Mini Glutton Finished!

Its been a pretty slow week here as far as ceramics, as I have been working extra hours and I am pretty much out of clay. However today I managed to finish the mini glutton and hes just so cute I had to share him!


What a cutie!! Hes already up on Etsy so hopefully he finds a home soon. I promised myself I would also get the two applications for upcoming shows filled out today, but I didnt. I find the whole application process harrowing. What pictures should I send? What should I say? What if they think I am ridculous for even applying? Even though I was in Artsfest last year I still fear they may not want me this year. I am going to man up and make myself fill them out sometime this weekend. The worst they can do is say no and as I am growing up a little and getting a thicker skin I am realizing life goes on! Besides who could turn down that mini glutton?

Other Peoples Shoes

Every once in awhile we all need a real lesson in humility, this week I really needed one. I will admit I spent most of my week in hateful and jealous thoughts. Why? Well I am working more hours at the clinic and being reminded why I didn't like it there full time, I am out of clay so my outlet of art is cut off to me, and perhaps most petty of all as I dive into the blogesphere and the world of Etsy more I am coveting other peoples artistic lives, jealous of how seemingly easy it is for them and how wonderful their work is. Yes I know this is no attitude to walk around in and trust me Chris and the dogs would agree.

Two days ago I was walking the dogs and they were being especially bad, they have terrible cabin fever and because of all the chemicals on the road our walks are short at best. So understandably they were being crazy but it did not help the foul air I was surrounded in. The whole walk I thought hateful thoughts about how someone needs to walk in my shoes and see how awful it is and how much I wanted to walk in someone else's and wake up and say success!

I got home to check my email and in my inbox was my second sale for Etsy. This wasn't enough to pull me out of my funk so I went to check the news and weather, fuming at the horror that is my life. As always the news is full of people, like those in Haiti or those who have lost everything in this economy, who don't even have shoes to walk in. That was a mental reality check for me. I am here mad because I am lucky enough in this bad economy to have a job and I have to work at it and I even have sale on Etsy to top it off. I looked down at my shoes, my favorite pair of chucks and realized even though they are little scruffy I am pretty damn lucky to have them. Success is not an overnight or even an over a year thing, and sometimes we have to work hard to be able to play later.

Its so easy to get caught up in wanting what you don't have or haven't achieved that you miss whats around you. There are people out there who really have it bad and I am so lucky to be surrounded by loving friends and family, a nice house and a decent job. So instead of thinking hateful thoughts all week I thought happy and grateful thoughts. When I am in a bad mood Vicki often says to me say ten good things about your life, so here they are:
1) I have a super awesome loving hubby
2) I have awesome friends who are like family to me and support me like I am theirs and remind me to remember the good things in life
3) I found a pillow that looks just like Shippo!
4) I just got in an order of Girl Scout Cookies for the weekend nom nom nom
5) My little zoo gives me smiles all day everyday even when they are bad
6) My sister is coming to visit in 3 months (yay!)
7) I live a life style where I can afford a lap top and Internet when many others cant
8) I am slowly seeing my hard work as an artist pay off
9) New order of glazes to try came in the mail today
10) I am really really lucky to have all that I do and even though I sometimes forget I am super thankful!

Terracotta Warriors and no they arent a band

This weekend Chris and I went to see the Terracotta Warriors at the National Geographic museum in DC. I had promised to up lots of photos to gush about unfortunately no photography was allowed in the exhibit. That made me very sad but it was an amazing site to see. As a ceramic artist I always marvel at the ceramics of old. It amazes how they have stood the test of time and left such a mark on the world. These warriors and their horses were pretty amazing from any ceramics standpoint. The warriors weighed between 350-400 pounds each and the horses 750 pounds. Wow.

For most of the first half of the exhibit I kept saying ok but how did they make them? My question was finally answered in the second half. I was disappointed they didn't give more room to explaining the process but I suppose if you aren't an artist you may not find it so fascinating. They were built in teams and pieced together by section. The legs solid and the bodies and arms were coiled and then covered in slabs to be carved for detail work. So they didn't explode the heads were built separately and placed on after they were finished. The really interesting thing is they never found a kiln any where nearby so they aren't sure how these were fired. In one piece? Was the kiln built around and then taken down? I guess that's one thing we may never know.

It really was awesome to see these warriors and it really inspired me to try to go and work on great things. They are there until March and if you can get over there I recommend you do. If you can go during a week day. We went on a weekend and it was packed I suspect a weekday may give you more standing room which is always nice when taking in art.

The rest of valentines day weekend was wonderful including, dinner, brunch, a movie, flowers, finding a pillow that looks like shippo and brownies by the fire! More snow is predicted for today so we will see how this week goes!

Mini Glutton

Today I finally made it back into the studio to do some work, excited and ready for some serious sculpting for the first time in weeks. Well since I have only sporadically been in the studio since before Christmas making small things I didn't realize I was almost out of clay.

There was only enough left for one project at best so I picked the one that was first in my mind, the mini glutton jar. Those familiar with my work know my gluttons well, they are giant, fat, funny gargoyles. However their size I think holds people back from buying them so I wanted to try a smaller and functional version and I am very happy with the results: His little sign says mine and when hes done he will be a jar to hold something dear to you. I hope I made the lid right, I couldn't remember what your supposed to do but I remembered I cut the lid on the croc box when it was wet. That's the last thing I made with a lid and its ok so hopefully this guy will be too, if not well then there's a lesson there for me to learn.

I am also looking for suggestions for glaze for this:

Its based off a painting I did in college called Soulmates. Its one of the only paintings of mine that I like and I think the design translates well into clay. I am stumped on the glaze though. I am thinking maybe a crackle? I am going to order from Baileys soon and they have some awesome cone 6 sculptural glazes, any suggestions I would love to hear them!

