YES! it's that time of year again! Fairie Festival Season is upon us!
We're packing up pots & our fairie finery and heading east over the mountains for one of my favorite festivals of the year- Spoutwood Farm's Fairie Festival is happening this coming weekend.
This is a magical show in a beautiful, bucolic spot that is annually invaded by all sorts of fairies, pixies, picties, orcs, mudsprites & all sorts of other magical beings. YOU need to put on your 'fairie best' and come out to play with us!
We'll have lots of pots fresh from the kiln, our two smallest dogs & Darrell in a kilt!

How can you miss this occasion?!
I didn't think so.
Here's the info:

Spoutwood Farms Fairie Festival
Spoutwood Farms, Glen Rock PA
May 2, 3 and 4 2008
Great good times, lots of happy kids & animals, awesome crafts & fairie abundance await! We hope to see all y'all there!

but, if you can't make it (simultaneously pouting & making come hither gestures) you could try to consul yourself by doing a bit of shopping at my Etsy shop: DancingPigPots@etsy.com

Hail & Welcome to Dancing Pig Pottery's blog.
Here's what's happening this week:

Our big, biG, BIG news is that Dancing Pig Pottery finally has an online outlet- that's right, after years of foot dragging & excuse making, we're finally selling our pots online, and so far it's been great. We've got a shop over on Etsy, which is an awesome handmade/crafts marketplace. As a seller, i love how easy everything is for me over there. I should have done this years ago!
Check our our Etsy store & don't forget to bookmark it & share it with all your friends!

and then, there's this: Despite a stunning lack of publicity, we are in fact going to be in Maryland, THIS WEEKEND, selling pots. That's right, it's our semi-annual appearance at

Art of Fire's Open House & Studio Tour

I love this "rite of spring"! It's my first show of the spring season & i get to show off all the cool stuff we've been working on over the winter break. We'll have lots of chocolate pots and there will be lots of Ceilidh pots (the ones that Jill/Bran & i have been collaborating on) as well. Plus, our newest puppy, Ursa Minor, (pictured in this post) will be making her social debut. Even if you don't need pots (and really, doesn't everyone NEED pots?- don't answer that!) you should at least stop by for a chat & a cuppa tea.

That's all happening
THIS WEEKEND Friday, Saturday & Sunday, April 11, 12 & 13
from 10 til 5 each day.

As an added bonus, our neighbor from Maryland Renaissance Festival, Allen the Printmaker, will be at the Art of Fire's Open House also. It'll be like a little mini Renn Fest Spring Preview!

Details about the other studios on the tour can be found here
Details about Art of Fire & a street address for mapquest purposes can be found here
and last but certainly not least, a direct link to our up to date calendar,
with the rest of our spring show schedule in all it's glory can be found here

(above: Ursa, cooling down after playing w/ the big dogs)

y'all know i'm a sucker for dogs, right? well, below, meet Ra, a very wonderful pooch we met & hung out with at the Florida Renaissance Festival last month. Ra worked across the street at the hawk & falcon show. She'd come hide under our tablecloths when she needed a break. But more about that show later...

Spring is Springing! or, as our friends at Art of Fire (the great glass studio & gallery in Maryland) say:

"Spring has sprung.
The grass has rise.
The Art of Fire is where it is."

or, something like that.
Anyway, we're going to be at the Art of Fire for the Countryside Artisans Spring Studio Tour & Open House.
It's happening Friday, Saturday & Sunday, April 11 thru 13 from 10 til 5 each day.

We'll have lots of pots fresh from the kiln! In theory, we've been making pots all winter, so come on by and see what's new! Enjoy a spring drive in the country & get some great pottery and glass.
What more could you ask for?! Well, we've got an extra attraction this year- our neighbor at the Maryland Renaissance Festival, Allen Ye Printmaker will also have his tent set up on the lawn with us! It'll be a mini Renn Fest, a spring preview if you like. So come on out & see what all the cool kids have been up to this winter!

And if you want to know where we'll be the rest of this spring, check out our freshly updated calendar here: Pig Futures, Dancing Pig's Calendar page.

