As 2021 comes to a close and we prepare to round the corner and head on into 2022, I thought it’d be nice to do a year end round up. I always quite enjoy end of the year round ups (and 365 day long projects, but that’s for another post) and I’m excited for this one. 2021 was a unique year and we accomplished quite a few things in and around the brewery. If you’re curious, read on!
January
January was a month of beautiful snowy weather and creative “just for fun” projects. Plus! We had a really nice article written about the brewery in the local paper. A great start to the year.
Throughout the month Coo and Claire did a daily piece of art as a mini art challenge with each other. Each one of us did one creative thing each day. Coo painted daily and every day Claire did a blind contour self portrait drawing.
Also in January, Claire participated in a month long art challenge group (Creative Distraction) with some friends (hi Leslie & Keith!). Each team or individual (I played as an individual) was given a box of tasks, each sealed envelope. Each week the host told us which tasks to complete and then picked the winners for each task. It was a lot of fun. One of our tasks was to either make a big object look small or a small project look big. I chose to make a big object look small. 10/10 a fun January project.
February
February brought more snowy days, some absolutely freezing make you want to not leave the house kind of temperatures, and lots of yummy and warm home-cooked meals.
Pancakes for breakfast 
Pad Thai for dinner
Also, one of my greatest pals (hi Maura!) hosted a dress up in a funny costume themed zoom baby shower. I dressed up as Rosie the robot from the Jetsons.
March
March came and went and brought with it some of the first warm temps of the year. This is the time of the year when you really start to get antsy for the winter to be done and to pack up your puffy coats for the season. Those first warm days are just delicious.
March saw us having productive work days in the pottery studio by day, stretching our backs, and occasionally we making homemade chocolates at night.
We utilized those first warm days of spring to conduct outside porch shopping and we had the first familial daytime hang of the year. Last year, in 2020, we established a soft family SundayFunday tradition and we soft continued it on this day highlighted below. We celebrated with bubbles and a fire pit on the patio.
April
We spent much of April working in the studio (a reoccurring theme). We fired several kilns and built the new display half wall in the gallery. Coo & Keno celebrated their anniversary and I got my first Covid vaccine! Barley got filthy in the mud and we started our summer garden seedlings.
May
May was SUCH a busy month!
The spring flowers popped up, there were beautiful skies over the brewery, and we found ourselves rescuing a few raccoons that accidentally got trapped in the building. We cleaned and moved the slabroller from where its been for at least a decade, I joined a hot air balloon crew, Keno fixed some pavers in the patio, we played outside, and everyone in the family happily received their second dose of the Covid vaccine (except Torin because he wasn’t old enough at the time — but he has by now! Go science!)
We also spent the month completely rearranging the gallery. We built tables and displays and combined our two brick and mortar galleries together into one space here at the brewery. We then, on May 29th, we opened back up to the public after being closed during the beginning months of pandemic. Like I said, May was busy. (I’m going to devote a whole blog to this project. As I look at the photos it’s like – how can I EVEN narrow them down there are so many. Stay tuned, I’ll link it here when it’s written)
Also in May, I broke one of my favorite plates. Might seem like a weird topic to cover in a “year at a glance” roundup (and it really is)… but! I was looking though my photos from the year for this post and I came across a photo I took when it broke and well,.. since I can’t enjoy using it daily anymore – I felt it deserved a place on the internet where it won’t be forgotten.
RIP plate, you were such a good one and I’m sorry I dropped a stupid glass canning jar on you as you were sitting at the bottom of the sink waiting to be washed.
June
In June, the garden spoils started to come up. We enjoyed watching 4 year old Torin’s soccer games on Saturday mornings, Coo started to design (and finished) a new bird bath concept, and papaya was eaten on some blue porcelain plates. In June, the garden spoils started to come up.
We enjoyed watching 4 year old Torin’s soccer games on Saturday mornings, Coo started to design (and finished) a new bird bath concept, and papaya was eaten on some blue porcelain plates. We worked daily in the pottery studio and one of our adult customers played in the small child/doggy hatch in our front door.
July
July brought the 4th of July and with it, the annual run/walk that our local chamber coordinates. We made mugs for all the first place winners! In mid July we also hosted our annual Woodlanders class (Nature Imprints in Clay) that’s part of Shake Rag Alley’s summer program.
We enjoyed fresh green beans and flowers from our garden. We also made a really special set of dishes for one of our dear friends and her family (hi, Amie & company!). Her mother passed away and left her some family lace. We took the lace and it to made her a custom set of blates with her family lace patterns.
Oh! And I did a deep dive into history as July marked the 50th year anniversary of Mineral Point being listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Read more about Mineral Point history here and specific history of our brewery building here.
August
In August we welcomed a convertible car show, OpenAir Tours, into the building. On Gallery Night, we hosted a show by Jane Chukas with a new body of work she created during the beginning months of the pandemic.
We fired two kilns in August, ate delicious summer foods, messed around/had fun in the studio, I made some jokes about Close Encounters of the Third Kind, and we found a ridiculously large beetle crawling on the floor. It was so big I had to document it. (proof below)
Another busy month for sure!
