Well, it feels like fireworks for me, even though New Year's has passed! My revised website is up and running, I have a schedule of events and my Etsy site is attached to the website! That has been a dream for several years and it finally is done.
So, it's now time to move the blog over to the website area and you can now see posts atwww.bluegillpottery.com/blog/
Thanks!

Countdown day 363

Carolina Pottery Festival Set up, Nov. 7, 2014

 

We had a great festival this year, went pretty smoothly and all the work was beautiful. Now the countdown begins for next year. This means the rest of the year is on the downhill coast for me because this is one of the most time consuming volunteer jobs that I also participate in as a potter. So now I can focus on just making work, filling orders and doing some experiments on new pieces. I have a new website design up and will be moving the blog over to it as soon as I learn how to adeptly use the program. Happy Fall Potting!

Artist Statements: Defining your motives with words

How hard it is to fit all the things you do and think and hope to create and the "whys" behind all that into a concise paragraph. This is my most current attempt at my artist statement:

I am a ceramic artist making functional and decorative pottery.  Nature  is the inspiration for my work. Themes of leaves, flowers and branches weave their way into cups and bowls, plates and vases. Carved images and textured patterns echo leaf veins and vines, the striations of bark, etc. and offer a palpable, tactile experience to a user, which is as important to me as the visual images. I create my own glazes to compliment the textures of the pieces and layer them one over another subtly. I strive for complex and varied color and achieve this by continually experimenting with my glaze palette. Clay is my chosen medium because of it's history, it's permanence, it's three dimensionality and it's unpredictability. I know that even as I strive to place limits on how the clay and glazes will react, there will always be an unknown element when the firing is complete. For me the unpredictability is the adventure and the transformation is the magic.

 

 

A completed basket with braided handle. This piece was based on a photograph of a palm tree bark that I took in California. The grey glaze is one of the experimental ones I have been working on and black underglaze was used in the crevices and depressions that were carved in the piece. I love combining different handle options on these pieces.

Sometimes you just have to fly your gaudy flag

A 2013 shot from Mingei Museum in San Diego. They were having a Chair Exhibit. I saw this piece and was instantly transported back to New Orleans during Mardi Gras season. I mean, really, what better way to display your doubloon collection? And what are you going to do with all the school locks that you can't remember the combinations from so you are afraid to ever close them? Growing up in a town that was always  "over the top" conditions you a bit to love that certain tinsel and gaudiness. You know it's not real, it's just an illusion, but what fun to relish in it for a while. Summer's almost up, time to fly your gaudy flag.........

Inspiration

Museum of Man, San Diego
Shot this last year on a trip out "west". This little elephant was hanging from a swinging seat chain. Can you just imagine swinging out high and happily with the scent and sight of beautiful flowers surrounding you and the breeze sweeping by?

Earth and Fire Fest in Shelby, NC

The opening for the Earth and Fire Festival in Shelby, NC was last night and it was great fun. Saw lots of old pals and met new ones and some nice pieces went home with some really nice folks. The show will be up through July 25th. The interior of the gallery space is the old train depot, which is beside some very well travelled tracks. There were a few trains whizzing by last night at a pretty fast clip. I've always liked trains. My grandfather and uncle worked in the railroad industry and my biggest disappointment in 4th grade was the fact that our school field trip had to be cancelled. My class was supposed to ride the train from Bossier City to Oil City and we were supposed to be served Coca-Colas during the journey. Pretty simple expectations back then, huh?