Tomorrow Chris and I head to DC to see the Terracotta warriors and I cant wait, I am sure I will write a big gushing blog about how awesome they are full of pictures! We are dorks but history and art are the best Valentines day presents we could get for each other! Happy Valentines day weekend everybody, hope your having fun with your sweetie or if you don't have a sweetie your with a friend drinking wine cursing those of us who do, cheers!

chihuahua chat

Shippo here holding down the fort while mom, dad and "the other dog" play outside in the snow. Yuck! Mom claims she gonna do work when it snows but her frolicking shows other wise. This snow is my fault I fear. You see I am a dog of many things: professional eater, handsome, a ladies man some say, and a great dancer. So I did an anti snow dance on Monday and I fear I misstepped, and now 32 inches later I see my mistake! To illustrate my misery I will post a few pictures of my last horrible few hours, please notice the picture of my sister yelling at me, mom says she trying to get me to play in the snow. I know the truth so hopes to entomb me in the heinous white stuff and take my prized stripey bear for her own!

First Etsy order (YAY!)

This weekend I was contacted about doing some custom work on Etsy, of course I said yes because I love doing custom work. I love the idea that I am making exactly what someone wants and I know they will love it. I enjoyed doing sketches before hand for the customer to look at and enjoyed her feedback. Its just a simple tile with a cat that's "flying" she didn't want wings so I had to work hard to capture that freedom of motion but I think I got it. This order made my whole week as once its finished and shes paid I will have made back all the money I spent to list myself of Etsy, woot!

This weekend I spent some time on Etsy since I was snowed in and I did lots of browsing for myself and discovered the conversation mode on there. I started conversations with many talented artists to find out more about their process or just to tell them work is awesome. I am starting to really enjoy Etsy, its a really cool community of artists. Even if I never get another sale I happy that Vicki talked me into it and glad that I am finding the time to put my whole heart into it. Today I am also exploring joining some of the teams, has anyone done that, and how do they feel about it? One I looked at actually had dues but it seems that its a good group of people and it would help me market my stuff, has anyone had a good or bad experience with the teams on Etsy?

Snow Day

I made a promise to myself that I wouldn't blog about the snow since everybody else probably is, and instead would blog about the ceramics I would surely get done being that I cant even really open my front door there is so much snow.

However at our house with snow apparently also comes laziness, see exhibit A Sookie tucked in for a nap.

It is doubtful we could even get the dogs out for a walk, exhibit B was taken at about 7 am and what seems to be a foot of snow ago and you can see the snow is already twice as tall as Shippo. He standing on the path we shoveled him. And he is not happy about it.

Instead of getting lots of stuff done be it ceramics or much needed closet cleaning, I am curled up with my laptop and a book in front of a nice warm fire with a cup of tea by my side. And *blushes* joining the masses and blogging about the snow. However it is beautiful and relaxing and my inner Vermonter is pleased to blanketed in the white stuff. So cheers to everyone's inner yankee and to being a lazy bum. Have a nice cup of cocoa on me!


Oh and while your curled up in front of your own fire stop by Etsy my art is featured today under pottery and ceramics and there are some sales up this month, what better way to spend a snowy day than blog reading and online shopping!

Advice

Today I got my new Clay Times in the mail and I came across an interesting article about failure. It was little stories from several artists talking about how they learned not to write something off as a failure when it doesn't end up the way they thought it would. Several of the stories talked about taking things out of the kiln, labeling them a disaster and not seeing their beauty until someone else pointed it out. I thought it was a great article but didn't think it related much to my work as I normally use red iron oxide stain which always looks the same, so I tend to have very few surprises when unloading the glaze kiln.

Because of another snowy morning I ended up with the day off today and looked forward to starting some new pieces. I am eager to start the dogs playing poker piece but decided to first start with a piece that was commissioned a sculpture of a co-workers dog. Its a little terrier mix that was wiry hair and I thought making a specific breed would be good practice for the upcoming larger dog sculpture.


What I found today was what I thought to be failure. I didn't end up getting into the studio until 4 and probably should have just let myself rest. Instead I was chose to work and I was already tired and was easily frustrated trying to make things like dog hair. Nothing I did looked like his hair, I made three dog bodies and tried what felt like 1 million tools and nothing worked.(Anyone have any suggestions?!) Out of sheer frustration with the last body I rolled up the entire sculpture and started to pull on the clay. As I pulled on it I saw a different shape and let the clay go the way it wanted. What I ended up with is a cool miniature tree looking sculpture with gargoyle faces. Its not the best piece I ever made but it came from what I thought was a total failure. It will make an excellent tester for some upcoming surface finishes I want to try and a fun piece for me to keep. Next time I will come back to the dog sculpture with a better attitude and try to realize no matter what I make its art and even when I think its a horrible failure it may not be!

I also took my friend Vicki's advice (http://vmwstudios.blogspot.com/2010/02/feedback-and-motivation.html) and complimented someones work who I don't know but I admired. In this new Clay Times I also checked out the gallery section and found a piece called "Unfurled Twice" by Lenore Lampi, its a sculpture of two birch trees and its beautiful. I went to her website to look at more of her work and wasn't surprised to see shes a fairly accomplished artist. At first I thought not to email her as her accomplishments speak to her talent but I decided to anyways. Her work really moved me and it made my day to see it. I was happy to see she emailed me back today and laughed that she didnt even know her photo was in gallery section! I am not known for being one who likes to listen to much less take advice but I hope with age comes wisdom and I am hoping I am finally learning to listen to other people, be it someone I know like Vicki or strangers like those who contribute to Clay Times.