Mermaids

I've been making more mermaids and these little mermaid rattles.
I love the way the hair looks with the turquoise glaze, almost like seashells.
I want to continue with sea creatures, and have made an octopus rattle....but he is a little iffy so far. We will have to see how he survives in the kiln.

Bluebirds and owls

I have been loving seeing the darting bluebirds when Me and Will go for a walk. They like to nest in the newspaper boxes underneath our neighbors mailboxes.















And the owls...well...they are always a favorite!

Show pics and an update on new projects

Here are 2 pictures of the show last weekend at the Greensboro Curb Market on Yanceyville Street in Greensboro, NC. This show was the yearly spring Pottery Festival. It is sooo much fun to be able to see so many different potters together in one place.
I had a blast!

































Here are some new greens that I was working on for spring. These 2 linoleum cuts were made for a paper printing. But don't they look amazing with that new green/ turquoise glaze that we made up?





















And this is a new slip that I recently was playing around with. It reminds me of that 70's avocado green with a bit of a yellow twist. I love the hummingbirds in the green.

New work.....

A peacock platter. these taker me forever to carve.













New bird girl. This one was fun with all the skirt ruffles and birds. These birds will actually detatch and be able to be worn as little pendants.






























a couple of bird rattles.















and the mermaid all finished.

Bird King

Here is the Bird King. He is about 14 inches tall and will sit alone at the show. He is part human and mostly bird and can change at will. He still has his wings and I have him wearing a bird mask though in the story he has his own beak. He also has breasts because ...well...I like making them. And I love the way they look on him with the busy wings in the back. He looks androgynous and that was what I wanted for now. I think he will evolve as I keep recreating his image.









































Here is a bird I made really just for fun.
He will be an experiment with a different glaze for this project.
It will be a gold/ yellow with a tinge of green.

Bird girl glazed

Here is the first bird girl after glazing.
I really love her from the waist up. The mixture of the green and the pinkish brown is really sweet. I also love the way the green gets darker in the crevices and bring out her features. I don't however, like the streakiness on her legs. Mr. Pizio says that he is mediocre at best with the green. My intern for the semester wasn't that enamored of it at first but likes it better the more we look at it ( agreeing with the streaky issue ). What do you think?


The conundrum is that I have quite a few of these built. I want them all to have the same glaze. My intern has made glaze tests for colors that I have been thinking of but unfortunately the tests are limited. It is hard to imagine what the colors will look like on the actual pieces. So I have to use the pieces as tests sometimes.


I may be remaking a lot of work....sigh.....

What is this?

A little hat for my soon to be born little niece or nephew. My sister Jill is preggers!!!
I am just about ready to make the turn on the hat. It is soooo tiny. Size 1.40mm needle and Ruby cotton thread found on e-bay. Each morning I try to do 2 rows and they take me 25-30 minutes depending on my intake of coffee. I can't believe how long it is taking me to make such a tiny item. Can I finish before he/she is born.? I wanted to add some stripey little booties to the gift but I am beginning to think the baby would be 2 years old before those were finished.

Owl and Bird work

A small painting of the bird girls. It's almost done but so wet I had to give up for the next couple of days.
This is the ceremony where the girls from the local village come down to the glen to dance for the Bird King. They all wear bird masks to entice the favors of the King.









I am having a bird show at Just Be in downtown Greensboro. The opening night is April 12th.
Here is one pot that has various owls from my bird book.

Spring has sprung....

And hopped it's way over to my truck!!!
Here is the new design for the season.
Cheery and bright like the sunlight today.

Bird Girls

Here are the first of the Bird Girls that I have made.
I haven't exactly figured out what glazes I think I might use to really bring out the girls details. I was thinking of a greenish minty turquoise matte. I have used it a bit and really love the color but am not quite sure of it.
Something in me wants to go with a warm yellow.
I'll have to think about it a little more.

London Town

We are in London!
We came in a week ago from today and have been working really hard at seeing everything possible before we have to go home on Saturday. Yesterday we just got back from a puddle jump to Ireland where we stayed mostly in Dublin but took a side trip to Glendalough (pro. Glen-da-loo). http://www.faculty.de.gcsu.edu/~dvess/ids/medieval/glendalough/glendalough.shtml
It was an amazing trip, very ethereal and much magic surrounded the place.
We definately felt a little undone by the graveyard and the wrath of the Irish weather as rains came and went all day as well as high winds and sunshine. We climbed to a couple of cliffs where we could look out over the lake from high above. On the first cliff I hid a piece of work somewhere in the trees for a hiker to find after their arduous climb up 590 long and steep steps to the top. I have pictures of the trip that I will post when we get home.
Now, it is off to the tower of London to satisfy my grisly curriosity about that strange place.
Also we may get to spot the raven family that has been living there for 5 generations!

