It's the most wonderful time of the year!

We're back, just in time to remind folks about one of my favorite events of the Holiday Season:

Please join us in the beautiful bucolic Maryland countryside for the annual

HOLIDAY OPEN HOUSE and STUDIO TOUR!

At ART of FIRE's wonderful compound in Laytonsville Maryland Saturday and Sunday December 5 & 6 and then again December 12 & 13 From 10 till 5 all 4 days.

As has become tradition, TUATHA, that wonderful traveling gallery of Celtic Loot will be sharing our space and our neighbor from the Maryland Renaissance Festival, Allen the Printmaker, will be in Art of Fire's gallery- that's 4 amazing artisans in one stop!

But wait, there's more! We'll be selling mead making kits and more to the point, we'll have mead SAMPLES from Ambrosia Farm- as well as hot cider and of course, Theda's amazing cookies in the gallery! And GreenMan Leather will have some good stuff, we've got some great sage bundles from D's native american pals & i've finally got some hand knitted hats to sell- you gotta check out my Pumpkin Hats for adults! And Acorn Hats. And Gnome Hats too!

And, there's even more: we're just one stop on Countryside Artisan's Studio Tour, which has some great new studios nearby- you can pick up a map from us or download one from their site: http://countrysideartisans.com

You can get all of your holiday shopping done without ever setting foot in a mall. We've got gifts for Celts and anyone else with great taste, and it's all handmade by folks who's passion for what they do shines through into the art and craft they make and sell. It's a gift not only for the folks you give to, but also to yourself- you don't have to go to the mall or through the computer, you can actually get out into the fresh air, meet real people, share some mead and cider, talk, laugh, relax and get your holiday shopping done at the same time!

We can't wait to see you there. Please come and visit, cause I miss my Maryland (and DC and Virginia) peeps. I wanna catch up & get some hugs & maybe even sell you some pottery while i'm at it!

PS bring your friends & relatives, spread the word... i'm broke & would love to meet your pals, especially if they appropriate great Celtic pots & other loot!

for detail & directions you can go to either the Countryside Artisans site or Art of Fire's site: http://artoffire.com or our website: http://dancingpig.com or be really old fashioned and call us: 304-377-1952

We Aren't Dead! (yet)

...though Pennsic and the Maryland Renaissance Festival almost killed us off.
(above, me & my family modeling our spiffy new Dancing Pig shirts at Assateague Island on our all too brief August vacation)
We've returned to the hills of West Virginia to rest up & restock.
We've got our Etsy stores back up & are making plans for Holiday Sales.
We're looking forward to the SCA Holiday Market Fair in Manassas Virginia on November 21
and then we'll be at December Studio Tour and Holiday Open House at the Art of Fire Glass Studio in Laytonsville Maryland for the first two weekends of December.
We'll have lots of pots and plenty of other goodies for sale at both events so start making plans & we'll see you at one or both of these fine festive events!

(on the right, my friend & fellow merchant scum, Mary P from Tuatha Gallery at last December's Open House. How much fun is she having? You need to come find out!)


I gotta go make more pots!!!

Buy Pots (and Mead Kits) this Saturday!

Hello friends & fellow potheads!
Just a quick, last minute note to let y'all know that our friends from Ambrosia Farm will be selling our pottery and Brand New T-shirts along with their shirts and Awesome Mead Kits at the 10th Annual Adams County Irish Festival this Saturday July 18!
It's happening very near Gettysburg, PA an easy drive from DC and Philly. If you're going to Pennsic, this is a great chance to grab some mead kits & get them started so you can have some incredible home brewed mead to impress your friends with AT WAR NEXT WEEK!!! Yep, these are _quick_ mead kits. All you need to make a gallon of mead is the kit, a few pounds of honey, a gallon of water & a week or two for them to brew. If you can make tea, you can make these delicious meads! The kits are an elegant, affordable way to brew your own. Which you can then serve in Dancing Pig Pots, of course!
All of which can be found, at very reasonable prices, at AMBROSIA FARM's booth at the ADAMS COUNTY IRISH FESTIVAL this Saturday, July 18.
Hope you can make it, it should be a great good time! Me? I'm gonna stay at home in WV, frantically making pots for Pennsic! But say hello to Rob for me! And, as always, mention this post & you'll get 10% off all pots purchased at the show!

