Cheeky Birds

One of the "wild life" that makes eating lunch full of adventure. There are also grey herons and seagulls and smaller white birds that are even more threatening than this big guy. They hover and swoop and land on your table, beadly eyeing your sandwich. I think they are the Florida version of NC bears that have been fed and become a real problem. Besides not knowing when they will streak out of the sky and nail your food, they also can wreak revenge by letting loose a shower of bird doo. Oh so appetizing.....But I have gotten some nice reference shots for carving work on pots.

Birds on the brain

When I was working on the Poe project, I got rather involved with birds. Specifically bird heads. Recently I've found myself making little heads whenever I have scrap clay. These start as pinch pots, which is pretty ironic, since I have always hated making pinch pots. But there is something very satisfying about making these little guys. They drew some attention at the Claymatters sale and the two crows found a new home with a professed Crow Lover. A nice little hawk went home with a little boy. They seem to be getting larger and larger. One even found it's way to the top of a covered jar.

I think it's funny how ideas stew around for a while before they manifest themselves in physical work. I know I got all excited about creating clay boxes (this was perhaps a year and a half ago, or more like 3 years ago, given my warped sense of passing time) and started frantically writing down lists of series of boxes to make. One of those line items on my list was "bird boxes"

I went to the Claymatters meeting this past weekend and watched Barbara Chadwick Bland do a demo of how she creates her little clay houses. All that bird/box/house stuff was swirling away and I thought........ bird house boxes. Not birdhouses. Bird house boxes. Hmmmm, I'll have to ruminate on that a bit.

The Birds

I have to say I have been carried away by this exhibit based on Poe's work that will be in Shelby in next month. This is a covered box I am glazing today. It will contain a handmade journal that I plan on doing some watercolor and calligraphy inside. Yesterday I was working on a gallery order and found myself making bird heads from scrap clay in between the trays and bowls. The birds, the birds! I have one more set that I am constructing for the exhibit. We can have two entries. Will send up photos of that later.