Cleaning the driveway yesterday morning before heading to work was a historic move.  It wasn’t just the best kind of snow, 1 to 2″ of fluffy snow, but the record breaking snow.  Madison exceeded 76.1″ of snow breaking the record of the winter of 1978 & 1979. Its been one of those winters.  Lets see, tornados in January, a fog that causes a massive accident, thundersnow on several occassions, two big melts, ice quakes and a massive traffic jam on the same stretch of freeway (plus another 15 miles).

I can see some people who live in the south scratching their heads, “How can you live in a place with over 6′ on the ground?”  Luckily I don’t, that would be Marquette Michigan.  Luckily snow compacts down & evaporates even in the coldest weather, so the piles on the side of the driveway are only 3-4′ high & this year is probably less then a typical year.  As I mentioned early, this winter hasn’t been typical because we’ve had two big melts that melted most of the snow.  Usually once it gets cold, there isn’t any real melting until March.  The advantage to this is that driving isn’t too bad because the worst part of winter is ice on the roads.  Also if its cold, it tends to be sunny which also helps raise one’s spirits.

Its sort of sad that a website, Art Pottery Manufacturers, needs to be dedicated to help sustain the last remaining pottery companies in the US. But unfortunately the state of manufacturing in the US is so cut throat that they have been disappearing too quickly the last couple of years. Some names remain, but have moved off-shore (sad again). There are glimmers, especially in Wisconsin where we seem to have several companies that are doing well: Ephraim Faience, Door Pottery and Rowe Pottery. The state of Wisconsin Studio Potters looks good, in part due to the success of the above.

The Art Pottery Manufacturers website also has a great listing of links. I will be going through them to find out some more about some of the current larger scale manufacturers of pottery in the US.