Peace & happiness to you and your families!

See ya next year,

~Cynthia

Ceramic Arts Daily December 29 2008

Hello everyone!  I’ve taken a bit of a blog break over the holidays, but have been forced out of my stupor to share some exciting news with you.  In late October, local ceramic artist, Annie Chrietzberg, contacted me out of the blue to find out whether I would be interested in being part of an article she was writing for Pottery Making Illustrated featuring my handbuilt/wheel thrown mugs using lino-cuts which were inspired by a workshop I took last summer that Annie taught.  Trying hard not to appear to eager, I calmly responded, “Sure, why not?” without trying to show my true crazy self that was bursting with excitement on the inside.

Two crazy busy weeks later, we had images, interview, how to’s etc. completed – did I mention that this happened the week before the Fall Colorado Potters Guild Show?  I work well under pressure – sad but true.  Annie retreated to write the article with her usual witty, yet informative style of writing and I went on with life as I know it.

Just today, I received a voice message from Annie alerting me to the fact that Ceramic Arts Daily featured her article in its daily email – hence the first blog post in a week.  Thank you Annie & Bill Jones (editor) for including me in a great publication!   To read the full article (for those of you who don’t subscribe to PMI – which I’m guessing is quite a few), here is a link to the full text on Ceramic Arts Daily.

Meanwhile, I’ve been working on the Colorado Potters Guild website the past few days.  Progress is slow, but steady and the site is still most definitely under construction.  As a bonus, I think I’ve found a new Wordpress template for myself and while I’m in web mistress mode, I might as well make a few updates around here because my template isn’t totally compatible with the new version of Wordpress 2.7.

Have a good week,

~Cynthia

Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkha, Kwanza Greetings & Happy Festivus!  That should just about cover it all…

Hope you, your families and Friends have a peaceful holiday season,

Cynthia

Terracotta pinch pot cold finished with paint and beeswax

No decals to share today – maybe next post….  This pinch pot is a sample project that I made for my after school kid’s clay class and was inspired by the book  Finding One’s Way With Clay: Creating Pinched Pottery and Working With Colored Clayswritten by Paulus Berensohn.  I thought it would be a great project for my students whose ages range from 2nd – 5th grade.  I tried to make it a fun project by instructing the kids to animate their pots by adding noses and in some cases full blown faces on their pinch pots.

Terracotta nose pinch pot cold finished - my daughter's nose pot

I normally use low fire white earthenware for my kids classes and decided to mix it up and bring in a terracotta.  You should have seen the kids reactions!  Their whole clay knowledge base was turned upside down – they had no idea that clay comes in colors and of course I had lots of potty talk happening.  “Ewwww -  this clay looks like poop!” etc. etc. 

During our last class, we used acrylic paints to finish the pots and then sealed the exteriors with beeswax as an alternative to glazing since I won’t see the kids till mid January.  We planted grass seed in the pots – which should be fun if it grows.  The grass in my daughter’s pot is just now starting to sprout – I’ll post a follow up photo if it turns out. I think I’m going to make some more pinch pots – it was pretty satisfying.

Meanwhile, I added a Wordpress Plugin that allows user to edit their own comments now for a set period of time in the event of typos etc.  – if you have any problems with it, let me know.  I also recently upgraded to WP 2.7 which allows nested comments, but it’s not functional on my blog yet because I need to update my theme to be compatible with 2.7.  I just haven’t had the motivation to update it yet.

I have some errands to run right now so until later,

~Cynthia

[print_link]