I love a theme

Sometimes I just don't know what to make. Do we need more bowls? More coffee mugs? But someone (gotta love that Lisa Bartlett!) mentioned a GARDEN PARTY event for outdoor art. HOORAY!  An assignment! I'm keeping them under wraps until the day of, not saying what I made, but so far I have 5 of them in process. White stoneware. Now I'm out of white stoneware. Found a few pounds of red stoneware in a forgotten bag, so I should be able to get 2 or 3 more thrown and dry before I load a bisque kiln.

Things are drying fast this week, since the family room flooded during the big storm, and I have the BIG fan running 24/7 to try to ward off the mold.

Event opens June 17. See you then! :D

If you're on Facebook, here's the info:  Garden Party! Art for the Yard

Passing time

Moved in!

Yesterday was my first shift at gallery sitting, and I spent the afternoon hanging this chocolate brown fabric shower curtain on an overhead conduit, just to have a mostly blank slate. Beige table cloth, bare wood shelf. Plain Jane, I need more displays. I think some tall skinny shelves to flank the table will hide what the shower curtain can't.

My first glitch: I am used to hiding my power strip when I set up for markets. Since this is permanent, and since other people have to use my light switch when I'm not there, I should have pulled it up to where people can find it! I will yank it into a more accessible spot after work on Monday. Don't want anyone having to crawl on hands and knees to find my power source. Booth neighbor Lawrence L'Hote took care of it for me today.

He says an out-of-state visitor came and bought some mugs and plates, too! Can you imagine???? I can't. hahaha I have to run down there Monday and see what's missing and see if I can fill empty spots. I'm dying to know what she bought.

I'm really looking forward to this gallery experience.  Another potter from Access Arts has her table in the next room and she said she brings a book or sketch book with her when it's her turn to sit. I'm really glad she said that. I love walking around the Catacombs sucking up cool energy and getting inspired. It's a good idea to have the sketch book handy!!

Another thing I need is a guest book, or maybe just a sign on a fishbowl (more likely a pottery crock) that says to drop your card in if you want to be emailed when I get new stuff fired. And leave blank slips of paper in case you don't carry a card with you, to sign your name and email address.

Well, there is no shortage of things I need to tweak. :D

Stop the Presses?

Well, well, what have we here? I was happily scooting things around in my little corner of the Catacombs, when Larry the wire art guru slid up to us and announced his neighbor in the main hall was packing out!! 


I high-tailed it across the street to see Lisa (gallery owner) at the mural site on the new building, and checked with her. She said I should definitely take the "new" spot! It will be like coming home. It's a spot I'm quite familiar with from last year's art markets. And a great traffic area too. We helped the nice lady finish breaking down her booth, and I slipped right in.

And LOOK!!! My free banner that matches my free business cards arrived early!!! (Some day I might have an actual business name, but until then, as long as it's free, I just keep using the cartoon stuff with fun colors, and yep, it's pottery, alright!)


Hmm, no metallic wall for magnetic support of said banner... Should have bought those cheap hooks they offered at Vistaprint. 20/20 hindsight!  These walls are ... hmm concrete block? and have shreds of cork still remaining from their long-ago existence as cold storage for produce from the train station next door, if I have my history right.  So anyway the ceiling is wood, so I will do hooks and wires and hang a backdrop, hang the banner, then set about making a display. 


I know it doesn't look like much now, but I need to get Woody to shoot us a video tour of this whole wonderful place and let you have an inkling of what goes on here. It's just all too fun.

Before picture

It's small and crazy, but it's a CORNER, so I love it. I need to color it up and haul away that enormous easel, then start stacking pots! That section of metal wall is just DYING to have some ceramic magnets attached to it. Time to get silly again!


The studio just off-camera to the right here, is a glass artist with some really fun stuff!! The corner where I stood to take the pic, contains some hand-sewn items and a painter whose colors and patterns just SING to me. The TieDye Queen is just around the corner, too, not to mention that amazing recycling guru with the wire art and spoon jewelry!!


My banner won't be here until Wednesday but that's ok. My first shifts for gallery sitting are next Friday and Saturday. I still have to print some flyers, too.


The Catacombs Galleries below Artlandish hold an ever-changing array of local handmade goodness. Arts, crafts, canned goods, and amazing energies.


YOU WISH YOU WERE HERE!

Making preparations

Just an update even though nobody's reading. haha
Yesterday, I prepared an order at VistaPrint for a 3-foot wide banner that matches my business cards, just in case it would look good in my Catacombs booth. But I didn't order it. Came back today to have another look, and apparently there's yet another special at VistaPrint (when isn't there?) and they had marked my banner FREE from $13.99. Well YES PLEASE! I was ordering a sheet of stickers too. They were a dollar off, same as yesterday. LOL

Well now somehow I've qualified for discounted shipping, so for the original price of the banner, I now have speedy mail, with the new goodies arriving before the business cards I ordered last week.

After dinner I unloaded that glaze kiln. As always, some [LOVE] and some {hmmm}and none of it is unusable. Yes, I'm grateful for the little things!

Working until 430 outside town has its drawbacks. The gallery closes as 5, so I can't squeak in there to choose a spot and pay my first month's rent.... I'm getting REALLY antsy. I just want to GET IT GOING!

Soon, Lynnie, SOON.
:-D

Dude!

Got a slow-burnin' glaze kiln cooling down right now. I should have set it for a faster fire, but well, this will be a live-and-learn situation. I may have some overfired pots BUT most of my glazes won't be worse off for it, if memory serves. Darker, richer, hopefully not bubbled and pocked...... 


