5.31.2006

ahhhhhhh done......

Well the kiln is loaded and is firing as I write. It is packed to the brim; the very tippy-top. ( there was one thing I just could not fit in no matter how I tried). I plan on firing it very slow since its packed and I want no re-fires. Sometimes my glaze can be kind of "cranky" and make small craters in places. Usually I just stick these pots back in another kiln and they fire out. I think I'm going to have a huge amount of pots to take to my show. Sadly the Artist Walk in downtown York is closing so I will have all those pots as well. The Artist Walk was a great idea and just was not opened long enough for it to take off. They didn't want to pay anyone to run it and the people the volunteered to do all the work got burned out or just unappreciated. Poor York, nothing good can ever stay downtown....Its kind of doomed I think.The other sad thing about that is that is has so much potential. I really can't talk to much about supporting it because I'm guilty of using only two shops down there. Its hard to stroll around downtown with a five year old and a twin carriage. I've got to be really up for that kind of adventure. Anyways, back to my kiln.........I'll take some photo's of the pots when they come out and lots of photo's of the show! Have a great weekend!

5.29.2006

May

May has come and gone. I use to think that May was "My month"; of course my birthday is the 28th. Even my father said today that when I was young I use to start planning my birthday a month in advance. Joey can tell you that, that has not changed. But I just turned 39 and it has finally sunk in that other things happen in May. It flew by before it sunk in that I was turning another year older...fastly approaching the big 40. My son finished pre-school which at the time I didn't think was a big deal. His school had a little graduation and I found myself so proud of him and all teary eyed when he got up to sing his little songs. I also had to put my cat down this month. She was one of my best friends and I realized how fast life goes by. Joey and I planned on doing major repairs to our home but everytime we got money in the bank this month and tried to get the carpenter over here, the money had to go to other things. ( Now June is here and we are back saving money for the house). Time really flies, life is a cycle, a routine and before you know it, you are another year older. What in the world does this have to do with pots????????????? Well, making pots is a cycle. I can look back on my work from last year or last month and relies that a lot happens in a month with the progress in one's work. It makes me feel good to see where I was and where I'm going. I just wish I could go back 10 years and be at the same place!

5.26.2006

Cool Sets

I found a great salt/pepper show on the Baltimore clayworks website. I knew about this show and asked how one gets into it. I did get a nice reply back saying it to invitational only( that always sucks). But after seeing the pieces on there I know why and I couldn't see my sets being included in that show. Check it out!
I love to search the web for pots but find that I end up losing a lot of sleep in the process. I usually get on the computer at 11 at night. I always wrap stuff up in my studio around that time and since our computer "station" is right by the door leading to our bedroom, I can't help but sit down and see who has emailed me. The computer is so addicting. I think just as much if not more than a TV. Anyways, if I'm done with my email and want to look someone up it always leads to a late night because I just keep searching and searching until I can feel myself falling asleep in the chair. Of course if we had a high speed computer, I'm sure I'd be getting more sleep! Off to bed!

5.25.2006

A race to the finish..

I'm in a race this week. I have another show coming up June 3rd and this is the story of my life with pots and family. I get this pit in my stomach when thinking that I've only have a few more days to make stuff before I pack up for this show. It just so happens that this is my favorite show to do and usually I sell a lot. Its in Raleigh at a friend of mine home and its the one of the nicest small craft show I've seen. My friend Frances who is a gardener and her late husband Al took the grounds of there home and made all these wonderful gardens. Frances also makes garden sculpture( beautiful garden women) and she invites many of her sculpture friends and other craft people show has been close to through out the years. I met Frances when I was working at Cedar Creek gallery and she and my friend John ( who also works at CC) did the flowers for our wedding. Anyways, a bunch of us that use to work at the gallery do the show and its just so much fun to sell my work and hang out with all my old friends. Lots of good laughs.
Anyways, as luck would have it, I've come down with some sort of virus most likely from the stress of "the race" so I think I'm going to have to take advise from the story about the tortoise and the hare and just go slow and steady and work the best I can to finish my race.

