I build systems that help ideas travel farther.
01
A Penny For Your Pottery
Every piece gets a number, a price one cent higher than the last, and a page of its own.
See the system
02
Wild Clay Archive
Tap any point in the country and see the soil beneath it, and whether it is worth digging.
See the system
03
The Wild Clay Hunt
Turns a hunt through century-old survey reports into a letter that sends itself.
See the systemDrive south out of Carlisle on Route 34 and the Cumberland Valley starts to pinch. The farmland is that familiar mid-Atlantic red-brown, the color of every plowed field from Maryland to the Lehigh. Then South Mountain rises on your left, the first knuckle of the Blue Ridge, and just past the borough of Mount Holly Springs the road slips into a narrow valley following Mountain Creek. A hundred years ago, if you had stopped here and looked at the spoil piles along the creek, you would have seen something wrong. The dirt coming out of the ground was white. Not pale, not gray. White like chalk, white like paper.
04
Porch Light
Finds the few things worth leaving the house for, and sends them every Thursday.
See the systemOUTDOORS AND ROCKHOUNDING Sept 5: Monongahela Rockhounds meeting, Munhall (Pittsburgh area). Mineral, fossil and lapidary club program plus social, first Saturday. Sept 10: Central Pennsylvania Rock and Mineral Club meeting, Harrisburg. Regular club program, second Thursday, 7 PM. Sept 13: Second Sunday Nature Hike, Ridley Creek State Park, near Philadelphia. Free guided hike covering birds, trees and park history.
05
GlazeSnap
Photograph a fired surface and get three to five commercial glazes worth testing.
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I build small systems that run without me.
9 run without me·15 still need my hands
Runs without me
- Searches the web and emails a weekly digest of real local events, near Appomattox and across PennsylvaniaThursday evening · since Aug 20
- The same digest, tuned for a ceramics residency and its resident artistsThursday evening · since Aug 27
- Reads the mail for anything the radar business needs answering, checks the digest actually went out, and prepares the repliesMonday and Friday · since Aug 28
- Posts one note to Substack for The Wild Clay Hunt, word for word from the written bank, never composingTuesday and Friday · since Sep 1
- Checks every publication's schedule and starts whatever is dueEvery 30 minutes · since Sep 2
- Writes the Monday issue of Small Notes, Big Changes straight into Substack as a draftMonday morning · since Sep 4
- Writes the weekly Wild Clay Hunt issue into Substack as a draft, never publishingWednesday morning · since Sep 2
- Reads the publication dashboards and records the numbersMonday morning · since Sep 2
- Asks the month-one questions about the residency pilot: retention, quote, billing, one introductionOnce, September 24 · since Aug 27
Still my hands
- Working with claylast Sep 14
- Running
- Hunting wild clay and rocks
- Hiking
- Listing new pieces to the shoplast Sep 14
- Packing and shipping what soldlast Sep 17
- Commenting on other people's Substackslast Sep 17
- Building something with Claude Codelast Sep 17
- Working on the Wild Clay Archivelast Sep 17
- Looking for something digital worth selling, out of work already happening
- Going to an event from the radar
- Seeing a friend
- Cooking something interesting
- Preparing a month of writing for every publicationlast Sep 14
- Looking at what worked, what did not, and what to hand over next
Ideas travel farther when something carries them.