Monday, June 29, 2009

My Wheel Throwing Class Made Enrollment

The local economy has put a severe pinch on my class enrollment the last couple of sessions, so severe that they didn't meet the needed enrollment to run...sadly. But happy day, I got word that my Throwing Class has made enrollment so this week I again will be teaching Wheel Throwing at the center. I hope this the start of a upturn in the local area. Here is a photo of some work made in past sessions of my classes, there might be a few of mine in there too.

Wednesday, June 24, 2009

Featured Again

Two more blogs have featured my work. The first convo'd me on etsy to tell me she featured my Sunny Sunflower Stoneware Bitty Bowls on her blog Vida de La Pistolera.

The second was a blogger I met in etsy chat. Their blog Less Than Three Designs is just coming back from very long hiatus. Some very nice words are said about my work here...makes me blush a bit.

I'd like to thank these 2 bloggers for their appreciation of my work and their time spent writing about and showing my work. I so love seeing other people enjoying my creations.

Friday, June 12, 2009

Making My Mark(s)

I lost a bead. Now this for most people is not a big deal, lots of other beads out there in the stores. But this was a particular bead, it made a particular mark when pressed into clay and now it is gone.

I hadn't realized it was missing til i needed to make that particular mark again...a request for something custom based on a previous creation. I searched high and low for that wooden oval bead, turning out shoe boxes full of odds and ends and bric and brac that make up my shelf of mark making tools looking for that bead. The bead is gone. Perhaps it rolled on the floor and was swept up as trash by someone not as understanding that a single bead can be an important tool to a potter. Perhaps it was borrowed and never brought back.

Losing a tool is like losing a friend, I'll never be able to make that exact mark again. Please a moment of silence for my bead and for all the marks it can never make again (insert silence here).

Here is a pendant that features the mark made by my bead...it was such a nice impression. So has anybody seen somewhere selling an oval wood bead that would make such a mark? I'd love to find a new bead to tuck into my shoe boxes of texture tools.

Saturday, June 6, 2009

A Week of Being Featured

Wow, this week was interesting, 3 different sites featured me with three different pots in three days. I received convos on etsy from 3 different people telling me about them featuring my wares.

The first one was MyHandmadeRegistry.com saying I was featured on their front page in somebody's wish list. I wish i had grabbed a screen shot of the page but it didn't occur to me til the next day when I was no longer featured but if you go here you can see the pot that was featured.

The second site to send me a convo was the FoundHandmade blog. I haven't found a way to permalink to the entry but it is the entry on 'Perfect Triangles.' Here is a partial screen shot of my feature piece, its the sage green triangle shape bowl:

And finally I received a convo from the owner of Innocence Jewellery Design blog telling me I was part of her featured etsy sellers with my purple serving plate set. She had asked in the etsy forums for people to show her their purple items from their shop for potential inclusion to her blog.

I'd like to thank all three sites and their owners for featuring me and my work, it is so cool to see your own work being appreciated.

Tuesday, June 2, 2009

Falling for Clay


Back when I was in college I had planned on a degree in Communication and a minor in art with the goal of entering into the world of advertising. Then at some point I decided a double major in art and communications would work better. To get my degree in art I had to take a 3d medium but because of my late coming financial aid that semester the sculpture class I wanted was full. My adviser suggested ceramics as that was the only 3d class that semester with openings. Frankly I really did not want to take the class, handmade pottery was alien to me and my only memories of clay was some clay i found in my Grandma's driveway that I squished into some shape and gave it to grandma as a gift.

My teacher that semester was an adjunct as the regular professor was on sabbatical. We first covered handbuilding techniques but my eyes kept being drawn to the more advanced student on the wheel making pots, like magic the clay would rise and take form...I was hooked...I wanted to make magic too. We finally finished the handbuilding section and we got to go on the wheel. I got to admit, looking back, the first afternoon on the wheel there was very little magic made but at the time it was amazing. Clay was my calling I could tell.

As the semester continued I fell more and more in love with clay. After securing an after hours pass to the lab I could spend hours and hours on the wheel. Soon the communication degree I started out wanting became less and less important. Now I wanted that all important BFA instead of the normal BA in art. And so I finally got my BFA with a concentration in ceramics and a minor in communications. Now I one day want to head back and give grad school a try but that is going to be one day in the distant future.