chance to win!

hey friends
have you been thinking...hey i sure wish i had a new piece of pottery from Dirty Girl Clayworks....?
well here's your chance to win - yes! free!
check this fabulous site tomorrow (june 11) and leave a comment and maybe you will be the lucky one!
www.soulemama.com

good luck!

another studio tour survived!

well mothers day always marks the annual Saanich West Studio Tour, and so was spent eating tea and greeting visitors in the grey & cold weather that descended. it was made all the better by sharing space with a good friend, Madelin Emery, & a new friend Paige Coull. and we got a descent turn out too!

Another great thing about the studio tour is that it motivates me to fill up the gallery instead of just shipping things out... always feels good to walk into a full gallery! here's a sneak peek into the new work i've been doing too. you may notice some polka dots, some stripes, and some multi-coloured stencil layers here & there...














filling up the mug rack, the bowl shelves....












fresh tumblers











getting dotty










and dottier












my herd of wild horses....

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Paige Coull does great , hip, work with lots of decals, mishma, stamps, and other fun add-ons and small alterations.














and funky jewellery too!


Madelin and i have known each other over ten years now. we met sharing studio space at Xchanges Artsists Collective... she does raku.











some fabulous juicy red raku











a fleet of polar bears - Madelin makes bears as a fundraiser for bear research.












cheack out that awesome crackle!

something new

here's a few new pieces. both have things i am happy with and not so happy with. some good learning came from them.

i've been wanting a nice water pitcher for our family table for some time. mulled it over, but didn't, in hindsight, think enough about form. really like the way the decoration cam out in this. i also did another one with swallows which is in the Spottery show in Vancouver...
but the spout is a bit too much for me, and the top not quite narrowed enough. it functions fine, but we do have to pour slowly...















and this large plate (about 14-15" diameter) i worked for quite awhile on, layering the slips and stencils. and in the end, some fine hairline cracks in the slip along one side! ack! guessing slip is too thick. so am layering stencils differently on the new ones (one base colours, negative stencils added in other colours...). will see how they turn out. really like the look of the plate, gosh darnit! and was surprised by the change in colour - that final layer is my sky blue over the green. usually the layered colours don't effect each other, but this really did.












last little note - next week is the Saanich West Studio Tour - lots of great potters & art! and beginning of my "regular" open hours for the rest of the year! come check it out, there will be cookies...

earth day: a day with no pictures

yesterday we celebrated many things - earth day, a one year old's birthday, the warmth of the spring sun (finally!), being with good friends and meeting new ones, our children, and the joy of community.

we spent the day at twisted vine farm, helping, along with many others, to get the walls of there earthern home! and the day was such a busy, engaging day, we didn't manage to pull out the camera (but i'm sure gen will pos some photos on her site soon).

they are building mainly with light clay (clay slip and wood shavings) and cob.... a clay persons dream home! we are blessed with being able to be apart of such things as building friends home!

and while i have gotten dirty during other work-parties at twisted vine in the past, this i day i got to hang out with my girl! A spent the day filling walls, and he looked so happy and contented to be doing so, that i left him to it. N and I ran around with the other wild kids, spent a lot of time taking turns on the swing (only one swing, many children! lots of patience and communicating about turns...), went for a walk along the trans-canada trail looking for turtles and frogs & finding lots of nettles (yum!), eating cake, snuggling for some quite reading time, sitting by the fire roasting veggie dogs (N's first one!) and just taking it all in. fun day. tiring day. lots of pictures in my head, brief sketches drawn here for you

Hump day!

Well I've been back in the studio for a few weeks now & it feels good!
you know as much as i needed a break, i do get pretty antsy when away from the studio for too long....maybe that would be different if my hiatus was spent somewhere slow & tropical...instead of here waiting for the pipes to defrost...
in any case i'm making making making with deliveries scheduled in april and some new things up my sleeve (photos as soon as they are out of the kiln!)

here's my studio shelves today as they fill up with work (and a full load in the kiln to boot!)



















today was making what i call dipper bowls, and i generally throw them "off the hump" - meaning i don't measure each ball of clay out individually like i do for most things, but simply toss a large lump of clay onto the wheel (usually between 6-8 lbs) and throw each bowl off the top of it until i run out of clay. it takes some practice to get each piece the same size, but once you get it & are in the flow its a great way to make small things, or pieces of things (spouts, lids, etc...). you don't have to centre the entire lump of clay, just the top part that you are using. it's not a radical new way of doing things but i sure like it when it's time to throw dipper bowls

here's the hump looking down from the top












here's the hump from the side, i've already thrown about half of it, glistening in the sunlight (yes it was sunny today and still i stayed in my studio!)











here's the bowls that have already come off this hump

spare time? part two

well spare time seems like a thing of the past all of the sudden, now that i am back in the studio with many pots to make & orders to fill. but i do have another long time project that i am picking away at.

this fall is was gifted four bags of raw wool. i was so excited. i had no idea what kind of work (whew it's a lot!) would be involved in getting the wool to the stage where i could use it for felting or spin it for knitting... so i did get it all washed over about two months and am starting to card it. knotty by nature is that super fabulous store in town that rents time on their drum carder! it took me two hours to make my first 15 batts...but feels like progress. in the meantime between the next session (who knows when that will be!) i am hand picking it (basically fluffing it before carding it.) and experimenting with dying.












some picked wool, some dyed some au naturel

i have been loaned a variety of drop spindles, but have yet to get the hang of it, so that i can hopefully spin it into something that resembles what one would knit with, i.e. yarn.















drop spindles


N has already requested a hat...so maybe i will have the wool (or at least some of the wool) spun up for the end of summer and get working on some winter hats...


And being back my studio does feel good, i just getting back into the old juggling act. i am working on some new fun stuff, lots of layers of colour, images, and polka dots! will show some photos when they come out of the kiln.
also working on some portrait pieces, something i've been wanting to do for awhile...also give you a peek when they get out of the kiln...stay posted!

spare time?

well yes time for other things does exist! as i have reminded myself this past month or so, on hiatus from my chilly, damp studio...
finally finished the quilt i started for N's birthday (which was in, well, november...). i like to quilt, or i like the idea of quilting, but don't do it often. was fraught with sewing machine woes, the snapping of many needles, and the extra time it takes to try and make it work with what material is at hand rather than head to fabricland for that final 2 metres... many old pajamas and shirts and scrip scraps went into this quilt... really freed up some storage space!
here's the finished product! snuggly! and really cozies up N's room.