a festival, survived and enjoyed

so FolkWest happened and the weather was so fine, and the energy was great and the music was wonderful and danceable, and the kids area was well, awesome of course!
my amazing team of volunteers helped reaffirm my faith in humanity by showing up with enthusiasm and smailes, with thoughtfulness and talents, and provided me with a stress-free weekend. it's really true that volunteers MAKE a festival. we had had them facepainting, blowing giant bubbles (i made this bubble wand, and it didn't take much practice to get the hang of it, and the bubble recipe i used was 8c water, 1c dish soap, 1/4 c glycerine), getting messy with art, and constructing an awesome box fort. we had clowns, and we had sawn lake nature sanctuary (wow, a great naturalist is a beautiful thing).

Folked UP!

okay
on top of the usually craziness i have been helping to put together a brand new folk festival here in our fair city. i am on the board of directors and in charge of the children's area and also jurying vendors. this has meant A LOT of loving support and understaning by my family and pleanty of meetings (weekly! late! lots of treats and tea!). i'm so excited and happy to be apart of making this happen, and getting to know my fellow board members. and i must say i will be happy not not have weekly meeting after the festival, which is, ahem, in about 10 days...
so i am trying to be as low stress as possible. my mission is to have a fun and creative kids area with activities for all ages and all free! art and facepainting, a box fort, soccer, hoola hoops, bubbles, water play....and shady space for kids and nursing moms. nature area by swan lake nature snactuary. it hope it going to be great.
so as i don't yet have my volunteer crew, i have started getting stuff ready...like tracing 150 mini guitars (ukeleles) to be painted










and chop-sawing cardboard tubes into drum frames....













yippee!
so come check out the festival, FolkWest! it's going to be lots of fun, gosh darn it!

upcoming show June 18: Clay Connects

Well I don't do many shows, but I will be at this one next weekend, along with over 30 other members of the South Island Potters Guild. Should be quite a day, come check it out if you can....

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....

* * * * * * * * *











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