September
In September we got a new body of work in the gallery from a long time favorite of ours, Gina Hecht. Her work is so soothing and serene. We hung in up on one side of our floating island display wall in the second open gallery room. It was lovely to see her new pieces!
had a photographer friend (hi, Andy Goodwin!) come take some photos of us as part of a portrait project he’s working on in conjunction with the Fall Art Tour.
We hosted our SECOND car show of the year. This time it was with old timey Pontiacs (I think?! I’m so not good at car trivia) They lined the driveway and it was so fun to see them in front of the old building. Kinda felt like maybe what it could have felt like during the mid 1900s here when the building was still an active, functioning brewery.
I also took a field trip to the clay company to buy more clay!
The garden grew millions of tomatoes and the yard was covered with all the flowers we planted in our cutting garden. This was the firs summer we’ve been able to fill all our display vases each week with flowers we actually grew in the yard without supplementing flowers from the store.
It felt amazing.
Diana’s old college math professor stopped by. It was so much fun to see them reconnect again.
Down in the studio, we really stepped up the pottery work cycle during September as we began the serious phase of preparation for the Fall Art Tour next month. Barley spent the majority of the month meerkating for treats and hanging out with us in the studio. Basically just being the best dogboy.
October
October was basically devoted to anything and everything Fall Art Tour.
We weren’t really sure what to expect this year with the Covid situation. Last year, in 2020, the tour was virtual and we didn’t have the usual flow of people through the studio that weekend. So, like I obviously just said, we didn’t know what to expect this year. Lots of people? Not so many? We wen’t sure. Regardless though, we spent the month working in the studio – making pots, firing kilns, and trying to do a million different things.
In the end, the tour was wonderful! People came! It was a ton of fun!
It should also be mentioned that I because obsessed with playing Wingspan. For those of you that haven’t played or heard of it, do yourself a favor and check it out. I give it the highest of marks and would definitely recommend it to anyone.
November
November was slowed way down. It was nice. September and October are such busy months for us and we find ourselves working around the clock. In November it was nice to just breathe and take it a little easier.
Keno put the garden to bed for the winter. And he and I did a little “fix-it” project together.
Down in the studio, we hosted our annual ornament making night. We invited people into the studio and let everyone make a free holiday ornament. It’s become one of our favorite winter events. We were sad not to be able to host it last year and it was wonderful to be able to host it safely this year.
Torin and Coo made pointy party holiday hats for us all to wear on Thanksgiving. Torin was very specific about what colors we all should have.
On Thanksgiving (where we all wear our pajamas!) we posed for two group photos. One with the family in our holiday hats and one where Torin insisted we all pose as our assigned avenger (he assigned us each an avenger alter ego and told us what our signature pose/move was)
We also hosted our annual Holiday Open House the last weekend of the month. We gave away this carved blue & gray bowl (more carved bowls available here) to one lucky winner (congrats again winner!) and we enjoyed (as we always do!) helping people pick out holiday gifts for their loved ones on their holiday lists.
Thanks again to all our wonderful customers – we love you!
December
In December we hosted TWO Gallery Nights. The first featured local artist, Robert Clements. His new body of work was called “Animals & Icons” and was just a delight. The night his show opened was also Candlelight shopping night in Mineral Point. The downtown streets are lined with luminaria and that sparkling magic extends all the way out to us at the Brewery.
We lined the driveway and porch area with about 60 luminaria. Always so pretty!
The next Gallery Night was two weekends later. Robert’s show was still up and we stayed open again until 9pm. We put on the luminaria again – we coundn’t not! We love them so much and it makes for such a twinkly last minute holiday shopping night.
At the beginning on the month we also did a huge website update. Coo took a majority of photos downstairs in the “photo area” and I spend several long days sitting in front of the computer editing and uploading photos onto the website. It was a long few days but it felt great to launch an update for holiday shopping.
I also got my booster shot this month. I spend a day feeling like this (see below) but was so happy to get a Covid booster and to do my part for public health.
We always had (in my opinion) a really great holiday cross over where we still had our Halloween pumpkins on the porch but we ALSO had our Christmas garland. I couldn’t let the moment slip by without documenting it. I loved it.
We also got a Christmas tree and had a little family decorating party. It has a little lean to it and we had to wire it to the ceiling. It also stopped soaking up water pretty quickly and it got droopy really quickly. We’ve lovingly named it the Bassett Hound Tree. It’s perfect.
That’s all folks. If you made it this far and your last name isn’t Johnston – thank you for caring and for reading!
It was a goal of mine this year to write in this blog more often and I accomplished that goal. It wasn’t like I posted 10,000 posts but it was significantly more than before. In 2022 I hope to make much more of a presence here. After writing this post, I think it might be a fun goal to write 12 different month end round ups… maybe? We shall see. Might be a bit much. At any rate though – to more writing here next year!
Cheers & Happy almost New Year!
Claire