I'm just so stoked, though. Might even finally list a couple on Etsy. But I should have my booth set up by the weekend over at the Catacombs. 


Y'all in Columbia, Missouri, come check it out. 

Whew!

Raku. Sun, wind, old friends, new friends, fire, water, snacks, smoke, success, failure.
Fun.
Exhaustion.

Almost there

Artlandish Gallery - more specifically the Catacombs Galleries below Artlandish, is where my pottery will be displayed for sale. As soon as I get this one last glaze firing out of the way. And as soon as I go pick out where I want my booth. And then as soon as I decide how to arrange my shelves and my wares.... Well I'm almost there! I have new business cards on the way that tell you on the back where you can actually find my stuff. The few art markets I've done, it was nice when people asked, "Where can I find your pottery when you are not at an art market?" but my only answer was..... "um, stacked in boxes at my house."  That's all changing now, baby! LOL

I will be in such good company down there. Tie-dyed, recycled, up-cycled, hand painted, carved, tied, hammered, stitched.... there's a lot of good stuff down there in the dark mysterious hallways. I loooove that vibe. The people down there taking their turns at gallery-sitting, have become very precious to me over the last year or so, since I met each of them at this groovy place where artists support each other and we're all doing what we can to support the local economy and the arts. I doubt these people even know how precious they are to me. I must tell them as soon as I see them again!! And though I don't consider my own pots to be art, I still consider myself an artist, and so I belong there with the other artists if I want to be! haha! Sometimes I make arty pots, but I really dig functional stuff; honest, useful stuff, that feels good and might look good, but above all, works good. ;-)

So, I think I am done glazing and now I need to schedule use of a kiln, and get this dang show on the road!!!

ANNNNNNNNNND between now and then, a raku firing and BBQ --- why it's a Raku-B-Q!!!!

It doesn't get any better than this. :D

Symbiosis

A few more little space-fillers are out of the glaze kilns at the studio where I buy kiln space. As I load the shelves in the back room with my glazed wares waiting until I have enough to fire, the studio manager "borrows" a few things here and there when the classroom kilns have empty space.

It's really fun to get a sneak preview of some of my new items. In turn, when I finally load "my" kiln, I will very likely have to fill empty spots with class work because I won't have enough to fill it by that time, if this keeps up.

It's nice to have a place just a couple miles down the road to tote my wares to. It used to be much scarier, but the pot-holes between here and there were filled last year, and I'm moving smaller batches at a time. The bone-dry stuff is the scariest to transport, but the glazed stuff is the most irritating. At least if I buy glaze from the studio, if I chip glaze off, I can touch it up when I get there, from one of their buckets. 

With a nod to the fact that it's Easter, let me just say, these are some really nice peeps:  School of Service: Access Arts

Distractible. Yes.

How sad is it that I can't find any of my dust masks when I want to measure out a little Mason stain for my clear glaze base? Ya know, I went to the studio last night for my micro scale, as I only need to stir up a little at a time. When I got there, a glaze kiln had been opened! Woo hoo!! Glaze Guy, aka Kiln Guy, had used some of my stuff as filler. So I was totally distracted and petted my new doo-dads then ran out to the car for some bubble wrap.

Yeah, I get free bubble wrap at work and, hey! I'm a potter. I should have bubble wrap! My trunk is full of it. If I could fit groceries in there, they'd be safe.

So I wrap up my bowls and cups and turn around to leave and there's a note on my shelf! A friend has left a book for me to drool over. OMG it's a Kimchee cookbook. She said it's full of great recipes and AWESOME pottery crocks! I told her I wanted to borrow the book for both reasons!!

Grab the book, grab the microscale, bag of bubble-wrapped goodies, and home I go, ready to stir up glaze.

But first, I have to show the guys my bowls and stuff, and then whaddaya know, I have a new camera from Christmas, and then I end up on facebook posting pictures. Oooh I miss my Photoshop.

OK that was yesterday.... today I'm ready once again to measure out a little Mason stain for my glaze base, and I've turned the house upside-down AGAIN, and can't find a dust mask.

The hardware store is a couple minutes away, but do you really think when I get there I'll remember what I went for? They'll have shiny things there, and bird seed, and cool tools and let's not forget jelly beans at the checkout. And not those frou-frou gourmet ones. The real deal, like when we were little.

My semi-annual check-in?

April already huh?


I worked really hard last summer/fall on pottery and moved too fast to enjoy it, busting my back to schlep it all to the catacombs and other local (medium to smallllll) shows.... 


Then I took a nice long break after the Xmas catacombs. Like, for 3 months I didn't touch a wad of clay. Not a smear. I stoked the fire, filled the well, watched videos, read books, made sketches. Ahhhhhhhh finally ready to play again. 


So I'm revisiting my old glaze posts, checking out those pastel colors.... I think I'll whip a couple up real quick! What the hey!!! I have decided to do a permanent* booth in the Catacombs, and no more schlepping! I can just walk a few pots down as necessary! 


Maybe get hubby to shoot some Etsy pics for me and see what that's all about. He's my photographer! Have a look!


I thought I had left my mail order businesses behind when I closed our ebay stores a few years back. LOL It's OK; the US Postal Service is still a super bargain and I appreciate them.


*sigh* OK enough blather. I'm actually ready to go mix up some Opulence and Mason Stains. I have a few white tumblers that don't want to be white any more. ;-)

*permanent as in, until the owner of the building actually thinks of something to do with the space, which I don't know if that's even a goal, but I mean, nothing is forever, right? Except pottery I guess, sometimes.

See ya!!!