Moving!

This blog has moved! It can now be found on my newly redesigned awesome website http://www.monsterhollowstudios.com/ thanks to the amazing folks at Razeware I have this kick butt new site, enjoy and check often for new blogs!

Get Out of My Head!

So here's Get Out of My Head, take two of course. This is my photo for submission, thoughts? I was having trouble with the white balance on my camera and taking wall pictures. I followed the wonderful Vicki's advice and created a photo set up on the wall which seemed to work and played with the white balance until I found the one that seemed the closest (Incandescent FYI defiantly thought I had fluorescent lights!). This is the photo that will either get me into my first NYC show or get me rejected. I am a coward and I admit I almost didn't enter this show because I find out whether or not I got in on my birthday but part of being a "real" artist is taking rejection as well as you take acceptance! So cheers to them whether they love me or hate me!

I am also thinking of entering Comedy and Tragedy, thoughts? Are they too boring? Should I try and retake another picture? This one is old and with my old camera.

Sphinx

There is a serious amount of satisfaction that comes with:

A) Time Management
B) Finishing a large sculpture
C) Going to the gym

And today I accomplished all three! Now that I have switched to morning hours at work(yay) it leaves my afternoons free for ceramics and I am noticing a real difference in how I am able to approach my work and my attitude towards the time I have. I don't feel rushed anymore and I feel like I can once again take risks and start big projects. I have been threatening to make the Sphinx for months and finally did. All in all I am very happy. I gave a nod to the Sphinx in Egypt with his posing but other than that hes all my own take on those mysterious door guardians. I snapped this picture with my phone so its not the greatest but hes laying on a cat bed covered in riddles on top of a stack on answers. He didn't end up as large and mighty as he was in my head, but hes still much larger than normal for me. I worked extra hard to make my hand writing readable for the riddles, as my terrible penmanship is infamous! I hope to keep up on this trend of time management and its wonderful to get these monsters out that have been lurking, waiting to for the world to see them! Next big project the table, gulp!

New Glutton

Think the other monsters will be jealous of him since hes so awesome? New home guardian for Artsfest!

Yikes

Panic, code red! Why are you panicking you say? Because I am a planner, its what I do, I show up on time, I pick out my shoes 2 weeks before I need to wear them, I RSVP the day the invite comes and I like things done way way ahead of time. And like Jessi Spano I feel like there's no time, there's never any time (don't worry I wont turn to caffeine pills like she did). My two biggest shows are looming on the horizon and I feel like I don't have one iota of what I want done.

It wouldn't be so bad but I had a huge ceramics disaster on Tuesday, the only day this week I will be able to do ceramics adding insult to injury. I went to sand the piece for show of heads and I broke it, in half. That's right ruined it. So I did what any mature, rational person does, I called my husband and cried, called my friend and cried, cried to the dog, ate some cookies and then made it again. I like the second one better, but that's a whole day gone to making something I already made. Time cost because I wasn't watching what I did.

It seems like I have months but really I don't, I have time I can squeeze in around work and my crazy life. Its time like these I have to remember to breathe, either it gets done of it doesn't. But when I look at the wrecked piece from show of heads, I cant manage to smash it yet, my heart rate rises and I feel the familiar warm fingers of stress inching around my brain and squeezing until suddenly I am crying and eating cookies again. The good news is I ran out of emergency cookies today, so I guess I am going to have suck it up and get to work, that or go to the store and get Nutella, which heals all wounds!

Opinions

You may notice some few time lapses in my blog here, its not that I am ignoring you dear readers I am just getting used to a schedule change at work, some more exciting things that will remain secret for now (no I am not having a baby, I am not sure why thats what everybody thinks when I say that, is it my budda belly?)  and most importantly getting ready for Artsfest! The summer is flying by and with the changing on the leaves comes time for me to panic about getting everything ready for my shows! So I could use a few opinions.

This is the Soulmates tiles, I am very pleased with the glaze its called Northern Lights and its one of my favorites! Do you think it needs a frame? I tend to lean towards keeping things simple which would be just putting the hanging hardware on it and selling it as is. But what do you think would a frame take it to the next level or be too much? And what kind of frame? This photo isn't great I am still learning how to photograph flat things.

This is a cat tile. I have tons of these! I had had hoped to do something more with them but I think I will sell them individually. That leads me to my question of how to hang them. One option would be as is with just the hardware, another would be put a frame of some kind around them as well. I don't really like the frame idea as these are items I can keep costs very low on and a frame would drive up the price. One idea would be to hang them with a loop of cute ribbon glued to the back, what do you think? Ideas, suggestions?Again I am learning how to photograph things that are flat and also things that have glaze, most of my work is red iron oxide so bear with me folks!

I am sure as Artsfest looms closer I will be asking for more thoughts on my work so stay tuned and wish me luck on getting it all done!

New Chucks

The past few days have made me very happy for a variety of reasons, number one I got a sweet new pair of Chucks for only 20.00!! Whats better than a good deal on shoes?

Well I suppose that would be a good day in the studio! I was also fairly productive on the art side of things as well. I snagged a coffee table for pretty cheap at an antique store (they also had an awesome talking ninja cookie jar it will be mine).  I can now start my monster table project that's been brewing in my head for months.  I am between a couple of ideas and cant wait to start. Even though its hot I gave up and loaded a kiln so I am excited to get some commissions finally finished! I also made this:

Which I call "Get Out of My Head" for the Show of Heads call for entries. I wanted to enter last year and just didn't have time and was happy to see its an annual show, what do you think of my new piece? Does it fit with the theme? Should I stick to what I know and use red iron oxide to finish it or should I go crazy and try a glaze or something?