Dancing Pig Shirts For Everyone!!!

How cool is that?!
Yep! My friend Rob and I designed the first ever Dancing Pig Shirt.
A cool orange 100% cotton, printed in the US of A, with very fun dancing piggies on both the front and back.

The front of the shirt has 4 colours & 3 pigs w/ mugs. A conga line!!!



The back of the shirt is just one colour, with one pig & our awesome shop motto: Buy Two. Get More.








and we've come up with a cool, pre release special. If you buy the shirt before the end of July, we'll sign & number your shirt. Be the first kid on your block with a cool, personalized custom shirt from the awesomest potter you know!!!
added bonus: Anytime you show up in our booth wearing our shirt you'll get a 10% discount on anything you buy from us! That's right, a lifetime Dancing Pig Discount~ how can you pass that up, i ask you?
Buy the shirt now at my Etsy store <--click there to go directly to the listing for the shirt and while you're there, buy some pots too.
Remember:Buy Two, Get More!

I gotta go make pots for Pennsic.
Read all about my pre Pennsic Panic on my twitter feed. And become our fan on Facebook.
We're techno potters now, baby!
Next up on the technological front: a feed from my Etsy store to this blog. Hopefully coming soon.
Back into the mud for me.

Festival Season is in full swing!

And fast approaching is one of the highlights of our year, the sweet 16th annual Potomac Celtic Festival!
It's a great good time, an amazing site (& sight as well) full of fantastic crafters, great music & overwhelming Celtic Spirit. Even if you're only Celtic on St. Patrick's Day, you need to come experience this festival. And, buy some pots too, of course!
It's happening June 13 & 14 this year,on the green next to the Morven Park Mansion and Museum in Leesburg, VA.
In addition to our wonderful selves, there will be all sorts of amazing artists there, several of whom rarely come to festivals in the mid-Atlantic region: Capall Glas Studio and Wild Ravens and Tuatha Gallery and Hayman Celtic Jewelry (Michael's coming all the way from Louisiana!). And then there will be many of the great artists from the Maryland Renassiance Festival: Crafty Celts and Wolfstone Kilt Company and Potomac Leatherworks and Misc. Oddiments... I could go on, but you get the idea. Check out PCF's merchant page for links, cause it's late & i'm tired!

So, one last bit of news from us. We've got a new line of pots! They don't really have a name yet, but it'll have something to do with the moons and stars that are the decorative motif. Here's a sneak peak: pretty cool, huh?! I'm gonna have lots of these new guys at Potomac Celtic Festival (she types in her best come hither font) and hopefully there will be some for sale on my Etsy site (which, as we all recall and have bookmarked, is www.dancingpigpots.etsy.com )as well. Soon. No, really. Tomorrow maybe.
But tonight, i'm done. I'm gonna get to sleep, to dream of pots and Celts playing under the trees at PCF. And i hope to see many of you there, then.
Tired and muddy blessings & hugs,
~Virginia

Ready or not, we're hitting the road

Yep, it's that time of year again. The trees are budding, our river is rising, our back yard is (according to our @ursapup at least) "a glorious mudpit and we're getting ready to (say it in yer best fake Scots accent, laddie) "Hit ta Rrrrrroad" as we seek fame and fortune (well, really, just fortune) (or, if i'm completely honest, enough money for gas, food, the electric bill and the next show's vendor fee) by selling our pottery and leatherwork throughout the mid-Atlantic.
(to the right, our Bug Dog is packing up for a road trip!)

First up, the great Loch Norman Scottish Festival is THIS WEEKEND!!! April 18 & 19 in beautiful Huntersville NC. This is a great show & we have an awesome time in the historic area- it takes a bit of effort to find us, but it's worth the walk. There are several other cool merchants up on our hill, including Crafty Celts and, if we get lucky, Curiosities Made will be there as well!

Sadly, we aren't going to be at the Spring Open House and Studio Tour in Laytonsville MD this coming weekend. Easter has messed up my calendar and i don't have enough pots to stock two shows. But never fear, we'll be back in Laytonsville at Art of Fire for the December Open House!!!

