Written word

Here's Aydan sniffing my morning coffee. I need to research who made this cup because I have forgotten there names. Shame on me!

I got a message on my last post from my friend Vicki Gil. Here is what she asked~

"I really like the words and images on these new plates. I also thought the images of the engobe from your earlier post were very nice. I've thought about putting thoughts on some of my work, but it seems like you have to decide if you want to be ironic, journalistic, inspiritional or nonsensical. I haven't really decided which category I would fall into. What do you think or what inspires you to link your images to words?"

I thought that since I had a long response to this and many thoughts on the matter that have been in my head all weekend, I should give this its own post.
Here is the final result of those plates below.


Yesterday before I glazed them I was thinking to myself why do I have flowers mixed with a saying by Grandma Moses? The two don't connect. I drew an images that I normal put on my work and then added a text that had no relation. I did cut myself some slack by knowing I was just playing around with these plates but know it is time to think more about what I am doing. What I am saying visually? I do love the quotes but something about just putting a quote on a vessel doesn't feel personal enough to me. My thoughts,song verses I love and quotes that run through my head have more of a personal feel. Kind of like the finger marks in the bottom of a mug.
My next step, I guess is some sort of imagery that does have relevance to my thoughts. At this moment in my life, my job as a mother, wife and female artist are all things that pull me in all sorts of directions and I do have a lot to say about those things. Here is where I'm not sure how much of my inner thoughts I want for the whole world to read. My blog is one thing but my true thoughts, I keep for my own ears and eyes. Stay tune for more of this.

Saturday

I'm turning in early this evening. I read this great article about how important sleep was the other day and even though I tend to push the envelope some weeks, I do believe that this is true that one needs sleep. I wish I could get 9 hours every night but this just does not work all the time. So, this weekend I told myself I would try to catch up on some much needed sleep.
I have a glaze kiln going this evening. I'm always nervous when I fire pieces that have to be somewhere. My fingers and toes are crossed! This evening I trimmed some bowls and watched such a great movie called Once. There have been some great sound tracks lately to films and this one was fantastic. I wish I had been born with the gift of making music because I think music is one of the top things that makes living so wonderful. I hope in a few years we can save up some money to buy the kids a piano so they can grow up having the chance to play and maybe I'll even take lessons again!
Last night the group from Circle of Eight met and as always it was good food, good talk and focus on moving forward. I brought these plates to share with my fellow potters. The words on my work are pretty new and I'm not sure where I'm going with this if anywhere at all. These plates are made out of my red slop clay with porcelain slip brushed on the top. I have brushed on a orange stain and added some red glaze to a few spots which is then waxed over. I then dipped them in my regular glaze colors and we'll see what comes out. I have a lot of ideas going around in my head for one of a kind platters. If these come out, I'll post the final result.

Middle of the week

I was trying to think of something momentous going on with Jen Mecca pottery this week but I have to admit it kind of the same old same old. I have a bisque going tonight for a show I'm in next week at City Art Gallery in Greenville Nc. They had kind of good idea for there business I thought at this time of the year. They are featuring new work by the artists they represent. I plan on sending them just some pieces they have not had. I think they kind of thought I'd have my soda work going at this time. I don't know about the rest of you potters out there but I don't always think gallery folks realize how long it takes to work stuff out. (Let alone build a kiln in my case.)


Friday I'm meeting with all my Circle of Eight folks. I missed the last meeting so I'm fired back up to chat about shows and stuff like that concerns keeping our group moving forward.


I got into a few more shows this week which was nice. Look for those to be posted in the next few days. When I was going over my calendar today I realised that I have a lot going on or due the end of March first part of April so I need to get hoppin' in the studio.


Here is my mug shot for the day. Its by Marty Fielding. I met him a few years ago through a friend of mine at the Pullen Art Center in Raleigh so this mug is pretty dated. He's someone who has gotten a lot of attention in CM these last few years and has burst on the scene so to say.

My first flowers to bloom!

Monday

Here are some things from this weekend. This is the flower/frog (?) thing I had in my head and wanted to try. (Please someone give me the correct name for this.) Its a good start to something. I often wish I had a little pen that I could draw on the screen of the computer with and show my next thoughts to what I want to do next or don't like about a piece. I'm sure there is something like this...but we don't have it.

Here are some covered jars in there first stages and my twins that will be stained and loaded this week.

My mug for the day is by Shawn Ireland who lives in Bakersville NC ( I think). The first time I went to Penland he was the core student and just getting into pottery I think. I like how his pots a ruff but still have some color to them.

I thought I'd also show our array of flavored coffee's. I drink more of this than Joey does. He just likes super strong regular coffee but sometimes I can talk him into the fancy stuff. I'm curious to see how the Bishops Blend is that the church sold with my mugs a few weeks ago.

