Light Show

Great Fireworks Show last night, courtesy of G-town.

Hanging with this crowd of mud-slingers this coming weekend!

Tomato time

Had the first tomato sandwich of the year. Sorry, no pictures. I ate it too fast. I admit I was pushing it a bit as our tomatoes were only just turning ripe. But it was good and really brings home the fact that summer is here. Loaded a kiln while the weather seemed calm. It's a challenge with those pop-up thunderstorms!

Here's a nice luncheon salad for you. Of course, it should be served in a handmade bowl!
1 ripe tomato
several fresh basil leaves
2 tbsp of feta cheese
dash of salt and pepper
drizzle of extra virgin olive oil and balsamic vinegar

chop up the tomato and basil as fine or as coarse as you like and throw in, dash over and drizzle on the rest of the ingredients. Enjoy!

An afternoon of rain and throwing pots

No pictures today. Just a wheel in motion all afternoon as the sound of drumming rain comes in from the kiln porch where a glaze kiln is cooling. Perfect. Time for mind and hands to come together over a soft undulating mound of clay. No other pots to glaze or trim or detail. Nothing else between the clay and me. A sketch of experimental pots in front of me, pushing the limits for a set of canisters for Carole. More wall vases to explore glaze combinations. Squared off plates as part of a set of dishes for Nan. Shows, finished wares, pots in the appreciative hands of people, all reduce down to this--the rhythm of the wheel and clay.
Don't get me wrong, I love handbuilding but it is a different pace and a different rhythm.
Beautiful. This is why I got into clay and why it still ensnares me in it's magic.
The rhythm of the wheel and clay.

Handles on Teapot

Working on some teapots that have been in the studio patiently
waiting on me to cane handles on them. Using twist ties to hold the cane in place while I bent and wrapped it. Ron
gave me this tip a while back. I used to use clothespins, but when the cane is too thick they tend to fly off at the most inopportune moments.
I'll have this one and some more pieces at the Claymatters Barn Sale on Monroe Rd. in Charlotte on Saturday. Will post a few more images of HOT out of the kiln work later.

North Carolina Pottery Center Auction Piece

Back and front views of the piece I sent off to the North Carolina Pottery Center for their annual auction. It's called "The Theft" and illustrates my fascination with crows and their amazing personalities. I think they're in the "larger than life" catagory of birds. Very cheeky!
The berries are a red clay that makes a nice contrast to the white background. Enjoy using it, except for it's tenacity to stain your hands and anything else it touches.

Tree Covered Jars

Some of the finished tree covered jars.

Web Presence, new buzz word

I've been immersed in reading about all the ways to coordinate your web presence through social media, blogs, websites, profile pages, etc. This is in an effort to make my website more effective and to introduce an online retail site. It also comes as a result of a long conversation with a friend about ways to improve retail services/sales for my husband's business, Wilkinson Animal Hospital. I've been pretty actively involved in his business since it opened in 1987. I even was a receptionist for a summer. But now I do his bookkeeping and take staff photos and lots of other small jobs. Since it's our main source of income it tends to take priority over the amount of time I have to spend in the studio, depending on what's happening at the vet hospital. But it's also flexible in the hours and that compensates for the time out of the studio. Lots of ideas churning around about "optimizing our web presences" for both businesses with out it becoming another time sucking machine that keeps us from doing the things we love most about our work. My to-do list is fairly long, so I better get moving!

Life smells grand

Why don't you let me sit in the front seat? It would be so much easier to lean my head out the window and eat your french fries and tell those cheeky dogs how fast I could run if we were to race.

Listen to the wind blow

Got a little crazy around here last weekend. Luckily only had minor breakage and I think my tile furniture is still usable.

Stowe Botanical Gardens

Persian Inspired Plates with underglazes for colorants.
Variety of new work that is now at Stowe Botanical Gardens Gift Store.
Includes salt and pepper sets, cupcake/candle stands, small covered jars with a botanical theme.

It was really lovely out there when I dropped work off. The spring flowers and trees were all in bloom. I have some more photos of the Gardens I will post next.

After and Before

New Koi Plates I have been working on, using underglazes to add more vivid coloration. Trying to capture some of the beauty of the markings. Not all underglazes turned out exactly as I thought they would. Expected more yellow/orange from the bottom plate and it is very subdued in the glaze firing.

Stylish Blogger Award

Stylish Blogger..here I go!

Jen Mecca sent me an email the other day about being one of her "Stylish Blogger" picks. I have been stewing over who to send to and also what to say. In the meantime I went out of town, so, out of sight, out of mind. Having procrastinated long enough, here are the rules and my 7 scoops:

1. Thank the person who gave you the award being by providing a link to their site.
2. Share 7 things about yourself that other bloggers might not know.

