Nothing Like a Well Stocked Fridge!

Look at that isn't it beautiful! That my friends is my clay fridge and its holding 350 pounds of clay! The only thing that could make this fridge more wonderful is if the door was stocked with my new favorite spiced red wine!

And all that fresh clay helped create this beauty, the first ever sea-goyle! She was eastern coiled and each scale hand applied ( I feel your pain Vicki) I think shes awesome! Happy Friday!

Understanding

Stereotypes, what an ugly word, and there are so many about artists. That we are lazy, unfocused, unintelligent, stoners and hopeless dreamers. Those are a few of my favorites that I sadly encounter often. That kind of thinking makes me angry and takes some of the legitimacy away from what I do. I have fought against this kind of thinking ever since I changed my major to art in college, just because I don't like math doesn't mean I am lazy it simply means my intelligence lies elsewhere. Many people who don't know me well or know me through my day job only I am sad to say assume the worst. They think I come home from work and goof off or are unable to comprehend this is my business and there is stress involved. It saddens me that people have such trouble seeing artists as professionals, just because we are sometimes a scruffy bunch doesn't mean we aren't driven.

I work very hard to make, promote and sell my art in the limited time afforded to me. I dream every day of when my career will take off and I can eek out a living doing only this. Its true that I am lucky enough to love this job and my hands itch if I don't get into the studio often enough, but is it so wrong to love a job? Do others run into this? Perhaps not just artists but others with non traditional jobs or people who run their own business? What is it that drives people to say such things and view my career choice from such a narrow scope?

Cat Tales

This beauty queen pictured above it my cat Milly. I don't talk much about my cats on my blog, perhaps because the dogs are so much louder. Milly was the first pet I ever owned as an adult (well actually I was still only 19 when I got her but had you asked me I would have told you firmly I was an adult). We lived together in my first apartment that had horrible green shag carpet. Milly has been with me through it all bad boyfriends, bad grades, 9 moves, 2 graduations, 1 wedding and so on. Chris was the first guy that Milly ever liked and I took that as a sign that he was a keeper (and he is). Milly has been my companion for almost 10 years now and shes pretty good at reading my moods. Last week I flopped down on the bed feeling sorry for myself because my face hurt, when she climbed on my back and gave me a massage. Yes shes so wonderful she really will massage your back with her little paws. Normally when she has massaged your back into a comfy spot for herself she curls up to sleep, this time she swatted me in the butt hopped down and left. I took that to mean time get up and get into the studio! So in honor of Milly while I was downstairs making some critters, I made my first attempt at a fuzzy cat. When I showed it to her she stared blankly at it and me, rubbed along my leg with her tail and left, and being that is after all a cat I took that as a sign of her approval!

Again with the flowers

Yeah yeah I know more flower power, but its just so pretty out!! Last week I went into dental imposed exile and pain med induced sleep so I didn't even notice that the cherry tree out front had finally bloomed! Its too pretty for me not to post a picture when blogging about spring! My mouth is healing up every day and the only thing I have found to really get my mind off the pain is hunkering down in my studio and getting my hands into clay. I was in a lot of pain so its mostly fun stuff I made but I enjoyed it none the less. I will try to post some new work pictures later this week, in the meantime enjoy some spring time on me! These fabulous tulips are sadly now crushed due to the Sookie monster but they were beautiful during their time in bloom!

Sunshine Daydreams

I haven't posted in awhile partly, because well I haven't had anything ceramics related to post on and partly because I have just been very busy. Spring has finally sprung and that meant spring cleaning, including the big jobs of pulling up the icky carpets to revel beautiful hardwood underneath and tons and tons of yard work. I love snow but I really hate picking up all the little tiny sticks it knocked all over the yard, and several mittens none of which were mine and no two alike. So many homeless mittens!

I am hoping that now that house is cleaner than ever before (YAY!) and the sun is shining I will finally get of the deep blue funk that settled in over the winter and get some serious sculpting done. But if I don't I have decided not to beat myself up over it. The sun is shining, the flowers blooming and the dogs are smiling. Its beautiful outside and inside and that is enough to make me feel deeply happy! I'm posting a few pictures of the flowers growing around the house, the former owner of this house was a real druid, enough so that these flowers can survive my black thumb!