Sunday..the foggy day

I'm always in a fog on Sundays. I just want to go slow, hang out and enjoy the peace of the day. Its 1pm and soon I need to get out to my porch and work, which will be good since I'm feeling relaxed. Yesterday I sketched and worked through an idea. Today I'll keep going on that track. Its another flower vase with a ( I believe its called a prong or maybe its a frog) inside it. At any rate I'll keep you updated if it is something worthy of showing.
I had some sad news delivered to me via email today. A potter that I knew in Raleigh died this weekend after having her cancer come back. Her name was Leanora Coleman and she owned a business called Claymakers that was a very nice place to take workshops. I knew Leanora back when she was just making pots and we use to carry her work at Cedar Creek. She was kind of a character but I always enjoyed talking to her and I liked her pots. I was always in awe of female potters before I even knew I end up being one. I knew what it took to fire and build a kiln and thought how hard it must be for a women to do all that her self! I had just spoken with Leanora back in December and thought she looked really good. I guess you just never know. Life is precious....my thoughts are with her and her family and friends. Its always kind of kick in the gut when you get news like that.
Later today Joey and I plan on working more on the chimney to the kiln.
I have a new song by The Moldy Peaches from the movie Juno that keeps resonating in my head today. Check it out - its a sweet tune with great lyrics.
You're a part time lover and a full time friend
The monkey on you're back is the latest trend
I don't see what anyone can see, in anyone else
But you
I kiss you on the brain in the shadow of a train
I kiss you all starry eyed, my body's swinging from side to side
I don't see what anyone can see, in anyone else
But you
Here is the church and here is the steeple
We sure are cute for two ugly people
I don't see what anyone can see, in anyone else
But you
The pebbles forgive me, the trees forgive me
So why can't, you forgive me?
I don't see what anyone can see, in anyone else
But you
I will find my nitch in your car
With my mp3 DVD rumple-packed guitar
I don't see what anyone can see, in anyone else
But you
Du du du du du du duduDu du du du du du duduDu du du du du du dudu

There is more, but you get the picture. Have a good Sunday.Jen

Feeling pretty computer savey

Yesterday I was trying so hard to figure out why my spell check wouldn't work and I started pushing all sort of buttons. Much to my surprise I figured out how to change the settings and basically the whole lay out of my blog! This was so exciting to me. I came home and announced to my Tec Guy that I was no longer in need of his services for that kind of stuff any longer. ( I'm sure this made him very happy.) Boy does it feel good to be a 20century gal! Now I'm on my way to ruling the world! (Well, I guess I still need to get the spell check thing worked out and than I 'll take it from there.)

I'm going out to throw some covered pots. I think I'm going to go for some big guys today.

Here is a mug by my pal Brad Tucker. This guy is a an old one. ( The mug that is. Haha) It came from a group of mugs at Cedar Creek when I worked there. It even could of been a second but it has stood the test of time in my kitchen for 18 years! Boy Brad, I had no idea I've known you that long! Time flies. Brad is in Baltimore doing the ACC show so I'm wishing him lots of luck.

( Low and behold my spell check is working...guess I can start taking over the world now. On second thought its rainy and gross out today so I think I'll just hide indoors and let some other free-less female try today.)

Planning out new things

Whenever we sit down to a meal I always seem to have three veggie's/fruits that the kids need to try and "eat". Lately since we get a lot of resistance as to what we put on their plate, I've been trying the approuch of letting them decide which "good thing" they would like to choose.( Of course I just stick a dinnerplate out in the middle of the table with various things on it.) I've often thought that a serving dish with several little compartments would be a good thing for a family such as ours with three picky eater. I've been working this piece out in my head for awhile and in previous years attempted something like this.

Before Christmas someone gave me the idea of combining the thrown pieces together the way I do my twin vases. Here is what I started to just play with the other night. This is in very raw form and I also did also sketch of it my book one day waiting for the kids. We'll see if next week I can't push this into an actual new piece for me.

Here is a mug by Mark Peters and one by myself. I made Joey and the kids each there own mug for Valentine's day. This one has a little sketch of Joey on it with a Beetle's song verse written on the bottom. ( Its kind of hard to see......)

Ideas and more ideas

I got all the red clay cleaned up and out of my studio (plus the pugmill...what a job) and I got back to my porcelain work this weekend. Currently I'm working on a small order that needs to go out next week. If you recall I was trying work out my "quest" for putting words on my pieces. The tiles I made worked for the most part but I was not happy with the pots I chose to write on. I did experiment with writting on plates with some of the left over red clay. Those have been bisqued and I think I am onto something with the possiblities a flat surface offers to many images. I made a great discovery at class last week that was waiting for me on the finished shelf. A dinner plate I was demonstrating engobes to my class last session came out really well! Here is the plate and I really like the quick jesture carving that I did around the edges of my flowers. I think I may be able to play around with some wall pieces/platters using engobes. Stay tuned for some examples as soon as I can move forward past my order.

My camera is down for the day....new batteries are needed. I have several mug shots to posts! Boy have we been enjoying some good coffee since Christmas.

(On a side note I asked my tec guy about why the spell check is not working and he said his wasn't either. Time to contact Blogger....)

Opening Friday night

My pal Julie sent me some photo's from the opening Friday night. It was a lot of fun getting out and being, what seemed to be a whole differant crowd than our norm here in York. The two of us kind of felt like we where in Greenville NC again because it was a very hip, artsy crowd like when I was in grad school. Sometimes we miss the old days when it was just us and we could go to cool resturants and interesting opening ect.~ Of course if I where still doing this every weekend I wouldn't have little people jumping in bed with me pretending to be some sort of rodant under the covers on the weekends. Neither of us would trade that.....

