Yes, and yes, this is my mishima weed vase from a few weeks ago, albeit glaze fired. It turned out pretty well, in my humble opinion and is a technique worth further exploration. Since I’m a visual person, I don’t like visiting blogs without photographs, so I threw this one in so that you have something to look at until new work arrives.
Some of you may know that I live in a quasi turn of the century vintage home in Denver, Colorado. I say quasi, because my husband and I basically bastardized the poor cottage a couple of years ago in order to carve out additional square footage for our small family. It blends well into the neighborhood and it does retain it’s vintage charm inside and outside, but it’s been changed way too much to achieve historical status protection. What you may not know about me is that secretly, I would like to live in a modern prefab minimalist home like something you find in between the covers of Dwell magazine. I’m always inspired by the clean lines, funky furniture/accessories and the re-use and purposing of common materials that I find featured in Dwell.
On Saturday, I was thumbing through the July/August issue of Dwell and came across a little blurb about some cardboard furniture. It piqued my interest enough to actually visit the website that was listed in the magazine. How often does that ever happen? Turns out Swiss architect, Nicola Enrico Stäubli, designed a line of child size furniture using regular old cardboard. He is offering the patterns free of charge from his website, Foldschool. The former landscape architecture student is me is excited to make some for my daughter. One of my favorite things to do while in school was making models and this reminds me somewhat of that activity. I wonder if these patterns could be translated into adult sized models? It’s a project for the future, because I have a lot on my plate right now – but I’ve been eyeing some mattress sized cardboard boxes currently sitting in the alley behind my house that I just might have to save!
Meanwhile, Diana – aka The Lone Beader bestowed me with the “Rockin’ Girl Blogger” award. Thank you and much obliged! I won’t bore you with a long acceptance speech. I am to pass this on to 5 other rockin’ girls out there in blogger land that have never received the award.
Drumroll please…
- Chi aka Peppa’s Studio
- Janet over at A Planet Named Janet
- Even though she’s been absent awhile, I love W.J.’s fractal digital images at Art 166
- Heather at Bad Kitty Art Studio the inspiration she provides
- Paula at Manning-Lewis Studios
I could add many more terrific bloggers to the list, but in the interest of time, stopped at 5. Recipients, please bask in the glory and pass it on if you feel moved to do so.
~Cynthia
& Misc.">The 3 Habaneros & Misc.
Hello all, I feel like I’ve abandoned my blog for the past week and I’ve missed everyone! It’s now Sunday afternoon and I feel like I am, for the most part, recovered from my week long excursion as a substitute teacher in Denver Public Schools. I subbed in Special Education which just about wore me out. Working with children with special needs is challenging to say the least and I decided that I needed to set some parameters with the school.
I feel like I am finally getting some wonderful opportunities and making headway with my art career which is solidly colliding with being a substitute. Yes, I’m glad to get paid and if I wanted, I could work every single day of the year as a sub since there is such a severe shortage here in Denver – maybe nation wide. It’s hard to say no when an assignment comes my way – especially since I’m working at the school that my daughter attends and know all of the staff and teachers. First, three different people offered me the job as a special ed para-professional full time last week. Three times, I politely declined. Next week, I will be subbing three more days in special ed but am taking Monday and Friday off to work in my studio. I’m debating about the following week, as I had planned to do the finishing touches on the house before the home tour on Sept. 8th.
I suppose absence does make the heart grow fonder, because I have been thinking about clay often the past week and can hardly wait to get back into the studio!
Meanwhile, I received a nice email from EBSQ on Friday. They are publishing a cook book this fall titled In the Kitchen with EBSQ and have chosen to include one of my little paintings of 3 habanero peppers along with my fresh salsa recipe in their book. I almost forgot how much I enjoyed painting these little works last year. I made almost 75 ACEOs using both paint and fiber which really helped me get over my clay slump (no pun intended) last summer and fall. Angela had asked if I would make some ceramic aceos awhile back, and after giving it some thought, I think I’m done with the aceo format.
Have a good week everyone,
~Cynthia
Out for the rest of the week!
I have no new photographs or projects to share with you at the moment other than the lovely photograph above that a gentleman sent to me of a vase that he had purchased from me last year filled with gorgeous zinnias from his garden. I loved the photograph and asked if I could share it on my blog – so here it is.
What am I up to this week? You may remember that I applied for a license to substitute teach in Colorado last year. Wouldn’t you know, I have a substitute assignment the entire first week of school here in Denver? Needless to say, I’ll be away from my studio for the week. I’m happy to report that I survived the first day, albeit somewhat tired to say the least. It’s quite a shocker to go from setting my own hours to working a set schedule and kids have a lot of energy!
On a side note, it looks like I will be selling some of my ceramic jewelry online at Asian iCandy – a retail site that features, you guessed it, Asian inspired clothing, art, accessories and jewelry.
I hope to peruse everyone’s blogs later this week… until then,
~Cynthia
Symbiosis: Shadow Box Project is Complete
All things considered, I’m pretty satisfied with how my donation to the Rainbow of Art Auction turned out. Some of the original design elements were chucked at the last minute, however, because they just didn’t turn out as fantastic as the image in my brain during the conception phase of the project. Mainly, the plexiglass portion incorporating written words and clay bees. Sometimes less is more. It might be worth trying again on a smaller scale someday. Writing in plexiglass is done in mirror image and it was tedious to say the least.
I had to remove the glass front to photograph the piece – too much glare. As with anything, I learned a lot along the way. My only regret is that I didn’t get to live with it a little longer. Yesterday, I did receive a really nice phone call from one of the organizers of the event, Joseph Moore, complementing and thanking me for my donation to the Rainbow of Art Auction. Overall, this has been a refreshing project to work on.
It’s 5:15 am here in Denver and I’m leaving for my 9 mile group run in about 15 minutes, so I’ll keep this post short. My mother thinks I babble too much in my posts so, for a change, I’m signing off.
I hope everyone has a good weekend,
~Cynthia
