Archive for July 2nd, 2007

Found Greenware
Nothing much new in the studio this past week. My in-laws left on Thursday, and I spent Friday just doing nothing - and it felt good too - I even took a nap, which is something I rarely do anymore. I’m not quite sure how it happened, but the hands in the photo above survived our cross country move from Maine to Colorado a few years ago. I’m amazed partly because they’re fragile and still green, meaning that they haven’t yet been bisque fired. I’ve moved them to my studio where I’ll bisque fire them in the next go round which will hopefully happen next week sometime. I just checked on my effigy doll head and it’s drying nicely. It had developed some cracks in the base while I was making it, which won’t affect the outcome at all, but by drying it slowly, I should minimize additional cracking.

Salvaged brick outside back door
It’s been so darn hot here in Colorado the past few weeks that I’ve decided to sleep in the basement a few nights. It’s actually cool down there as compared to our bedrooms on the 2nd floor. We don’t have AC, and never really need it, save 30 days or so out of the year. The mornings are nice and cool and I’ve decided to have my coffee outside this morning while I visit my fave blogs and write this post. It’s also a chance for me to enjoy some of the work that we’ve decided to finish around our house in anticipation of the house tour. Call us crazy, but we laid brick in the 100 degree heat yesterday. My husband did most of the hard work, but I did the shopping for sand and gravel & helped ferry bricks back and forth. When we remodeled our house, we saved a lot of the brick from a wall that was removed and have reused a lot of it for a front walk and now a little landing pad outside of our kitchen door. Much better than the dirt that was there just last week!

New trellis with plantings
While my in-laws were here, we built the trellis in the photo above after seeing the pitiful ones available at the Home Depot. This past weekend, I also went to the nursery and purchased some Euonymus Sarcoxie, a broadleaf evergreen shrub that can be trained as a vine, to cover the trellis and ultimately hide our electric box behind the trellis. I also purchased a Daphne Carol Mackie Shrub which has beautiful yellow and green varigated leaves, along with some vinca to cover the foreground. I also harvested some much needed compost. It’s amazing how dark and rich the compost is, as compared to the color of our soil.

Designing a garden is a bit like making art, in that I have this vision of how I want my garden to evolve and delight in the process - but am often surprised by the outcome. This time next year, I’ll reap the rewards of my planting. Meanwhile, as my garden grows, I’m going to lose my outdoor photoshoot area. Although, I did just find a little tutorial on how to make an inexpensive light box out of cardboard and tissue paper which will work for jewelry and smaller functional pottery.

Tags: daphne carol mackie, euonymus sarcoxie, green ware, inexpensive light box