Cherrico Pottery BIG Pots at Midwest Art Festivals

Art in Bayfront Park

Joel Cherrico will be exhibiting and performing live pottery demonstrations on his York Kick Wheel August 19th and 20th in Duluth, Minnesota at Art in Bayfront Park. One of Joel’s best BIG pottery jars will be on display, as well as a few of his best Cosmic Mugs. This will be Joel’s 7th year participating in this festival. He will also be crafting Cosmic Mugs live and anything else he’s inspired to throw, while breathtaking Lake Superior shimmers in the background.

Just one of his Big Pots will be on display in Duluth. They take a LONG time to make. In a hurried month, Joel can throw, fire and finish 100+ Cosmic Mugs in under a week and have them ready to order, but one Big Pot takes several months from start to finish. Just the drying takes a few months! Read about how Joel creates these beautiful works of art in a blog post he wrote back in 2012:

Big Pots deserve to be displayed on a stand as beautiful as the Big Pots themselves. So, Joel and his team have been creating beautiful wooden slabs over the last month to use as pedestals. The pedestals also help to level the jars on uneven ground. Four different types of wood slabs were harvested in sustainable ways from the St. John’s Arboretum with the help of a full-time forest technician: Aspen, Maple, Sugar Maple and White Oak. Slabs were dried slowly in Joel’s pottery kiln at 100 degrees C. for a few days, and then hand-planed, sanded and finished with love by local woodworker Tom Kuhn.

And yes… that is actually real gold in the bottom right corner of the gorgeous red jar. That is the Cherrico Pottery jar Joel plans to display in Duluth. Hope to see you there!

Millstream Arts Festival

September 24th, Joel’s artistic talent will be on full display when he participates (for the 7th time) in the Millstream Arts Festival, located in his home town, St. Joseph, Minnesota. This is where Joel lives, works and operates Cherrico Pottery. They even generously put his work on billboards around the city.

Joel will be set up with 3-5 more of his best Big Pots right in front of the Local Blend coffee shop, where you can eat an entire meal from his artwork everyday. This interview with the American Craft Council tells how they developed an innovative business model. A few things have changed, but you can still buy pottery everyday and anyone can still go eat an entire meal from innovative pieces of Cherrico Pottery. Hope to see you at Millstream!

Joel is passionate about supporting the community of St. Joseph, and his unique partnership with the Local Blend is a perfect example of that support. If you’re not too busy, come see Joel create his famous Cosmic Mugs and learn more about his artwork by absorbing the energy of his specialty “Big Pots” in person.

“The most important thing is communicating with the user. It is only when the user feels the presence of the hand of the potter that communication truly exists.”

– Warren Mackenzie, 1999 Distinguished Artist Award” The McKnight Foundation

Cosmic Mugs Available Tomorrow on Kickstarter!

The time has come…Cosmic Mugs are launching on Kickstarter tomorrow at 11am CST! I’m very excited to be able to offer a HUGE body of artwork to all of you at the lowest possible prices.

The first 500 mugs will be available for Christmas delivery, but they will probably sell quickly. If you want to snag one for the Holidays, be sure to watch your email 11am tomorrow to get the link for the live Kickstarter, or have a friend snag one for you. Cheers!

cosmic mug in front of Molecular Cloud Cluster, Cherrico Pottery

Studio Shot

Cosmic Mug Studio Shot, Brushing Copper Carb, Cherrico Pottery,

“Science provides an understanding of a universal experience, and arts provide a universal understanding of a personal experience.”

 Mae Jemison, Astronaut

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Cosmic Mugs: Launching soon on Kickstarter!

Cosmic Mug in front of a Planetary Nebula, October

Thank you to everyone who entered the live Cosmic Mug Giveaway! Next Wednesday 10/4, ten lucky winners will have an email in their inbox for a Cosmic Mug to be shipped almost anywhere in the world, totally free!

Ten Free Cosmic Mugs

These mugs are very difficult to create, but I successfully made a bit batch and can afford to give them away for just one more week. The giveaway program increases your chances of winning by referrals to friends and family who might get a kick out of getting their own entry to win a Cosmic Mug. Good luck!

In less than two weeks, I will have a HUGE batch of Cosmic Mugs available at far lower prices on Kickstarter! Watch closely for the next couple email newsletters so you can snag one before they sell out.

Studio Shot

Pottery glaze transforms in the kiln firing by being heated to 2400 degrees F.

“In the case of the artist, I don’t want them to represent reality because I have that via my own telescope. I want and I need the artist to take me to new places.”

Neil deGrasse Tyson

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Cosmic Friday: Five Free Mugs, Studio Shot & One Cool Quote

As new mugs emerge from the kiln fire, I decided to launch this new “Cosmic Mug Giveaway” to give all of you more chances to win free cosmic mugs before they become available for sale:

Five Free Cosmic Mugs

If you’re dying to get your hands on a Cosmic Mug, I have just one more jewel available in my online store here. Feel free to use this 20% off coupon code as a thanks for subscribing to my email newsletter: COSMIC20

Stay tuned for a HUGE body of cosmic pottery available at even further discounted prices in just a few weeks, ready in time for Christmas delivery.

Studio Shot

Cherrico Pottery throwing pottery

“The challenge is to do the thing you have to do because you’re in love with it and can’t do anything else. Not because you want to become famous or rich, but because you will be unhappy if you can’t do it…Keeping up with fashion is the wrong challenge.”

Warren MacKenzie, qtd. in The Studio Potter Journal, 1990

A-Potters-Journey-Magazine-Mug, Warren Mackenzie

This photo features Warren Mackenzie on the cover of American Craft, and was used in my authorship for “A Potter’s Journey: The Search for 1,000 True Fans.”