Anyways, the work in the gallery was all very nice. Both of the owners did wonderful work. Here are some painting by Duy Huynh who is one of the owners. Joey and I loved his work because it was very dream-like.

The gallery was set up with things all around so there wasn't really one view of my space but here are a few of my pieces.

We ended the night at a great Vietnamese resturant. Here we are! Its true what they say about men, they just get better looking with age. Atleast to me, my husband does. He's back on his blog as well and enjoying the fact that I made us get high speed!

Chimey

Today was really nice out and even though I didn't feel like I got a whole lot done today, we did manage to work on the kiln a little bit. Here is the stack going up more. We've had a lot of cutting to do because the bricks I had to get where not totally the same size as the others. You'll notice two bricks that stick out from the rest and NO this is not a passive damper but a ledge for the pipe to sit on. We will take this up a bit more with bricks and than another pipe will fit on here to go up and out the roof.

I got all my mugs to the church today. They where glazed very plainly and went over well. Guess I should of taken a photo of them but they where so far removed from my normal stuff I thought I'd just box them up and send them on there way to do what I intended them too...make money for a good charity.

The opening for the Lark and Key was a lot of fun on Friday. Hopefully I'll get some photo's back from my friend Julie this week to post on here.

Here is my mug shot for the day. This was my morning coffee and this is an old mug made by one of my very good friends Amy Evans. Amy went to grad school with me and she makes GREAT pots. She, like most of us has had to put making pots on the side because she needs to teach and support her household. Her husband is also a potter and works as the clay studio cordinator for Arrowmont in Gatlinburg Tennessee. I hope one day both of them will just be able to make pots and do what we all love to do. This mug does not do Amy's pots justice!
Hi Am'~

Good Photo's

I was looking at so many blogs the other day and really relized how the photo's of my work do not show off what my pots really look like. Since I don't have a great digital camera I will just have to keep posting what I can for now. I did just get some great photo's taken of my work and before I wouldn't have wasn't the time to try and down load these but today they popped up in 1 minute flat. ( We are so amazed by this new toy we have!!)
Here are things I have shown in differant stages or have spoken of.

Twin vases with Amber and green glaze.

Flower block with feet.

Dinner plates with raw clay showing on the edge and orange slip on part of the design, this is also raw clay showing through. I've been trying to do this on more and more things to get ready for the interduction of the soda kiln. ( If we ever get the money together to get it totally hooked up to the propane tank.)
Here are some drinking cups. I love this photo~

Happy Heart Day

So today is Friday but I'm still doing Valentine's day. Joey surprised me and took the day off so he could be Mommy and Daddy today and I could be...well just me. I am such a lucky gal to have a guy that helps out so much with being a Dad. I love to see my husband with the kids and after 7 years of learning as we go being parents ( and we still have our moments and will always) we make a pretty good team. We always have good laughs about who knows the other one better. Today the phone rang and I knew it was Joey on the other end and the questions he was going to ask me so I just answered the phone without a hello and just gave him his answer. I think it is so cool how someone in the world that is not related to you can be closer to you than your own flesh and blood.

So...back to my day, I am still in heaven with my latest computer adventure! I slept late and here I am doing my morning computer stuff , faster then lightning I might add!I enjoying listening to NPR and I've had three phone calls while on the computer..what a consept! My breakfast even tastes better today. After this I'm off for my walk and than into the studio. I hope everyone had fun yesturday.

Here is my favorite Valentine from one of my four year olds.

Since I've been making lots of mugs I thought I start doing a "mug post" for this day. I have two times a day I drink coffee. In the morning and at night before I go back out to work. Each time I make a point to pick a differant mug from our collection. Some I have bought, some are my rejects and some people have given to me. Here is one by my friend Amy Sanders!

HIGH SPEED!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Here I am, phone is free and I'm going to town feverishly checking all sorts of sights, emailing as quick as I can. It is a great way to spend my Valentine's morning! So, here are some quick photo's of stuff I thought might be nice that I've spoken about in previous blog. ( FYI I still can not figure out what I hit so my spell check won't work but I'll get my tec guy on that tonight. I'm sure he'll be on here until all hours of the morning reading as many news sites as he can. Maybe he'll even get back on his blog!)

Here the soup mugs I needed to re-fire and a teaset for one!

Tonight I have class, right now I have some mugs and tests cooling for the donation to the church and tomarrow I plan on puggin' out the rest of my slop clay and finishing that up so I can get back to porcelain next week.

Hope you have someone to share Valentines day with. I'm sure after school today my kids will be bounceing off the walls with excitment over there day.

Thurseday morning..at 9am...high speed goes in!

I can not wait for Thurseday to get here. It has been no fun to try and do anything on my computer for months now. We are kind of over trying to save money by not having high speed internet and finally we have decided it would be in our best interests to bite the bullet and pay for it. It finally occured to me the other day when I was trying to upload images how much time I waste waiting for my computer work to get done...makes sense that I'm looseing money by not having high speed rather than spending money paying for it!

My mugs are in the bisque kiln cooling and I had a few tests come out but plan on doing more. I really enjoy playing with the red clay and may just do some wall pieces in it that are totally differance than my porcelain work. We'll see.....

Here's the announcement for the Lark and Key opening on Friday. I'm really excited to go out and have a date with my husband that night!

