored the rain and enjoyed walking all around our house to discover miniature houses, bird-baths, succulent planters, bird-feeders, mushrooms, flowers, vases and masks in flower beds, on the fence and hanging from trees.

I have made a small Picasa album to record photos taken by Alan and me of some of the many clay pieces shown here on Saturday. Quite a few pieces were sold, especially Brigitta Schneiter’s whimsical chickens, bird baths and succulent planters. But mainly I feel that the day was a great opportunity for the potters to spend time discussing each other’s work, to meet visiting gardeners and to consider which pieces appeal to collectors and look right in various areas of a garden.

https://picasaweb.google.com/112208740085943894765/ArtInTheGardenJuly192014

Thank you so much to the potters who spent many hours here volunteering and to the organizers of the whole Art in the Garden event.

On Sunday the garden hosts and some of the artists joined a tour of each other’s gardens, an all-day event, winding up at a potluck supper at the home of one of the organizers. A fascinating day! Photos of that day will follow soon.