Naked Birdwatchers....

Lately I have been thinking of new imagery to put on the pots and also trying to stretch out to some new forms.
This is what I have come up with so far.
These guys are the naked birdwatchers.
There is a nudist colony not too far from my home. I drive by there on the way to a friends house and it always gets me thinking. Thinking about doing things naked. I hate being naked. I always have. But there are many people who love it and that fascinates me to no end. So, I was thinking what activities I would do naked that didn't cause too much discomfort to the private areas. Birdwatching seemed a good choice.

Building

I have been working on building up the surface of this painting a bit.
Now it is again totally wet so I will have to wait for it to get sticky before I can go any further.

Embarrassed

So I had some friends over this weekend for dinner.
We had a great time. The food was good, the wine was good, the company was good. The table setting was horrible.
Can you think a of a worse thing than a potter who doesn't have a dinner plate for each of her guests? I was so embarrassed. So first thing Sunday morning I went out to the studio and voila! Here are 3 of the 6 plates I made for our cabinet. I wanted to make really fast ones so I stenciled the crows on. I don't have time to carve for myself....well that and the fact that me and Will are such klutzes that I know we will break them and I will have to replace them. So I wanted to make something easy to replace or add on to.

2 Bird Girls

Here is the beginning of the first of the Bird King series. As you can tell I just started and the girl on the right is a little neglected. I feel bad leaving her so unattended but I have to stop to fix dinner. We are having guests tonight for an easy but yummy dinner of peanut chicken and pesto pasta. And.....chocolate turtle cake for desert. One of my specialties I learned to make in childhood. It is a box cake all spruced up with caramel, chocolate chips and peanuts. If anyone wants the recipe I will be glad to post it. It is always a big hit and everyone always thinks it is made from scratch.

Every now and then....

I get bored. I get burned out and washed up with clay. I struggle with my images, what I want to draw, what direction I want to wander in. It is these frustrating times that I lean on my favorite vice....stories. When I get potter's block I start making up stories and shortly the images follow in a stream, a happy flashy stream of pictures.
And so this year after a fall that was wonderful and crazy but all in all very unending...I felt used up. Dry. A desert.
So I started to think up a short story about the Bird King and Queen. I have been doing images of the Bird Queen for a long time. She would appear now and then when I was working with crow or raven images. But I never really thought too much about who she was and what her story would be if I thought it out.
Well the story is coming to me and I am actually writing it. Which I don't usually do. I usually just draw and paint the ideas instead of writing them in word form. But this one
seems like a fun story to see if I can get it into a readable idea. We'll see how it turns out. In the mean time I have been drawing various characters in my sketch book. Here is one of them.



She is one of the girls that the Bird King can choose from to mate with. They are human girls so they have to dress in a mask with a beak.













Here are some with girls on a pot.

Finished Sweater

Here is Will's finished sweater!
It is unblocked in the picture so I hope it will shrink a little bit in washing.
He loves it even thought it is a bit too big.

Inspiration

My friend Janet gave me this book Water for Elephants
to read a little while ago. Recently while painting this idea came up and I started to remember a couple of scenes in the book. It really is a wonderful book and the imagery that came to mind was fantastic! I highly recommend it.

Purse for a Fundraiser / Auction

The Theatre Arts Gallery is having an Art Purse auction next month and here is my contribution. I wanted to keep it for myself.
Alas, I sent it in yesterday.

I'm Back

Finally I have something to post. Christmas was crazy and after the shows we took off to Syracuse to see Will's mom and step dad. We had a blast. I am trying to post a video of us sledding down this huge ravine. I hope I can figure it out.
This is a painting of my favorite tree in the yard. Just finished it today and because it is a study, I think it is done. I am painting in the yard as a kind of exercise to get me back into paining on a daily basis. If I make them studies it takes the pressure off of me and I feel free and light hearted about the work. I know there is serious work to be done and I am looking forward to it but in the meantime I am working out my painting muscle on some fun studies.