Studio Journal

Getting the Signs Right

 

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Here’s to all those mandatory white booths at outdoor art exhibits. It coordinates the look of the festival, but it can un-orient a visitor. The artwork might be memorable, but, really, in an ocean of 10x10s arrayed in semi-meandering quasi-suburban tract rows, what sets one booth apart from another? Might as well be Cubicle Nation, Artisan Style.

As a visitor and at times the artist in one of those booths who wants to get found and remembered, I have taken a tiny step to address this sameness: descriptive signage on the outside valances of my EZ-Up.Read More >

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TYPORAMICS: Hot Out of the Kiln for April, 2014

Handwavium Canister, 2014, Liz Crain
Handwavium Canister, 2014, Liz Crain

This is to introduce you to a concept and a word I wish I had invented. But no, that honor and distinction goes to Academy of Art University in San Francisco Graphic Design MFA candidate Flora Cruells Benzal.

She defines Typoramics as the place “where ceramic art and typography meet.” And is creating her thesis-including-book around the artists who practice it.

A woman after my own heart in SO many ways: ceramics! graphic design! education! synthesis! word coinage!

I will let Flora’s description on her Typoramics Facebook page do the rest of the honors:Read More >

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Book Review and Double Giveaway Drawing: A First Time for Everything

InnerHero

This post – my first official book review and giveaway –  is both an indirect and direct result of the book pictured above: Inner Hero Creative Art Journal: Mixed Media Messages to Silence Your Inner Critic, the second book by certified creativity coach Quinn McDonald.

I’ll break it down:Read More >

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A Burning Question: Hot Out of the Kiln for March, 2014

500TeapotsBooks

 

What is a teapot?

(That’s the Warm Up Question, not the Burning One.)

I know this much: In the world of contemporary ceramics there are both functional and sculptural teapots.  The sculptural versions – which still reference all the right parts: body, spout, lid, handle – you might not perceive as teapots for all the imagery masking them. If you have never paged through the two Lark Books, 500 Teapots and 500 Teapots, Vol 2 – pictured up top – well, you will find it all there, straight-forward and not-so.

To be completely honest, throughout my ceramics classes and workshops I balked at teapot projects of any sort. Not interested. (Actually exasperated!) To fulfill the assignments, I made desultory objects that I did not enjoy or respect. Precisely NONE of which I kept.Read More >

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The Apron

Ur-apron

My first clay studio apron is done for. Look at that threadbare hole with the wood floor peeking through right in the Solar Plexus Chakra!

For that matter, look at the stained and faded rest of it. It used to be as blue as the bottom hem. Looks aren’t all that crucial to me – it’s an apron, after all, and I am more into how it functions – but it cannot do its job now either, and that’s the truth brought home after its last washing. So, I am retiring it to Ragsville, which is actually Fine and Fitting.

In the beginning of my clay work, I did not wear an apron. Too busy. Too cool. When my All-in enthusiasm wrecked a few favorite shirts (Iron oxide wash, I’m lookin’ at YOU!) I found something to strap on in defense: this denim delight. I wore it constantly in the Cabrillo College clay lab for nearly a decade and, like my high school gym clothes, I took it home every weekend to wash.

The demise of this apron got me to examining the other aprons hanging on the back of my studio door. Looks like I will be wearing them more often. And all of them have a story nearly as rich as the one I am letting go of. Here are just a few:Read More >

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I Just Deleted 10,789 Picture Files

 

Photoshoot

And, yes, it was on purpose.

Since I got a digital camera, like you, I have been taking lots of photos. And not really curating them. They were overwhelmingly of my artwork – in many angles, backdrops, settings, styles – and took up the lion’s share of the room. But, as a full service artist,  I also had a lot of backstory, process, documentation, activity, marketing and adjunct photos.

None of it was very well organized. The folder trees were serendipitous. I knew where to find stuff by rote – most of the time. I promised myself I would straighten it all out “Someday.” And that Someday proved to take a couple of months to execute.

I was wise to stall on this. If I knew what I was getting into – and I blessedly did not – I might have never attempted it.Read More >

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The Yearly Studio Clearing Ritual: Making Way for Awesomeness

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For a few years now, somewhere in December,  I hold a little private ceremony in my studio. It lasts maybe 20 minutes and has no real agenda except for me to pay attention and respond to what I feel. (I’m somewhat allergic to prescribed rituals of any sort.)

I clean the space up a bit beforehand, nothing major. I settle in some special objects: flowers, candles, something aromatic for the air, a ceramic piece or two, a bit of fruit, a shot of herbal bitters.Read More >

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