3. Give the Award to 15 newly discovered or interesting blog.
4. Notify each of those blogger to present the Award.

7 Scoops about Me:

1. Whining drives me crazy. I come from a notoriously non-sympathetic family.

Which is not to say they don't have EMPATHY, because they do, fantastically. However, we all have a very short attention span for whining about conditions in life. Usually you will be treated to a "Suck it up. Life is hard. Life is not fair. Stop wasting time and get out there and DO something about it."

2. I lived in 7 different houses in 2 different states in 12 years. No, I don't come from a military family, we just moved quite a bit until we finally settled down in New Orleans.

3. I love books so much that when a hurricane was threatening to come inland to N.O. when I was in 7th grade, I stacked all my books by my bed so that I could evacuate them with me. How I thought I would get them into the car in that state of emergency is beyond me now. I probably knew my sister or parents wouldn't help carry them or listen to my woes (see #1 above).

4. A grown man once threatened me with a gun when I was in the sixth grade. My dog had run into his yard and he was threatening to shoot him and I got in front of my dog so he couldn't. As an adult I look back at that and think, "What the heck was he thinking?" Of course, he may have been holding a BB gun to give him the benefit of the doubt.

5. I started reading a series of books by Dorothy Dunnett when I was in high school. There are 6 books in the Lymond series and 8 books in the Niccolo series. For you, dear reader, I added up all the pages and they amount to a total of 3046 pgs. and 4484 pgs. respectively. And I have read the first series about 4 times minimum and the second series twice. 21152 pgs. A little scary when I think about it.

6. My favorite protein food is cheese. And yogurt comes a close second. I love cheese. All kinds of it. Heaven would be a cheese trip around the world. I can now satify my desire to catch up on my favorite cows and farm life by logging onto the Stoneyfield Farm website.

7. Have always disliked my middle name. Was very happy to replace it with my maiden name on documents after marriage.

A Word for the family

I just got back from a great 10 days away from the studio. I had a show in Mississippi, planned by my sister with her home as the location. It was great. Lots of sales and some orders to complete and great feed back on new work. Then my sister, my mom and I took a cruise out of Mobile, Alabama. We all shared a room and three of my sister's friends had the cabin next door to us.
My family never ceases to amaze me at how supportive they are of everything I have ever undertaken. I laugh more with them than almost any other people. And it still surprises me that this isn't the case with everyone. Anyway, my thanks to some of the MOST AMAZING PEOPLE I KNOW!

Bowlarama

These are some new bowl shapes for me. As you can see from the top photo, I went through my old pottery magazines and pulled out things I wanted to try. Since I am making bowls for the Cleveland Co. Bowling for Dollars event this month, I thought I would do a little experimentation. Don't know how I will glaze them, but think I'll keep it simple and let the form speak.

I started cleaning the studio back in August, 2010. This past month I finally got all the things that I had decided I wasn't going to use either sold, donated, or thrown away. It felt really good to have more space. In the midst of the cleaning I found some things that had been buried. These included:

Photo light stands

Bags of glazes that I wanted to experiment with and had never gotten into liquid form (copper reds in oxidation, slip glazes, an oil spot glaze)
Second, third, and fourth replacements of needle tools, scratch tools, trimming tools

Chamois

Lamp parts

Glass containers

Reduced my magazines down to a handful and plan on trying out new things every month from the clippings. Kind of a self enforced workshop.

The clean up also spawned new projects in the studio. Currently working on a plaster table for recycling clay, a new soft light box and a speedy set up for the light box for taking on the fly photos. Well, that's the update on what's happening at Bluegill. Got a show in Mississippi this month and hope to get some photos of glazed pieces before I leave for that. Stay tuned........

Hand Made

New Year Resolution

Leaves, Koi Plates and a Sunset

Large Crescent Tray with Two Koi. One of my last custom orders for the holidays. Now safely on it's way to the west coast to bring handcrafted joy to someone I've never met but is beloved by family members who commissioned this project.

These three Koi plates were a new venture. I wanted to try the various colors that Koi come in, rather than my standard orange. I don't know what the attraction for these fish is for me, but I do think they are pretty magical. When I was a kid, the next door neighbors had a type of fish pond/grotto in their yard and I was fascinated by it. I've taken loads of photos of Kois in other ponds (mostly as a fuzzy fleeting image, since they don't hold still very long) as a reference point, so that is one of the projects I'll be working on in the new year. Tree plates are on the list and prototypes have been made but not yet fired.

Managed to gather some beautiful leaves from the yard before all the cold weather turned everything brown and crinkly. I want to work towards some complex surfaces like these in 2011. Mother Nature usually is a hard act to follow, though. She's had quite a bit of time to develop her palette and technical coloring skills.

