Friday, January 18, 2008

The Martha Stewart Show !

Well, I was ON the Martha Stewart Show yesterday, Jan. 17th. The segment they shot up here on Nov 2nd, of me making a mahogany bowl, using all the tools, and talking about some finished pieces, was just fabulous. (Thanks Laurie, and Gary!!!) And on the live set, Martha had examples of all the tools, a rough zebrawood block, and 6 finished bowls, each a different wood. After they showed the taped segment, we were "live", Martha showing each bowl on the set table, and I was sitting right nearby, and we were chatting about each piece, quite naturally. It was very cool, and turned out great! I was thrilled to meet Martha just briefly before and after the segment, and she is very attractive, gracious, and poised.
Being on TV is a new experience for me, all the bustling around, getting make-up. They dont have any room for errors- it is done live and what you see and hear is what you get.
On-set were 6 bowls= cocobolo, s. american mahogany (the same one I had done for the upstate shoot), African padauk, African zebrawood, red elm, and western bigleaf maple. The bowls looked great on the mostly white marble table.
Everyone on the Martha team was very friendly and complimentary and made you feel at ease even though there is an electricity of anticipation and pressure of putting on a live TV show each day, with a continuing change of people coming on the show (like me), who are unknown and untested entities, ofcourse. I am pretty sure that Vaia, the smart and attractive young woman who was my guide, was probably holding her breath when it came time for me to reply to the question Martha was going to ask me after the taped segment.... I sure didn't want to screw it up, not on national TV !! And naturally I wanted to do a good job for Martha.
It went fine. I was lucky.
The bowls, and my work, speak pretty well for themselves just by being there. It's always been about my work, for me, not about ME. But once invited, boy, you better show up, and hopefully do a good job. Friends tell me I aced it. I felt fine about it, and very relieved when it was over. So, what's next?
Thank you, Martha!! And thanks to Vaia, and Elie, and Joey, and everyone at the Show. It was a wonderful experience and all of you are just GREAT !!! kip

5 comments:

magnolia said...

Congrats on your TV appearance! I saw the entire thing, both the video of you working in your studio, and the TV show segment. You had interesting comments and information about the beautiful woods you use, and about your process. My guess is that you'll get more recognition and sales as a result of this! Hey, how about a link to the show video?
http://www.marthastewart.com/portal/site/mslo/menuitem.79cd0d4bac77d1611e3bf410b5900aa0/?vgnextoid=3e53c44899a67110VgnVCM1000003d370a0aRCRD&rsc=related

magnolia said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Patti Gibbons said...

Hey Kip; nice blog, nice show, nice bowls. It is always wonderful to be recognized for one's art and the effort that goes into making such beautiful pieces.
You deserve it, Mr. Art for Art's Sake, lol. Hope you get some sales from it..just enough to make you smile...and take me to lunch,haha. xxpatti

Patti Gibbons said...

hey kipster---get blogging! We need some pics of your studio. I should come by and take some for you! xxp

MagnetDude said...

What do you do with the corner chunks of wood you cut off the raw slab of wood. I have a friend that makes miniatures and he may buy those scraps from you.

Jeff@houseofgauss.com