Handmade Pottery + Ceramic Jewelry

2 pots destined for a raku fire in a couple of weeks – still green. One of the cool things about Denver, is that we have a local dairy that actually delivers milk to our doorstep once a week, the pots are sitting on our delivery box.
Gee what a busy week it’s been! The end of school is nearing for my daughter and it seems as if the social calendar has picked up 10 fold. I guess that’s a good thing, but…breathe….Cynthia, breathe. In between these bursts of activity, I’m trying to fit in a little clay work here and there. If you read any ceramic magazines or talk to any people who work with clay, one often hears talk of how clay “centers” the artist. Just do a google search for zen and clay…you’ll see all sorts of references.

So, where am I going with this?? I was thinking of this concept the other day when I was throwing some mugs on the wheel. I was talking to my clay whispering “center, center, center” – it’s quite a site, if you happened into my studio in one of my throwing sessions. Well, the clay must have responded somewhat, or maybe it was a mind/body kind of thing, but I threw about 16 mugs that day.

Meanwhile, I’m sharing a booth at the Summer Art Market in June with Mary Cay and another local ceramic artist, Kathleen Laurie. We’ve been brainstorming to try and come up with a name for our booth. We could play it safe and just use our names, but I kept thinking, trying to twist a clay term to make it work for our booth name.

Well, it came to me the day after I threw those 16 mugs and I was in the process of trimming them on the wheel. Almost every one of them was slightly off-center. Boom, I emailed my partners and asked if they liked “Slightly Off Center” as our booth name. It applies to clay, politics, personalities etc. I think that’s our name…waiting for confirmation. Plus, it should be a good ice breaker and conversation starter when people wander into our booth.

I’ll be downtown all day today, chaperoning my daughter’s group for the Denver Shakespeare Festival. Long day, but it is a lot of fun to see all the kids K-12 dressed up in period costumes, performing Shakespeare.

Heard the other day at the Art Student’s League….”mugs and handles turn me on!” I laughed so hard when I heard that. Only a person who works with clay truly understands what she meant by that.

Have a good weekend,