2.12.2010

Friday

I remembered today that some folks had some questions about sprigs and the drawing I do on my pots so I thought I'd just answer them for everyone.

Springs - I do make my own molds and I do press the clay into the molds as well as using slip for some of my sprigs. They are scored on both sides and applied while the pots are leather hard. I know someone asked me this a while back and I just never got the post answer back to them....

My drawings are incised in the leather hard clay as well. I use to do a lot of brush work but after taking a workshop with Julia Galloway, cutting into my surface with different tools was just so much fun, I've never gone back to a brush. But....never say never, right?


I was telling the my girls yesterday how much I use to LOVE Valentines Day as a kid. I would keep all my Valentines in an old candy box. Valentines today are so commercial. Why can't they just make these old sort of generic Valentines? Do you remember how the box came with an assortment and you had to pick and choose who got the big heart with the kitty-cat holding the pink bow, or the little boy and girl kissing? Quaid said he'd rather just have his Transformer Valentines and leave it at that. Spoken like a true 9 year old boy!
I went to great lengths this year to get the kids all Valentines with NO commercially advertised figures on them. It was hard, but we did manage end up with paper airplane valentines, flower seed ones and recycled paper book marks! Score...feels so good to have some control over what this crazy, media driven world. Mom's and Dad have a tuff time these days trying to keep everyone safe from words, music and images. The older my kids get the more questions we have coming at us in all sorts of directions that just make me want to change the topic REALLY FAST!
Ok, that is my rant for the morning. We are hoping for some snow this evening. So very sorry your folks in the North East have so much along with my pottery pals up in the NC mountains. I heard the winds where horrible the other day! Weekends are good for snow. Keeps the little people outside and happy.

8 comments:

Lori Buff said...

Your post inspired this post on my blog:
http://futurerelicsstudio.blogspot.com/2010/02/v-day.html

Thank you

laura weant johnson said...

i know, it's crazy how much branding kids are exposed to so young. i'm determined to keep judson's room neutral without any licensed stuff, but it gets harder as he gets older.

vicki hartman said...

I agree with all of that! Not to mention the ridiculous amount of sugar that's pushed on them on holidays. Yikes!

Anonymous said...

we made it through the valentine's for kids this week already because mom's at work all weekend and the preschool had their little party yesterday. the valentine's i remember are like the one you pictured on the post but i was a bit taken aback by the leaps in commercialism since we were kids. sofia came home with a bag of candy almost like it was halloween. no wonder there's a type 2 diabetes epidemic in this country

Jen Mecca said...

Oh I know! You should see the stuff my kids gets because they go to school with pretty wealthy familys who like to give you boxes of chocolates. YES...whole heart shaped boxes. Its pretty crazy, not to mention the fact there MOM gets into it all and gains 5 pounds after every holiday!
They are all outside burning off the sugar from yesturday..thank goodness for the snow again today.

Anonymous said...

Your kids are OUTSIDE and PLAYING? That in itself is a small miracle in these cable TV/internet daze.

Scott Smith said...

We try to steer clear of the commercial/licensed products with our kids too. Of course they're still exposed to some, which is OK. We don't want them to be culturally ostracized, just to realize there are other, smarter choices.

I bet our parents' generation probably thought the same things about us... getting all glassy-eyed in front of the TV (no doubt we were sitting so close to the TV that we nearly ruined our eyesight).

I can hear my Granny now... "What's this world coming to?" and "What's wrong with kids these days?"

Linda Starr said...

I asked about your sprigs, thanks so much. I just tried pressing some clay into candy molds, but let them dry too much to apply where I wanted them. I may be using them in a different way this time. thanks so much.

I still remember one of my girlfriends telling me years ago about her daughter saying K-Mart when they drove by the store before she could even talk in sentences, apparently she heard and saw the jingle on the Tv at 2 years of age.