IF YOU GO

WHAT: Boulder Potters' Guild Spring Sale

WHEN: Thursday, May 1, 10 a.m. to 8 p.m.; Friday, May 2, 10 a.m. to 8 p.m.; Saturday, May 3, 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.; Sunday, May 4, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.

WHERE: Boulder County Fairgrounds, 9595 Nelson Road, Longmont, 80501

HOW MUCH: Free admission

ON THE WEB: www.boulderpottersguild.com

Good things start to happen in May. May means Mother's Day, high school and college graduations, and the start of wedding season. These seminal events require thoughtful gifts; gifts worthy of commemorating major life passages.

The Boulder Potters' Guild's Spring Sale, May 1 to May 4 at Boulder County Fairgrounds, has items that fit the bill. Ranging from functional to decorative, from dinnerware to birdhouses, each item is a work of art.

"Pottery is still a real bargain," says Barbara McDermid, the sale's chair. McDermid, a guild member for approximately 20 years, is making bird baths and garden sculptures for this year's sale. The former Boulder Valley School District teacher has an obvious passion for the craft.

"It's kind of like magic," she says. "When you're sitting at the wheel, and you've learned how to center it, and all of a sudden centrifugal force takes [the clay] into this great shape."

Dianne Hackett, one of the guild's founding members and its director of publicity, seconds that notion. "The nice thing about clay is that nobody does it who doesn't love it."

Hackett and nine others formed the guild in 1969, out of their frustration over reduced access to the city of Boulder's popular pottery program. Betty Woodman, now an internationally acclaimed artist whose work has been shown at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City, created that program, and she encouraged the women to strike out on their own.

"We were basically 10 housewives with young children at the time," Hackett remembers, "and so we really bit the bullet, rented the back end of an old grocery store on west Pearl Street and built some kilns."

From that humble beginning, the guild has grown to 70 members and a new location on Sterling Circle. Along the way, the guild's purpose broadened to one of community outreach and instruction. Classes are offered at beginning, intermediate, and master levels.

Larkin Hosmer, who serves as the group's treasurer, has been a member for 15 years.

"The Potters' Guild is one of the best-functioning groups of 70 totally diverse people that I've ever run into in my life. We all try and do whatever we can to make it a success, not only just for us, for our own interests, but for the interests of the art community in general."

Hosmer's former career was international finance, and though he misses the food in France and Belgium, he's happy with his choice.

"The stress level's a lot less; I'm going to live a lot longer."The guild holds two sales each year, in May and November, and 25 percent of proceeds go toward funding operations. Admission is free, and there will be daily demonstrations of the craft. Approximately 40 of the guild's members will have pieces available, and for some it's a rare opportunity to offer their work to a larger audience.

Bob Judson was the first non-charter member to be accepted into the guild back in 1969. Aside from the annual sales, the only way to see his decorative birdhouses, cactus planters and candle lamps is to make the pilgrimage to his 100-year-old studio in Berthoud.

Amanda Taylor joined the guild after earning her fine arts degree from CU in 2003. She's still developing her own style, a process she expects will take years. She avoids many of the usual pottery tools, opting for a more organic approach.

"I like the fact that maybe my fingerprints are left behind, a little bit of me on the pot still, and you have to look for it," she says.

"It's not like when you go to Crate & Barrel, and every shape is perfect and the same, every plate sets together perfectly. It's hand-touched, hand-built, thrown on the wheel, it's done by a person, and everybody has a different technique."