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!

Guilty Pleasures

Guilty pleasures, we all have them. From listening to Brittney Spears on your i pod, spending 9 hours watching a Saved by the Bell Marathon to eating a whole pint of Ben and Jerrys. These are things that we love to do even though we might be too embarrassed to admit it out loud. Well I will admit it. I love Brittney when I am at the gym, I cant get enough of Zack Morris and if I could swim a pool of Ben and Jerrys I would. I love my guilty pleasures. I really do. I love the little moments in time I can steal to indulge in them. I love knowing I am doing something a little bad. These moments are like tiny vacations from my real stressful hectic life.

So imagine my surprise when I realized I have a guilty pleasure in ceramics. And I have perhaps been indulging in it too much. Making ornaments. In some respects considering how limited my time in the studio is, its a time waster. I have tons of ornaments and don't need anymore. But they are so easy to make and I find it to be a huge stress relief. I walk down to the studio intending to start my next masterpiece and instead spend 2 hours rolling out slabs, taking cookie cutters and making ornaments. The repetition of it and the fact I can blank my mind makes it a pleasant task. Knowing they will turn out how I want with little effort eases the stress of drying, firing and finishing.

But the question is how much should I allow myself to get carried away with them? Am I using them to avoid making bigger work because I am so stressed? Or are they a worthwhile exercise, are they really a time waster considering I will eventually sell them? I am not sure of the answer when it comes to me, its probably a mix of both, yes they will make money but I cant let stress bog me down forever. Does anybody else have a guilty pleasure when making their art?

Not so Peaceful Spring Walk

Today it really is beautiful outside, the sun is shining, the birds singing, all that spring time goodness. I have a bit of a day to myself today so I decided to sleep late and take the dogs for an extra long walk before work. Apparently I should have just slept late.

We were walking along when I spotted a dog chained up in someones driveway, even though it was chained I started crossing the street because I knew the Sookie Monster would bark her head off when she saw it. Sure enough as I was crossing the two dogs seemed to spot each other at the same time and bark off began. I thought that was all it would be annoying, since I have a headache but whatever. Apparently it was not a chain but a rope or something because the dog broke it clean in half and started barreling towards us. This dog was between 50-60 pounds, more than my dogs put together and pissed. Sookie sprang in to action with her hackles up trying to protect Po and I. Po began to panic and started backing up, unfortunately they were on the tandem lead and he couldn't go far so he somehow managed to get his foot caught in his harness and fell on to his back. As soon as he was down the dog was on him, teeth right on his tummy! At this point I started freaking out because I am holding on to a mass of snarling dogs, about to watch my dog get disemboweled. The owner of the large angry dog got there in the nick of time and pulled the dog off as its jaws were closing on Po. Though very scared and covered in slobber everyone was ok, which is amazing as that situation could have been very bad.

We all calmed down and to his credit the guy was nice and worried his dog and hurt mine. I am little pissed though as this the 5th yes 5th time I have been attacked by a dog not on a lead or not on a strong enough lead in my neighborhood. Our dogs are always on leads or in the fence, it really is not that hard to control your dog for everyones safety. This 5th attack was the second the scariest. (The scariest being the rottweiler that knocked me down to get to Sookie).

It really made me think about how things can change in an instant and something you hold very dear can be gone. If that guy had been even 10 seconds later pulling his dog off, Shippo would undoubtedly been injured very badly. Hes a small dog and that was a very large dog with very big teeth. I am not sure what I would do if Shippo got hurt like that. Lately I feel like life is going very fast all around me and I am just sorta watching it unable to catch up or get it to slow down. Time seems to fly and I am realizing how important it is to sometimes slow down. I put a lot of pressure on myself to go go go and always be doing something ceramic related. I talk a lot about time management and worrying about falling behind. I realized today its been weeks since I had time to play tug with Shippo and today I could have lost him forever, the very thought makes my heart hurt. In my quest for time management and finding balance, I am going to try to add in finding time for myself and those I love. Life is really just an eye blink and I realize business success will be pretty hollow if I haven't taken the time to do things I love and be around those I love. That defiantly includes my cowardly Shippo and my brave Sookie!