There are lots of other shows looming on our horizon, including two FAIRIE FESTIVALS. Please check our calendar page (www.pigfuturescalendar.blogspot.com) for all the details, and then come on out to play with us! We're planning on a very busy and fun filled spring and we hope we can see YOU soon, at a Festival Near You.


Of course, as always, if you can't make it to a festival, please shop with Dancing Pig online in our Etsy Store: http://dancingpigpots.etsy.com
and don't forget our sister store aka stuff made by my blue eyed, redneck Indian husband and his tribal brother: http://GreenManLeather.etsy.com

Green blessings and muddy hugs from your frantic potter friend
~Virginia

Imbolc Greetings!

Hello Friends-
i'm writing this on the evening of Imbolc, February 2. Imbolc is an old pagan/Celtic holiday, usually dedicated to Bridget, a Goddess of Creativity and the Hearth. The group that i celebrate the wheel of the year with celebrates Imbolc by gathering around a hearth. We tell each other stories, the history of our group and we celebrate our creativity. It's my favorite holiday, because it really feels like family and home to me, spending a long dark night gathered near the fire, really listening to my friends. And "celebrate we will" to quote that ancient bard Dave Matthews, this coming Saturday.
But i also wanted to spend this evening- not exactly celebrating per se, as much as codifying what we do here at Dancing Pig.

I've been putting this off for a while now, but i really do feel the need to create some sort of overview of the glazes, clays and shapes we produce here at Dancing Pig's World Headquarters. The trouble is, i'm not sure exactly how to go about it, especially within this blog format.

I've been procrastinating long enough. I'm going to begin and hope that this isn't too much of a horrible mess.

So, ::ahem::, err,

Here at Dancing Pig, i make pots. One at a time, each on my ancient potter's wheel (seriously, i think it might be as old as i am, and trust me, neither of us are going to see 30 again. Maybe not even 40). I decorate most of these pots. (sometimes my sister, Jill/Bran carves the Ceilidh pots). Then i glaze most of the pots. (sometimes Darrell helps me with this, sometimes Jill does, i'm hoping to recruit Nic aka the kid nextdoor, but i need money to procure his services). The pots are fired in the electric kiln that i load and unload. They are priced and packed and then sold at shows- Celtic Festivals, Renaissance Festivals, Fairie Festivals and online, via Etsy.
I take the money i make from selling pots and buy more clay and pay my electric bill and make more pots. (cue music...."the circle of life")

It is really, really important to me to make pots that people will use in their everyday life. I believe that we each of us need to touch something handmade, something made with love and integrity, eavery day. It's a spiritual thing for me. I'm making my life, my living with my hands. I'm putting a small part of my soul into each pot i make and i'm sharing that with you. You get to take my pots with you, into your cubicle or your weaving studio, and drink your tea out of something that was made by human hands. That matters. To me, it is vital and important enough for me to spend my life working in the mud to make it happen more often for more folks. Folks like you.

OK, i'm spinning off into philosphy and mission statements. I want this post to be about the pots i make.

Spiraling back:
Here at Dancing Pig we make functional pottery, often decorated with Celtic and/or nature motifs. We make our pots with stoneware clay. The clay comes in 3 colors:
white,






tan and








dark red/brown.

I often use the same glaze on each type of clay- for example, in the pictures above, that's the same green glaze on both the white clay and the dark red/brown clay. Quite a change, huh?!

We tend to group the pots we make into colourways. About 60-70% of the pots i make are done in the white clay, because the white clay tends to show the glaze to the best effect. (and by best, i mean bestselling, which is important after all- if i make pots folks don't like, they don't sell. And i don't get to make more pots)

So, in the white clay we have:


Celtic Vine : Green and white glaze on white clay with my Celtic Vine carved on a band around the neck of the pot.


















Landscape Soft Blue and Green glaze on white clay, often with prehistoric chalk figures or greenmen added.



















Pete's Blue A very dark, almost black, blue glaze with a white liner and knotwork band or pithy sayings around the neck of the pot.













And you know what?! it's late, i'm tired and i have to poke about on Flickr to get the rest of my pics in order to finish this post. So, i'm gonna stop here for the evening and finish this post, with the rest of our colourways, another time. Soon. I promise. No, really. Goodnight for now!