5.23.2006

Some Pictures of My Setup


From the Barn Sale in Charlotte two weeks ago.

5.20.2006

Where's my tec guy!

Had a pretty good day today. Got to go to a workshop with Kent McLaughlin( hope I spelled that right) and then made pots this evening. I like a day when I get to think only of pots. Really I did that in the workshop and when I got back into the car I switched gears back to "motherly" thinking. Speaking of that, there is a great article in claytimes this month about being a parent and a potter. I was so happy to see the title and read what I feel everyday. I didn't have any kind of solutions or answered to the whole situation but it was nice to feel like I was part of a small group who struggles with the pull back and forth.

Kents workshop was fun. He seems like a really nice, funny layed back guy. There is no air about him and I really like that in a potter, plus I like his pots! Good stories and good conversation made the day go by fast.

I made some salt/pepper trays and some boxes tonight. I keep getting these images or should I say voices in my head about changing the little " basket or tray" that my salt and pepper shakers sit on, but since I'm under a crunch I just stuck with what works for now. Tomorrow I'll finish those pieces and I think move on to some bigger things so they can dry slowly before the bisque at the end of next week.

I almost forgot the why my title says what it says. Joey did get some photo's of my booth from the show last weekend and I tried to post them myself on the web . No luck. That is why I want my tec guy back........I need help!

5.16.2006

Back to work

I just got back in my studio this evening. Since Sunday was mothers day , I took a break and spent it with doing "mom" things, plus I was just worn out from Saturday. Monday I had a pretty bad day because I had to put my cat asleep. She had been with me for 16 years and it seemed like longer to me. All today I've been thinking about all the things that cat went through with me and all the places I moved her too. She was a one women cat and pretty much could care less about anyone else. She pretty much hated all my boyfriends but never hissed at Joey so I figured that was a good sign when we started dating. I knew she was really sick last week when she let the kids pet her. As soon as Quaid could reach out his hand to pet her she's hissed at him and the girls as well. So, I knew , it was time. I did have some free time this morning to get out in my studio and work but I was still kind of down in the dumps so I put it off for this evening. It felt good to get out there and clean up my mess from last week and start throwing some easy bowls. Tomorrow night I should really kick into gear. I only have two weeks to make a large amount of work for my next show!

( please if anyone reads this let me know!)

5.14.2006

The pick and choose

Opened my kiln Friday night and was happy to see for the most part a successful group of pots. I've been fooling with my glaze, the application and colors for bit and now I"m down to liking 3 out of the 5 glazes. I don't really want to narrow my self to just those three but I know if I have to many I'm going to look all over the board( which I know I have a tendency to do anyways). In fact someone came into my booth at this show and said. "You have so much stuff going on here". At the moment I didn't think much of it but then I thought, "was the a compliment or not"? I do love to try out new thing and am just know getting to the point where I have my items that I make and take to every sale because they sell, they are fast to make and people look for them when they come into my booth. As for the surface of my work, I can never leave that alone. There are just to many cool things to do and try. Like I said, I had some good stuff and ify stuff come out of the last kiln for this show. I put some aside for slides and took the rest. I didn't like how my new multi- budvase came out but I put out just to take up room and low and behold, it sold. You just never know. And the clam boxes that I thought would fly out of there for mothers day, just sat. You just never know.