All the holiday shows/festivals are over for me and all the holiday orders completed. There is definitely a sense of the year drawing to a close. I snapped this shot on the way home from the studio about 2 weeks ago. So lovely watching the colors deepen as the light faded from the sky.

The rest of the year will be spent cleaning and organizing and keeping the studio open for those folks who need locally made pottery! Drop by after the Lowell parade this Saturday or on Sunday from 1 to 4pm. And you can catch me in the studio during the week from 1ish to 6pm. Always best to call ahead to make sure I haven't had to run out to handle a pottery crisis of some sort.

Thanks to all those galleries and individuals who purchased Bluegill Pottery this year!

Covered Jars

Pagoda and Koi topped jars.

On a roll with these. I also have some tree topped jars that I am excited about but will post later.

Opening the kiln to the trees

New work from the kiln. This was one of those wonderfully not so great days. Meaning there is much potential for the future, but not everything worked out exactly as planned. Welcome to Lesson No. 1, Pottery 101. I lost a tree in the top sculpture. One came loose when glazing and I held my breath that it wouldn't slip off during the firing. But alas, one tree down on the kiln shelf. I will do this again and smaller versions of it. Just have to refigure how best to attach the trees so accidents don't create felled forests in the studio.

Thanks!

It was great to see everyone who came out to buy pottery on Saturday and all those nice potters who showed up to take some of my extra "pottery makin' stuff" off my hands. I'm really excited about having table and counter space and not wandering the studio looking under piles of things for that certain tool that I have misplaced!
Had a lot of questions about whether I was closing shop, moving, not making work anymore, etc. If you were wondering any of those, the answer to all is "No". Still here, still making work--planning on being like Beatrice Wood and working until I'm 100 or so.

Glazed Koi Vases

Liked the "sprig" fish and hope to do more. It's hard to represent them well in a 2-d photo.

Will use these colors on some of the covered jars that have koi knobs on them.

Fall glaze colors

New Gourd Vase Forms
Same forms, just a different palette for the fall.

Doing some of my mix and match glaze work and hoping magic will happen. I like 1-3. Glazes 4 & 5 were not that different from the original one I started with. Probably only I would be able to tell the nuances of color difference, so these are a no go. No. 3 has some real potential as a nice dark amber with a bit of unexpected color from rutile. 1 & 2 are satin and I may end up trying them on the experimental sculputural work I'm trying out.

My method for developing glazes is to mix a half and half mixture of existing colors and see what occurs. Then get more complicated and try a 1/3 mixture of three different glazes. The drawback is if you like the results and decide to mix up a large batch, you end up with a list of 12 to 20 ingredients.

In the Middle

Covered Jars and Sculptural Piece with details.

Pretty excited about these-they're bisqued now and just waiting to be glazed.

Crossing the proverbial fingers!

Koi Fish

These are pieces recently completed in greenware stage. I had a contact from someone in England that was interested in images of fish on ceramic pieces. She is authoring a book on the subject and found my work on the web. I rounded up various images and sent to her. Anxious to see if any will work. Would be lovely to have work published, don't you think? Anyway, had the inspiration to do some more koi pottery. A change was incorporating the fish as a sprig-type decorative element on the body of the piece. We'll see how it works.

Throwing--ain't it grand

I've been back in the studio for a week now. Wednesday to Friday brought a fair amount of friends, well-wishers and folks who needed some pottery in the front door. It's now settled down to my old routine and today I got to throw. It was sweet. There is just something magical about watching that clay change from a mound to a vessel. It still gets to me, even when it's me doing it.

Lots of thoughts about the studio were whirling around as the pots came off the wheel. I have decided to go through all my STUFF. If it were a little pile of stuff, there would be no need to use capital letters. Obviously I have acquired more than I need and I intend to fix that by redistributing the wealth. Check in here for updates on what will be offered (very reasonable prices and some free stuff) as I reduce my studio footprint. And hey, it's not just for pottery making people. There will be books, sewing/craft items, storage and display units, etc.
Projected date is September 25.

Seeing into the future

I'm looking into the future and it will soon be filled with some serious pottery making. Back at last from my long absence from the studio, I will be throwing again in little over a week. I have had a great time, pursuing a long term goal of taking classes on human behavior, the mind and spirit and overcoming barriers to one's own purposes and goals on any front of life.

When I first decided to take time out from the studio, I wasn't sure I could endure months on end without a hands on approach to creativity. What I discovered along the way is that I have had a certain driveness about having to "make" things. I realized I wasn't going to dry up and blow away if I wasn't actually making pots everyday. Taking the "must" out of the creative process will give me more freedom to do better work and I am really looking forward to exploring that.