a few small experiments

sometimes at my job (as technician in the ceramics studio for the camosun college visual arts program) i get time to do a little experimenting (i call it professional development) and play around a bit. the students are selling art and goodies at the upcoming college craft fair, so i said i would contribute a few mugs to the cause.
just played with a little sgraffito, and basic images. i have been using more sgraffito in my own work and trying to become more confident with freehand drawing. although i still often trace images on over the slip and then incise through the tracing. i'm attempting to be more playful, as sometimes i feel my work is a little tight. it's easier when it's not work that i am expected to ship to a store or gallery!
here's two of the mugs. i'm really loving the handle on the squirrel mug:

computer limbo

my "antique" (7 years old in apple land is considered antique apparently) computer has died and my harddive is being held hostage by the computer store until my new one arrives...so will be posting soon from my shiny new machine in a week or so....

apples on the brain

well aside from dodging space junk freefalling through the atmosphere, this week also heralded the beginning of Fall. The equinox brings to mind crisp air and cozy sweaters. darkness at bedtime (for little ones). more baking, harvesting, preserving...that natural instinct to stock up for winter. and, well, one of my favorite fall things, apples! apple sauce, apple cake, dried apples, baked apples, apple and beet salad, apple juice warm and cold...and so to celebrate all things fall, we had a party. it was lovely, musical, and i'm still full 24 hrs later....
for this party i made little books with a great apple recipe - apple spice loaf. diligently used Nova's nap time to cut stamps from safety-cut block, ink and print. she helped with the collating. and i sewed a stitch in each to keep them together while she fell alseep the night before the party. and with all that i didn't get a chance to bake a sample loaf! (i must acknowledge here that my mother, finding out i had no loaf, only two very rich chocolate tofu cream pies, went and picked apples, bought raisins, and whipped one up faster than you can say "autumn apple spice bread")
all that being said i have a couple of leftovers (not only potato salads but a few recipe books) - so if you would like to have on for yourself....leave a post here by friday and i will draw one name from a hat and you might get it in the mail!

feast on the fruit of life

continuing to work on ways to combine image making on the functional ware. here we have stencils with the finger dots, mishma branches, slip trailed lettering. a fruit bowl for the season. should be full of apples, but we keep saucing all the ones we pick!

new old stuff

well i started on this quite a while back, the beginning of a portrait project, which looks like it will be a longer term project then i had originally thought, seeing as this is the only one i've made since the spring.
spent most of a stitch & bitch night cutting the stencil. used paper clay, slips and underglazes. not super happy with the frame, probably should have made it a plain oval, but for some reason am always drawn to these curlicue things...have to temper that tendency.
it's actually been out of the kiln awhile now, just took me a couple months to dig out these photos!

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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).