5.11.2006

Heading to the show

Saturday is the Claymatter's guild spring show in Matthews.....and this is what I've been working for these last few weeks. I just finished glazing my final kiln for the event and as always , hope for the best. In the last bisque load I did have one blow out and as I could of predicted, it was one of my new budvases. But.....The other did survive and I'll have to see how it looks on Saturday with all my other stuff. I do have to admit that when I took it out of the kiln to glaze it, I already saw some design issues that I hadn't while putting it together. I made these really cute "clam boxes" which a potter by the name of Bruce Gholdson use to make. He had this awesome shino he used on them and he did this amazing brush work. When I was working at Cedar Creek before I even had any idea that I was going to be a potter, I use to just drool over his work. Now that I'm a potter I have pretty much put him in some sort of pottery god category. The funny is is that he doesn't do that kind of work anymore and even though I like his new stuff , it just doesn't have that same look of awe to me. Anyways, he made small clam boxes and large one. I"ll have to try the largers one but for now I'll see how there little one's do at the show. I thought they would be nice little boxes for someone's mom to put her jewelry in. The other funny thing about making these boxes is that there is nothing altered about them. They are just round little forms. Of course, now I have an idea to maybe paddle them and see what kind of form I could come up with ...........hummmmmmmmmmmmmm.

5.09.2006

This will come up a lot!

I'm sitting here at 2 in the afternoon attempting to add a post on my blog. Now, why do you think this might be a big deal? Well, the kids are at the moment in there rooms playing but at any moment my train of thought could be disturb and I'll have to end what it was I wanted to talk about. Maybe it was this! I know in this journal it will come up time and again at how hard I find juggling being a mom and a potter. I'm sure any professional mom feels this way but having the need to be creative is a hard urge and addiction to stifle. So, I try the best I can to do both. At the moment I have pots out in my studio ready to be stained and put in the kiln but there is no way I can just run out to start on that with the kids around. If I where really selfish in my need to work I would just put on a long movie and sit them in front of the boob-tube and leave but that in my eyes would haunt me for life. So, I wait until Joey gets home and I can go be on my own, with my own thoughts. Its kind of like being two people really. I'm anxious about this kiln because I have new things in it. I'm always worried before I bisque because there is always that chance I'll blow something up. ( I hate when that happens). It use to be that getting it through the glaze firing was the hard part but it has since changed because I'm always rushing things through the process to make the most of my short visits to my other world.
Well, it looks like I did get some peace to think and put down my thoughts. Now time has come to go back to being a domestic goddess.

5.07.2006

Tec support

Well I said in my last post that I was going to put some photo's up of my new" large bud vases",but looks like my "tec guy" choose teapots and canisters instead. Joey spent a few minutes with me the other night trying to show me how easy it is to post photo's of my work on here but after he went through all the steps, I had already forgotten them. Some of you have heard me talk about the fact that I'm dyslexic and most people think that just effects reading and spelling but I've read that we use our brains differently for learning things than the average person. I've taken atleast 3 computer courses in college and everything I did manage to get through them but as for retaining how this "machine" works, I've only masters the basics ( which is really typing stuff and that is about it). So......I guess what I was getting at in all this is the fact that I'm going to have to rely on my "tec guy" ( Joey) for posting photo's . When I did ask him why he didn't take any photo's of my bud vases his answer was" what, those big odd things?". I guess I got my first critique on those right then!

Teapots

Cannsiters

5.05.2006

A New Adventure

For the last two months as I've been outside on the porch making my pottery, Joey has been in here trying to come up with a website for me. He's been telling me for I think the last five years how I've needed one of these ........well here we go! He has decided that this one is just temporary and he's going to buy some software and make it his mission to come up with a "really cool" website. So for right now I figure we have a good set up. He can take control of getting my pottery business more high tec and "serious" and I'll concentrate on what I love, making pots!

Tonight I was throwing more stuff for my up coming show in Matthews. I've been really trying to make some things I've always wanted to but just have not given my self time to do. For this show( and I hope they come out) I'm making some large, multi vase bud vases. This is hard to describe but I've been seeing alot of these from other potters and I think they are pretty cool. Always I have to work out the surface treatment for something new and decide while I'm putting all the parts together how I'm going to glaze it. I'm going to take some photo's of the one's I've made and put them up for everyone to see so I can get some preface!
Well, time for bed I think. Tomorrow my inlaws are visiting , which I'm looking forward too and Quaid has his last soccer game....big day ahead.

5.03.2006

Candleobra


jennifermeccapottery.com

Hi - the new website should be up and running in a few days. In the meantime, I'll try and post some pictures and stuff here.