No posts

We've been having lots of issues with our dial up and last week we finally decided to change over to high speed! Yes, we will be in the 21st century finally!!!
So....I have'nt posted because its to fustrating for me....stay tuned. I'll be back! Jen

Mugs and red-slop clay

I've been throwing mugs! Yippee! I made sure I was down to my last bag of porcelain before bringing out the red slop clay that I've been housing for a year. I always use this clay at this time of the year because typically for the last 5 years I've donated some sort of pottery item in bulk to our church for a fund raiser the youth group does. This year the youth group asked me to do mugs so they can sell mugs along with some great coffee made at a monistary somewhere. ( I'm excited to try this coffee!) Of course I've enjoyed making all sorts of mugs and using this clay that I pugged and is just like butter to throw. It is also so forgiving, what a breeze compared to porcelain! But with all that, I keep looking at my wheel, wedging table and pug-mill and thinking...what a mess to clean up. So far I've thrown 50 mugs and also a few plates that I want to play with. I decided I still do not totally want to give up on my writing and thought maybe it would be interested on big platters. First I want to see it on a plate and decided weather or not sacrificing all that clay will be worth it.

Today I reloaded the pieces that I just did not like out of the last kiln along with a bunch of test tiles. I haven't made tests in over a year and boy do you forget how time comsuming it can be!

Last night some friends and I went to see the movie Juno. It was great so if you get a chance go see it.

Bad Karma pottery day

Some days you have just got to wonder what you did to piss the pottery gods off. Today was one of those days for me. Nothing to horrible happened just little things all day long. Here's my list:

*Unloaded kiln this morning. Work with words on them basically sucked. I hated them.Yuk!! The tiles where fine but the boxes just did not look good and the rest of the work was to dark...my glazes revolted on me in the kiln. What was up with that??? So I packed up what I could and left the rest to look at when I got back home.

* Went to load up my car and jammed my finger in the door.

* Went to my packing shed to get out my shelves for my set-up and found that Joey had put them back way behind what seemed like a mound of stuff to move. Took me forever to get them out!

* Spilled coffee on myself in the car driving to set up.

* Got to art center to set up and relised I had left my lights at home to make my display look better ( which it needed since I did'nt really have a huge variety to pots! And I was next to someone who had amazing lighting.

* My display fell while I was putting it up almost knocking down the display beside it. ( In this case the pottery gods spared me.)

* I broke two pieces unpacking and setting up.

*Went to pick up my kids at school with empty pottery boxes in the car and found it was my turn to do car pool and bring home 3 other children. Result...the poor kids had to ride home with plastic crates on there laps whinning to me the whole time and asking if we can just throw them out somewhere on the way home, which is an 1/2 hour drive. ( Mainly this was my sons idea.)

* Got home and got a rejection letter in the mail along with my slide back.

So...hence was the bad pottery karma day. I did manage to take a nap before dinner and tried to regroup for the night. A song by the rock group Foreigner came into my head and I managed to change the lyrics to fit my own thoughts......"Feel like making....dada..dada..dada....dada....I feel like makin' clay". Why this popped into my head...who knows. Finally I ended the day making clay to start new tomarrow.
Ps.I still can not get my spell check to work!

How Fitting

So here I am in my last post talking about words and why I think I'm into writing on my pots and low and behold...my spell check won't work! Comic irony( I have no idea if that is even spelled right!)

I didn't get to glazeing today because both girls stayed home from school with colds. I had to call the arts council and plead my case for setting up my pots on Wed., a day later than the rest of the crew. Such is life as a mother. I have a good potter friend at the moment who is getting ready to have her first child and since she too is a studio potter, I'm curious to see how she handles it all. Unlike myself, she got her career going before she decided to have children. This was a smart move!
Tonight I will glaze.

More Words

My bisque kiln is going; tomarrow I'll glaze in the morning.

I'm still dealing with words, phases, verses and such. This is kind of a profound thing I'm dealing with I just thought today since I have so much trouble expressing myself sometimes. Yet another aspect of dyslexsia is not being able to find the right word that fits the defination you are looking for when speaking. My mind will be thinking one thing and my mouth will say another. I of course am more aware of this than I think other people are. I loose my thoughts a lot when I'm lectureing or recalling a story to someone. When ever I am in a heated argument, I get flustered and can't say what I'm really thinking or feeling. This has really come to the fore front of my being since I've been married and haveing a son that is so verbal. ( and a husband that is an excellant debater).

So....putting the written work on my work may be a way of getting this all out of my system. As I was loading my kiln and looking over the work I had written on, it seemed to me that this is a phase. Not an aspect of my work that will stay around to long, atleast I don't think it will.

Here are two vases. Both of these have lyric's on them from a Glen Campball song of all things. Witchita Lineman is a song from my childhood and there is a phase in the song that says, " I need you more than want you. And I want you for all time"( corny maybe...). It was'nt until a few years ago that when I heard a remake of that song by Michelle Shock that I really understood that phase a bit better now that I have relied on someone other than a family member for the last 13 years. Its bites and pieces of phases and quotes that I'm drawn too. We'll see what happens!