If you check that out, you'll notice that our May & June is a bit light at the moment. Do you know of any great shows in the mid-Atlantic or Ohio or West Virginia that would be better if they had our pottery & leather? Please, drop me an email: pig@dancingpig.com and let me know about it. Cause i still need a new laptop & the price of gas is kicking our arse right now. We need shows that are cheap, close to home & very very lucrative right now. I know they're out there- we just need your help in finding them!

Thanks for any input you might have.
I'm gonna go make dragon mugs!
opps, but first, a few pictures from our recent "drive south" we went to the Florida Renaissance Festival, here's our booth there:
The theme of our recent southern tour seemed to be packing. Or unpacking. Or packing again. Below, our mascot pig, Amanda, determined not to be left behind:



And i'll leave you with a picture of Jill, our wonderful glaze monkey who has a new title, that of packing b!tch. She can get more stuff into less space than anyone i know. All hail the wonderfullness that is Jill. She's all that got Darrell & me & all our stuff home from Mississippi with all of our stuff (& our marriage) intact.
(you might not be able to tell, but the door of our trailer is actually bulging in the picture below)

We're going to Gulf Wars soon.
And, even as i type, Darrell is down in Florida, selling pottery and leather at the Florida Renaissance Festival.
Darrell is there, but the camera isn't.
And i know i've been slack about give y'all pictures lately, so i thought i'd post a few pictures of what the studio looks like these days:

this is the door to the studio. You might not be able to tell, but i seem to have gathered a collection of cranky signs. The one over the door says "Abandon all hope ye who enter here"
The white sign says "welcome" in fancy formal lettering & then the gargoyle has scratched u-n in from & d in the back.
and the grey sign below that says simply "go away"
Can you tell that i'm kinda possessive about my work space?!



Well, if you can get past the hostility & wander through the mud & very enthusiastic doggie dance of welcome, once you're inside the studio you'll see my potter's wheel, which is where i'd spend all my time if i could:

But alas, i have to do other things as well, such as glaze the pottery when Jill's not around to bail me out. This is my work table, filled with pots that need to be glazed and on the right, the desk where i sit & look out at my river while i'm decorating my pots:









and last, but certainly not least, there are the studio dogs, who spend most of their time crashed out either on the thrift shop couch or cuter than i can stand, burrowed into the pile of plastic bags that my clay comes in. I stash the empties under the wedging table & of late, this is where both Budgth & occasionally Ursa spend most of their time. This unbearably cute behavior is what made me bring the camera out to the studio, so brace yourself for cuteness:


Can you stand it?! Neither can i! And i'm subjected to sights like this every day! It's a wonder i get any work done at all! But now, it's late & i'm going to turn off a kiln & go to bed. More pictures, and links soon, before we leave for Gulf Wars, i promise.
And, if i'm really efficent, i'm going to have an Etsy store up and running by the end of March!
Keep checking back, it *could* happen!
Blessings from the tired, overworked but also content potter.

we're going back to Florida!
Yep, it's too darn cold & muddy in our WVa river valley, so we're driving south to sunny Florida!
We're looking forward to a week of fun in the sun on the Gulf Coast of Florida on Anna Maria Island, one of my most favorite places in the world!
Then we're heading northish, to central Florida and the Hoggetown Medieval Faire in Gainesville FL. That's happening the last weekend in January & the first weekend of February. Sadly, after that i have to go home to make more pots, but Darrell gets to stay in Florida- he's going to the Florida Renaissance Festival near Fort Lauderdale for five weeks (the rest of February & the first two weekends of March) poor soul!

Then we're all heading back to the Gulf Coast, though it'll be Mississippi this time. Yep, we're going back to Gulf Wars! You should come to, it's just about the most awesome SCA event i've ever been to. Come play with us! & buy some pots too, cause Mama's still without a Mac- yep, i'm still limping along on my refurbished $75 desktop PC & this just won't do! Buy pots, the money will go directly into the "get-Va-a-new-Powerbook-so-she-can-put-some-pictures-on-the-website-&-be-happy-again" fund!
Seriously folks, i'm dying here!

Speaking of computer troubles, here are some pictures for the good folks on the jury for Spoutwood Farm's Fairie Festival: Great pictures of our Leather & Pottery can be found here!