Greenjeans - Handmade for Conscientious Living: 07/05

Saturday, July 23, 2005

Greenjeans Grand Opening

Dick Shaw, Tom Dubois, & Jennifer Lawrence
Originally uploaded by amyshaw.

Last night we celebrated the Grand Opening of Greenjeans! (click here for slideshow). We’ve been open since March 9, but we’d never really had a big kick-off. It was a good excuse to have a party, as well as to get our business cards, promotional cards, and bag/box stickers done (finally!).

After a day of final preparations, guests began to arrive, and by 7:30 we estimated there were about 50 people, many of them inside the shop. (We had no idea our little 300 sq ft shop could fit that many people!)

My sister, Dag Shaw (who also makes the wholesome bath salts and facial scrub we sell), and her friend Adam Tagliamonte played and sang great bluegrass music setting a mellow and friendly tone.

Craftspeople attending included local textile artisan Jennifer Lawrence (here at right; she makes fabulous pillows from reclaimed fabrics. She also made the amazing curtain in the shop). Tom Dubois (here at center, who makes the extraordinary turned wood pieces) came all the way down from Eliot, Maine, with his wife, Anne, and son, Rob. At the left here is Dick Shaw, who made the long shelves on the walls of the shop and will be making more pieces both for display and for sale in the future. He's also my Dad.

There were many other friends and family in attendance as well as some regular customers. Mark and Samantha Delman-Caserta, the owners of 3R Living, a wonderful local shop that sells earth-friendly products, came too, which was very meaningful for us because their shop inspired us early on when we were beginning to think about opening a shop of our own. And a few folks who were just passing by came in to have some wine and listen to the music, which was nice.

Guests snacked on French macaroons from Almondine, a divine French bakery in DUMBO, and bruschetta with olive tapenade, proscuttio, and good cheese from Tost, the wine and panini bar down the street. To drink there was wine, organic lemon and wild berry nectars, sparkling water, and more wine...

Toward the end of the evening we started making sales, and by the end of the night, to our great surprise, we’d set a one-day record!

After the party, about 20 of us went a few doors down to Java, a family-run Indonesian restaurant that has been here for 13 years. They set up tables end to end creating a banquet table that ran the entire length of the restaurant and we feasted on delicious dishes of vegetables and chicken and tofu all in wonderfully tasty sauces. It was a long dinner, but we had brought several large bottles of wine, and in the midst of such excellent company the time like a generous gift.

It was a very special evening. We thank everyone for coming and supporting us and our shop, and we hope to have many more festive soirees in the future!

Friday, July 22, 2005

Zentner's Kiln

John Peering into Kiln
Originally uploaded by amyshaw.

This past Monday evening we paid a visit to potter John Zentner at his studio in Northwood, NH. Lucky for us, he had just finished a firing, and the pieces were still in the kiln cooling, too hot to remove. It was a treat to get to peer inside at the glistening hot pots. This is a picture of John checking on how things went. He thinks it was a very successful firing!

Inside Zentner's Kiln
Originally uploaded by amyshaw.

Inside the kiln. It had been cooling for a whole day, but the bricks still strongly radiated heat. You could hear quiet little crackling inside as the glazes and bricks cooled, like ice in a warm glass. It would be another day or so until the pieces would be ready to remove.