Friday, November 30, 2007

Exhibition Day





Well, here we are, the afternoon before our exhibition and all is falling into place. The crates, filled with pots arrived wednesday night, less than 2 days before our opening. They sat in customs for 6 days in Bangkok - but fortunately arrived with no problems, all vessels and platters in tact.


And so, Tom and I spent all day Thursday setting up our show. Mom Tri's Villa Royale has a spectacular event planned on our behalf. There will be wine, cheese, food, of course, but also scheduled are 2 traditional Thai dances, scores of Phuket residents & visitors and dozens of press representatives. The man setting up the whole event, Khun Big, tells us "The Jet-set of Phuket" have been invited. (Khun Big, Brenda & Khun Sao - above)



Our setting up took about 8 hours - lots of fidgetting, pricing, talking to passers by. By the end of the evening we were thrilled with our location, pleased with the presentation and eager for the opening to begin. Here's a sneak preview of what it looks like.... below, Khun Dan, GM of Mom Tri's, helps us stabilize the plate holders and pedastals.







Finally, we're ready for the big day. Here - a night shot of our exhibit space.

Tuesday, November 27, 2007




Loy Kathrong Full Moon Festival where thousands of hand made balloons fill the night sky.

Our Initiation to Phuket




Phuket. An Island 72 meters wide and 122 meters long. Beautiful beaches, crazy driving and many Aussies (down under is just a 5 hour plane ride away). On our first eveing we experienced Loy Katrong, the full moon festival where hand made fire balloons rise to the moon by the hundreds. After 24 hours of travel, we sat along the Andaman Sea and watched these fire ballons drift away.

Next morning, we rented a motor scooter; and despite the fact that Tom has been here many times before - his scooter driving is, well, captivating, as he flys around corners, ignores stop signs and generally fits into the chaotic rhythm of Phuket traffic!

The beaches of Phuket roll out just below the rising hills, filled with sharp rocks, palm trees and hundreds of unknown fauna... just beautiful.

Many wonder how this paradise looks, 3 years (almost to the day) after the tsunami. You'd never know it hit. All is fully operational and though there is a lot of construction going on - it's new buildings going up, not tsunami recovery.

Mom Tri's Villa Royale is the most exclusive resort along the banks of the Andaman Sea - and our exhibition hall is one of the most beautiful and scenic places to show our work. (pictures to come)

((Tom's view)) Things are starting to go a little more smoothly. We're still having minor malox moments because our crates, as of yet, have not arrived. There always seems to be a glitch or two, something as simple as a money wire transfer that should have taken 10 minutes, ended up taking 4 hours, so our work could not leave Bangkok today - and won't leave until tomorrow - 6 days after arriving there. But as I've learned through experience, whether you're shipping cross country or across the world, the advice is follow up, follow up, follow up; take nothing for granted and always leave room to trouble shoot. At the end of the day, if you can sip a mai tai, watch the sunset, catch a tuk tuk ride, you realize that all the hard work and headaches are worth it because this place is magical.

more photos soon!

Monday, November 19, 2007

Packing & Shipping







Tom and I are just 4 days away from flying ouselves out to Thailand but our pots, now that's a different story. Before we even left the country, our adventure began. Here is a reason why one should plan, plan and then plan again... always leaving room for problems and new solutions.

Tom and I packed 2 large 3' x 3' x 3' crates filled with our vessels and tiles. The crates were built with plywood, and the interior was lined with 2" x 4" pine reinforcements. We also put two 2x4's underneath the outside of the crate as feet on the crate, so the forklift can pick it up. We delivered the crates last week to Nippon Express, our shipping company in Ohio.

Everything seemed to be fine until the shipper noticed our 2x4" pine wood feet under the crate. "Is that Heat-Treated wood?" he asked. "No." we said. Well, apparently what the shipper failed to tell us and what we did not know is that all crates going overseas must be constructed with heat-treated wood - so the countries receiving the packages can be ensured that no insects will come in through the wood. It is a safety mechanism no one told us about, despite dozens of phone calls back and forth.

And so, with 2 hours to spare before the company closed for the evening - Tom and I rushed over to Home Depot, purchased a reciprocating saw, drove back to the shipping company, and began sawing off the feet on the outside of the crate (Tom did most of the sawing!). The shipper thought it would raise a red flag and possibly stop our work from shipping to Bangkok, if we didn't take care of the untreated pine. And so we did. The shop closed at 5pm and by 5:30 (they were nice enough to stay open while we madly went about the task of sawing through the dozens of 3" screws holding the untreated wood to the outside of the crate). We then attached one of the shipper's plastic pallets to the crate so it could be lifted by a forklift.

What about the untreated 2x4 liners on the inside of the crate? We're hoping no one notices it while checking the contents and we don't have any problems... more importantly, we're hoping we have pots in Phuket in time for the exhibition.

And so, we gave ourselves several extra days to ship - and so far, we're needing it.

The next issue we're running into, we can't seem to get in touch with our representative in Bangkok who is suppose to clear our crates for us. Once crates arrive in the country, they need to be received by someone and cleared while authorities open the crates, read the inventory list and make sure you're shipping what you say. Our "clearing guy" stopped communicating with us and now we may have to clear the work ourselves, which adds another 3 day delay in getting the work to Phuket. Again, the exhitibt opens on Nov. 30th and we'll be in Bangkok on Nov. 24th - leaving us enough time to be our own clearer, if need be and still get the crates into yet another plane and shipped to the Island of Phuket.

We'll let you know how it goes!