The kilns have been cold for over a month now. The studio barely opened.
There were life-changing events beyond my creative corner to prepare for and hasten to! They involved traveling to New Hampshire and dressing up. They involved meeting a bunch of folks, new and old, eating occasions aplenty, fascinating new sights, and tears of joy.Read More >
Last January I took glad delivery of Blue Tsuru, my ginormous front-loading L and L Kiln. I think I mentioned it on a webpage I no longer maintain. You might remember. It looked like this:
She was placed, leveled, wired-up and test fired.
Things went wrong.
Irrevocably.Read More >
I have no running water in my studio. I like it that way. Being a ceramic handbuilder, I work fairly dryly and clean up often, but, even for me, there comes a time when the water bucket needs changing. And, if you didn’t already know, clay and ceramic materials make serious sedimentary glop.
For over a decade, I have drained my bucket carefully into a sink (usually the kitchen because there isn’t one in the laundry or garage) and taken the slippy gloppity-glop stuff out to the trash and wiped the water bucket out with a rag,
I coveted Gleco Traps and even The Cink , thinking that when the laundry room got reconfigured, I would install one or the other and be relieved of a certain sort of well-founded guilt.
So, yes, it was just a matter of time for the kitchen sink to clog due to my slovenly clay glop-dumping ways, even if I was careful.Read More >
What follows are my lovingly-curated observations from Booth 23 at this year’s annual Association of Clay and Glass Artists Palo Alto Clay and Glass Festival.
Making my best artwork and supporting it with improved booth infrastructure, perfect prices and personal stamina is always a challenge. And this year I almost did not make it at all as younger son Max fractured his pelvis and needed surgery to place pins in it only a week before. But he quickly got better, it worked out and make it I did. It was a rewarding weekend in so many ways beyond the satisfying sales figures. I enjoy collecting the stories to share with you, so, as I did last year, here are the Tales of the Festival II.Read More >
Here’s something wondrously new for me: my first three-artist invitational exhibit. I’m sharing the photos and this post the day it opened.
You’re seeing work from the three of us. The provocative paintings of Courtney Johnson, the charming ceramic and bronze animals of Paula Wenzl Bellacera and, from me, the Amador County Series beer cans and some great new TeaCans.
All will be at the Fine Eye Gallery (in Sutter Creek, CA) “Out of the Woods” Fine Art Series from July 1, 2014 to August 31, 2014.
You are invited to take yourself out to the charming Mother Lode for a visit. I will be going later this month to see it for myself. (Maybe even drop off replacement work!)Read More >
Kudophobia means Fear of Praise – or even Fear of Glory! I’m not sure it’s an official word, but it’s certainly an Official Fear.
I have a bit of it, at times, being more familiar with my decades-long learning and artistic struggle and less with any sort of praise-worthy attainment.
I sense that most creatives experience something similar, especially when, after the searching, they start to bring forth the work they have imagined from the beginning.
It might go like: I think I am totally NAILING my ideas and STICKING their landing as well, but I am so used to NO-ONE noticing, I am unsure what approval means.
So, it’s awkward.Read More >
In my year of stepping away from most festivals and exhibits, which is letting me go deep and often into my studio work, I find myself having time to become plenty curious. Curious about where to take my art-making, curious about how to speak of it, curious about how to represent.
And Completely Curious about places and events I have heard of but never attended where it might fit in. So I have been taking myself out to few of them.Read More >