Firing Time

I guess I last wrote in the middle of the week. The later part of my week was spent getting ALL my tax stuff together, throwing some more and My domestic goddess duties...Ha! Today I am staining and incising the last bit of work before I put it in the bisque. I will be glazing on Monday and unloading/packing Tuesday morning. On Thurseday night I have an opening at the Cleveland County Arts Council for a show I do every year called Treasures of the Earth. I also have an opening at a new gallery down in the North Davidson section of Charlotte. The gallery is called The Lark and Key and the grand opening is February 15th. Joey and I are planning on making it a Valentine's date with a night out and dinner. After trying to get the kids to eat meat loaf, sit still in their seats and not look at each cross-eyed at the table, I was dreaming of this quiet night together that we will be having.
I had one more opening this month and that was a show sponsored by the SC Heritage Corridor. It is called The Connection and you can read more about it on there web site. Its has to do with the connection between South Carolina and Barbados West Indies. I can honestly say that this show will enable me to put on my resume' that my work has been shown internationally because not only does the show travel all around the state for a year but it will also be in Barbados. Boy, it would be great if I could go to that opening!

Here are some more soup mugs.
I really am into these this month. Lets hope my shopping public is as excited about soup in the winter time as I am!

Words on pots

"Eddies got one crazy eye that turns him into a cartoon when a pretty girl goes by"......Ricky Lee Jones

I've always loved Ricky Lee Jones songs and I have no idea why I will listen to them over and over again. I was thinking yesterday morning when I was on the treadmill listening to her song how that is such a great line. You can see in your head the expression she is talking about on his face.

So, here are a few of the tiles and a clam box with some words/quotes on the pieces. The images do not show up that well at this stage because the clay is leather hard and the stain smears. After it gets out of the bisque kiln you can see them better. Plus my camera is pretty low grade so I apologize. I look at these and wonder if it is to much , which I am notorious for doing to my pots. I should go take a workshop with someone like John Glick who also has tons of stuff going on with his surface but does it well.

Today I picked up images of my work that I had shot last week. They look great but for once I really saw things about my pots ( not surface for once) but form that I want to work on. It occurred to me that I never noticed this so clearly before with my work when I saw it up on a screen. Maybe my eye has finally learned how to critically look at my work. God.....how many years have I been doing this and it just clicked with me??? Of course it is so much easier to see on someone elses work!

I'm on my own this evening with the kids. We are having what I like to call a "hic-cup" with Quaid this month. Raising three kids is like a continuous door of someone that is having issues; it is always revolving. And an issue is usually hard for a parent to deal with. Raising kids I do admit stresses me out because I tend to worry a lot. I want everyone to be happy.These are things that one never thinks is truly that hard when your child is a baby and you dream of what life is going to be like with this little wonder. It did occur to me that getting my thoughts and fustrations about all this would be great to do on my work, but would I really want to share that much with the public? For the most part the quotes I put on my pots can't be truly read because I don't write that neatly. So...just things going on in my head with this new exploration of text.

Words

I've been drawn to images or objects lately with famous quotes and sayings on them. I don't own any jewelry with inspirational messages on them but I admire lots of them and wish I did have something I could look at everyday that reminds me of something I feel is a good thoughts to keep me going.
With this said, I printed out a bunch of quotes and sayings buy famous people and thought I'd use them somehow in my work. I started off yesterday by putting some on my tiles and today I added them to a few of my clam boxes. I'm not so sure I'm really sold on this idea. Something about it seems to be a form of "selling out" to me. Or maybe its the fact I can not yet find a subtle way to add this into my imagery without it being contrite. Here are just a few of the quotes I really like. Some are serious and some are funny.
*In my long and colorful career, one thing stands out: I have been misunderstood- Mea West
*Old age is like flying through a storm. Once you're aboard there is nothing you can do. - Golda Meir
*Intuition will tell the thinking mind where to look next. - Jonas Salk
* Having kids is like having a bowling alley installed in your brain - Martin Mull
*The whole of life, from the moment you are born to the moment you die, is a process of learning - Jiddu Krishnamund
* I was a vegetarian until I started leaning towards sunlight - Rita Rudner

Studio Fashion

The other morning I got to chat with my friend Brad Tucker. He's one of my favorite pottery pals to laugh with because he's got such a great sense of humor. As we where talking I was lamenting that at that moment on the phone I was trying to get my studio up to temp. so I could go out and work. I was laughing at how some nights its a miracle I can throw anything with all the layers I wear to keep warm. Some nights I feel like I have so much on that I might as well buy a snowsuit like I had as a child. Then I get a visual image of how I would look as an adult in a big pink snowsuit with fur around my face and get a good inside laugh.

Anyways, Brad thought I should put a photo up of how I do look in the winter when I work. ( I think he wanted a good laugh!)Last night wasn't so bad when Joey took this photo. I only had one pair of sweat pants on under my pregnancy overalls that have come in handy since I had the twins. Under this heavy purple sweater my mother-in-law made for me I have two long sleeve shirts. Just add a coat and I'm all set to load a wood kiln out in Minnesota somewhere!

There was a time in the 20's when I was to vain to put such a photo up for everyone to see. ( I look a bit "haggard" in this photo..which is the norm on a school night.) These days I'm amazed at what kind of get-ups I'll go out in. (I am keeping my New Years resolution about not going out in sweatpants as much.)
To keep my pots from freezing I drape flannel sheets over them and on really cold night I keep on heater going on low so my clay won't freeze. When my glazes freeze out in the shed, I stick them in my kiln and turn it on low for a bit.Those are my tips for anyone who thinks a none-heated space can not be used for a studio!

