Adjacent to our demo booth at Art in the Pearl, PNWS members and volunteers set up a Raku glazing and firing station again this year. As we did last year, many of our members sculpted clay pieces in a group setting prior to the festival and showed up throughout the day to glaze their work and witness the firing procedure. A in the P organizers picked the perfect location for this crowd-pleasing demo. We were just inside the north entrance gate under shade trees and just far enough from other booths to avoid disturbing our neighbors with our occasional wafts of smoke. Though we fired over 40 pieces in two days, the operation was casual enough to allow the public to interact with the Raku crew to explain what we were doing. So many participating PNWS members took on the role of educating and making connections with the public that I felt a real sense of pride to be a part of our organization out there doing the work.
Speaking of doing the work, a big shout out thanks to a wonderful turnout of PNWS members participating in our demo booth: Paris and Chris Foley,Teri Fahrendorf, Jessica Stroia, Sherry Wagner, Dave Cole, Wayne Bunker, Nathan Laquay, Leslie Crist, Susan Jones and Andy Kennedy.