Circle of Life

I met Jim in grad school at the University of Oregon in 1981. He balanced his time between parenting two young kids, being a student, and earning a living as a woodworker. On the week-ends, he usually headed up to Portland to sell his wooden lamps at the Portland Saturday Market. One Saturday I decided to tag along. I was a pretty serious graduate student, immersed in French literature (and probably a bit full of myself). I thought that setting up a booth at a street fair was kind of a curious way to make a living. In fact, I thought the best part of the day was when we headed to a local bar for some post-market food and drink. I can't remember much about the bar except that I met a couple of potters that night - a husband and wife, who were the same age as Jim and myself. 

Now, here we are, 28 years later...and that same potter, Carl Warne, is about to move his pottery next to our pewter studio. He is the talented potter whose great skill can be seen in each piece of our American stoneware. We can't wait for him to be right next door to us. We're going to have a big old pizza party the day he moves in. The crazy thing about the pizza party is that we are paying for it with proceeds from the sale of some of Jim's oldest woodworking tools. It's our own little Circle of Life, I guess!