I'm working on clam boxes and tiles at the moment. Slowly I'm loading up the bisque kiln. Tonight I will be teaching so I better go out and get working.

Quaid is at home this morning with a stomach ache. I think he just wanted to be with mommy and make paper airplanes. Some days I think we all need a break so I'm letting him "re-group".

Set backs

Last night I went out to my studio to begin putting my slip on pieces I had finished and found many cracks and handles that had popped off. Winter and Summer is always the worse time for clay in my studio. The change of air flow always wrecks havoc on my pieces and it always takes an event like this to remind me of that. The cats have been clawing at the plastic on my walls and doors and this causes drafts that of course cause strange drying patterns in my shop. So...back to the drawing board. I have also run out of clay and I'm waiting for some checks to come in to buy some fresh boxes of Helios. In the mean time I'm recycling a lot a small batches in my pug-mill which takes up a lot of time. I'm off to recycle now~

Spaghetti dinners

Last night my sister and niece came for a weekend visit and we got to enjoy a family tradition. Sauce! Here in the Charlotte area we once again had a snowy mix of rain and such outside but of course my northern family braved the elements and came for dinner. ( Mom, Dad , Grandma, Pam and Ellie). My father spent the day at my parents house preparing the sauce, which is something he has only done since I've been an adult and Joey and I took care of the pasta, salad and such. When I was little pretty much every other weekend we would drive from Ithaca New York to Syracuse for sauce at my grandparents house. Its one of my favorite family memories growing up and whenever my sister comes to town we get together for the same sort of family meal, only my grandmother does not cook these days.

Our dinner table is the exact one that I ate from as a girl. Pretty much all the furniture in our house we inherited from my grandparents so every time my grandmother comes to visit she likes to look around and "visit" and examine everything. Here it is set with my Brad Tucker dinnerware and I have a Ken Sedberry pitcher for a center piece.

I spent yesterday trimming up some things and packing some pots that need to be shipped out Tuesday.

Today I will throw some more...hopefully I'll get in the Zone without to many interruption and get a lot made.

Week review

Sorry I've been absent. Truthfully this week was so chuck full of other stuff and surprises that once again put pottery making on hold. I'm really hoping that this will not be the case in the coming weeks because I REALLY need to make some pots!
Monday and Tuesday where spent at the kids school all day in the art room demoing the talking. I had kids from 3yrs up to 5th graders so the mood was constantly changing. Both nights by the time I got the kids home, I did not want to be out in my studio. I just wanted to go to bed.

Wednesday I get back to work but had one of those days that I crashed a lot of pots that I made. I'm trying to be really picky about what I save these days since Porcelain is so expensive.
Thursday we got snow and ice. We were all very excited about that. My kids where up at 5am...(yes 5 am) wanting to go outside in the wet, cold rain and snow. We managed to keep them in until about 6:30 am and I got to enjoy a cup of coffee and look at all the school closing for about an hour while they got sock-and-wet. So..my morning of studio time was gone and the afternoon was spent taking a bunch of finished work to be photographed. I really like the guy that does this for me. He's a friend of my pal Ron Philbeck and this time we spent a lot of time chit-chatting about music and movies so while my babysitter could of been watching the kids while I worked a bit more in the studio, I choose to enjoy some good conversation and take my time getting photo's made. The night was spent teaching the first of 10 classes to an intermediate group of students.

Here it is Friday. Once again there was no school today due to a teacher workday and this evening I finally got back to my nightly "stint" in the shop and made some pitchers. WoW...what a week!

Our area is calling for another snow and rain/ice storm this weekend so once again, the kiln has been put on hold. I enjoy having the winter weather. I tend not to complain so much about the cold out in my studio when it seems like there is a reason for it. ( Cold with no snow does not make sense to someone who grew up in central New York).
We'll see if by Monday I'll have some images to put up for all to see.

Monday Monday...la la...la la la la...

So today I spent the day at my children's school doing none other than....pottery demo's. I had approached the art teacher of the lower school last year about coming in and doing this and we just now got it together to bring me in.
The school is equipped with 6 very nice Brent wheels and a kiln room,but no one uses any of it that much. So... as always me, trying to think business wise I thought that if I did a demo maybe a summer camp job could come out of the whole thing and the equipment would get some use. ( We'll see! )
As for the day, it was a lot of fun and the kids had a blast seeing me throw and then I allowed them to each try centering. The art teacher was equally as great in letting me do whatever I wanted and I think in the spring I'll come back and actually do some sort of project with one of the grades. Today I had the 4 yr. olds ( complete with my two pistols), the 4th grades and my sons 1st grade class. My kids where in heaven having mommy around for the day and showing her off! I'll be back there tomorrow doing the same thing for the kindergartners and 5th grade students. I have to say after a day a teaching I didn't go near my studio tonight. I"m whipped! I have no idea how mom's work 9 - 5 jobs and have the energy to spend time with there kids plus do house stuff. I am truly amazed at anyone who does this.

Drinking vessels

( Yes, I'm here!)
I got back to work the end of last week. My focus was drinking vessels to start back in the swing of things. I hadn't made any tea bowls in a long time so I threw some good size squared off ones with a cut square foot at the base. You can't see it but it is trimmed round on the inside and I cut the square for the outside. Its one of those nice happenings that you don't expect when turning over a piece. I think I'm going to try and do this a bit more this year..surprise is good!

This is a new mug for me; shape wise and handle wise. I've always been intrigued by upside down handles as well as this organic ending where it connects. (I've seen a lot of these on pots lately). I've often thought about trying this when I'm demoing handles for my class but I wasn't totally sure how to make one. Well, now I know so I think this next session coming up, we'll try some upside down handles.

Here are a set of soup bowls that I have saucers ready to be trimmed. When I think of cold, I think of coffee, tea and soup so this is where my head has been. I think the last time I made soup bowls was back in undergrad. Who knows if anyone will be interested in buying these but they where kind of fun to make, sort of like my egg cups.

Ceramics Monthly this month

So, this months issue of CM was pretty enjoyable for me. I found two good articles that I could relate too and pick some info. up from. One was on a Gallery called The Dolphin Song that its owned and run by the Meisinger family. Danny Meisinger is the potter and he wrote a good personal article about being a potter who was very content selling his work to his surrounding community. This gallery sounds like such an interesting place full of all sorts of natural hand made items and very environmentally conscience in nature. He writes about being in his 20's and hearing a slide presentation by Clary Ilain about selling pots to her local boy scout troop. He than goes onto to hit all the points of doing shows, selling to galleries and how nice it is to own your own shop and not be pigeon-holed into doing just certain items. I would love to be doing what he is doing! He did point out that the old building they are in always needs lots of renovations and upkeep so he did paint a realistic view of running your own gallery. All in all the whole take on giving back to his community and being such a visible force in his downtown really sounded great!

I think this piece hit home for me because every year around this time I donate my time and resources to our youth at the Episcopal church where we attend. Our church supports our local homeless shelter along with a orphanage right down the street from our home. Our youth do a lot of fundraising for both these organizations and since my time is to limited volunteer either place I help out by making a huge number of soup bowls for a chili fundraiser around Super Bowl time. This year I'm excited to do a "mug-a-thon" for Valentines day in which the youth will sell my mugs along with some organically grown coffee from a monastery. Pretty cool huh! I always like doing this "project" each year because it give me more time to play with my work and I feel good about my donation to our community. And hey...would I want to give up a chance to make some mugs?

The second article that I liked in CM this month was on a potter by the name of Meg Oliver and her quest to set up a studio after grad school. I liked this article because I don't think that CM does enough to promote young potters in the magazine unless they have won a lot of mass appeal. Meg Oliver COULD be one of these but I can't say I've seen her pots everywhere so I enjoyed reading the events that have lead her to set-up shop in Woodstock NY.

I made clay last night and spent the morning messing around trying to get some images downloaded and getting my tax stuff together. ( My tec guy is out of town so I was on my own. That also meant I was lone parent tonight with homework, feeding, bath and such so I couldn't make it out to my studio at a decant time.) So tonight after I get off the web I plan on sitting down with a huge three ring binder that has I'm sure a thousand of glaze recipes in it and see what I can find. I"m still planning ahead for my salt work so there will be some glaze tests in my next kiln. More on that later!

Back at it!

The morning has been spent in the studio..cleaning and such. Here's my door leading out to my wonderland!

In all honesty I haven't spent the whole morning there. I went for a run this morning( well a run walk..I haven't ran in ages and was never REALLY good at it but I'm giving it another try). I also have spent the morning leafing through my CM for shows. I'll have to say this month didn't upset me as much as other months have. There were some nice articles in there. I'll talk about that in another post!

Look at my clean wheel!

Do you think I have enough clean towels?

Of course I said we would start on my stack last weekend but we only got as far as buying the saw to cut the bricks.

I'm going to make some nice fresh clay tonight and I think on Friday I'll hitch up the wagon and set off to Charlotte to pick up some clay and other needed supplies.

I've had my new Ipod on all morning and I am just loving being immersed in my music no matter where I've gone. ( The cats keep looking at me funny).Jeff Buckley's tune "Last Goodbye" inspired me to start running today. Joey also got me Serious Radio for my car this Christmas. I've discovered some new people I would really like to check out more - David Grey and Abra Moore. At the moment I'm singing to Ryan!( Adams that is...can't get enough).

Keep back soon for some food for thought with C Monthly.

Old pots..what to do

I've been spending most of my days cleaning, painting, throwing things away and re-organizing our house. Every year while I'm busy running around with my business and the kids I pretty much let a bunch of things go around here. There are days when I have to just shove stuff in a closet and say to myself I'll get it come January and don't worry about it today. I do sit and "stew" about it when I'm out in my studio and just say that its not a priority today.
So..here it is January and I'm playing catch up on all that stuff. We have a big list on the frig of all things that need to be done and I love to mark them off. ( I'm not sure Joey's so thrilled with the list but......). Yesterday as I finally got all the Christmas stuff put away and pulled out pots that I had taken down I realised how many ugly old pots of mine I have been saving. Why do I hold onto these things and worst of all, display them! I guess truthfully I have some connection to these few pieces because they have a story behind them as opposed to one's I got rid of a long time ago. I guess I also keep them around the house because I don't have a true studio to display them in. I love to go to other potters studio's who save old work. If they are like me, they do this to remind them of something they want to come back to or never go to again!


Here is a pot that in undergrad was the biggest covered jar I could make at the time. Look at those handles!! I guess I was trying to be creative and make handles like no one else. You can see here, at an early "age" I was into some form of surface design. I also made a dinnerware set that went with this jar. I gave it Joey the first year we were dating. It was collecting dust in my studio space at school and he needed plates and bowls. When we moved out of his apartment, we left the whole set with the apartment and new tenant.

At the moment we keep our pennies it. I made this in 1996.




The 3 larger vases on these shelves came out of a wood kiln I helped fire at Dan Finch's pottery in Bailey NC down near East Carolina where I went to school. If you've ever fired a huge wood kiln for days, your so happy with anything that comes out of it!! I used these vases to display flowers at our wedding. The smaller vases are from the first year I started potting. First pots are such good reminders of how hard it is to throw a pot when you first start out. My beginning students get a kick out of seeing these pieces.

So..that's what it going on here this weekend. If I get my painting done, maybe I can get out to clean my studio tonight.

Sketch Book

The kids did go back to school today and I stayed true to my resolution and sat in the car-pool line and worked in my sketch book. I figured I am going to jot down some new ideas I have along with a list of things I need to make..and why. I guess I feel like I need to give myself some feedback on why I think I need certain things for my inventory so I don't get off track. That may seem weird to some folks ( you should just do it) but for those of us that have a hard time staying focused..it is needed. A few post ago Vicki Gil had made a comment to me about how I join my "twin vases" together and what a good idea that was for other things. I got an idea right off the top of my head that night for a piece I had struggled with in the past; conjoined relish dishes. Back in grad school I made a bunch of these and would spend hours cutting and "conjoining" two sides together. Today I sat and sketched how I could make the piece "spoon" each other and then attach via the glaze as I do my twins. We'll see what happens. Thanks Vicki for turning on a light bulb in my head!

Still not out in my studio yet. I have Christmas stuff to put away and I have to finish painting some trim around the house I swore I would do over break. I have done some much needed paper work for shows and such. I think this weekend will be a good time for cleaning and making clay. ( I'm hoping the temp. goes up from 30 degrees to maybe 60's). I think my clay is frozen since I haven't had the heater going out there...yikes.

Bringing in the New Year

We had a great New Years...hope you did also. Neither Joey nor myself have been big on New Years celebrations but this year we got invited to go spend the evening with some of our "local" friends and bring the kids along. It was a very laid back fun evening with the all our kids running around and the adults hanging out munching on stuff and having some wine. Its nice to get together with folks our same age because we tend to laugh about silly things from our youth.

Today Joey made a big pot of black eyed peas, corn bread and spinach. Believe it or not this was the first time I've eaten black eyed peas! Its is a southern tradition I think to eat these along with collard greens ( I couldn't take the smell of those cooking so we got rid of them and agreed on the spinach instead).

Tomorrow is the kids last day of vacation so I will make it mine as well. I'm going to treat them to a trip to the movie theater to see "The Water Horse". Thursday I will clean my studio and get some clay ready to throw. Yesterday I did some paper work and packed up pots to go here and there - some for gallies, some for photo's. After I did that I realized that my stock is back to the bare bones so I guess I need to get going sooner than I had thought. I have TONS of ideas I'd like to try but I first need to make a bunch of mugs for a benefit I do every year at our church. This weekend coming up we plan on finishing the chimney on the kiln. We needed to buy a certain type of saw to cut the bricks so we needed to wait for Christmas gift cards and such before we could this.

Its been a great Christmas break for me. I think looking back on 2007 I got a lot of baby steps accomplished with my work and I feel good about how the year went. I can't wait to see what 2008 holds for my potting adventures.

Resolutions and hopes for 2008 - some serious...some nutty

I resolve too.......

*Take my sketch book with me everywhere so I can jot down all that pops into my head
* To have more patience with my kids
* Go to the gym more
* Stop using the word "at" at the end of a sentence and "Oh god!" ( basically because my kids say both of these all the time!)
* Try to push my students a bit more....in a good way
* Stop wearing my sweat pants out in public as much...time for big girl pants!
* Get the kids outside to play more
* Spend more one on one time with my grandmother
* Drink more water
* Give Clayton my cat as much attention as I give Paws
* Have more dates with my husband
Hopes for the New Year.....
* I hope my salt kiln works!!!!!!!
* I hope I can have a smooth transition from cone7 electric to salt!! ( Stay tuned to see how I'm going to pull that one off!)
* I wish Britney Spears would go away in 2008....
* I hope someone good gets elected to run this country!
* I hope in 2008 that the killing of young men and women over seas stops
* I hope my butt gets smaller
* I hope my kids learn how to be more quiet
* I wish at Easter this year everyone had to dress up in a "Peep" costume and go to work ( wouldn't that just put a smile on every one's face all over the world for one day!)
* I hope my sales keep increasing
* I hope we can keep the kids at the school they attend

And my final hope for 2008 is that I CAN MAKE some good killer pots!

Happy 2008 Everyone!