Colorado Potters Guild Spring Show!
2012 Spring Show Invitation designed by Candice Kiesow
It’s spring here in Denver and that means one thing – time for the Colorado Potters Guild show + sale! Show dates are May 3, 4, and 5th – if you would like more info, please click on over to this link. Unfortunately, I will not be in attendance this year because the sale falls right smack dab in the middle of finals for me. Blergh….
Luckily, in a mere 22 days, I will have diploma in hand and can start the process of rebuilding some sanity in my life which definitely is going to include some clay therapy. It’s hard to believe that three years ago, I began the journey of completing my masters in landscape architecture and thought that it was a good idea, lol. Well, it was and still is a good idea, I’m just tired – actually make that exhausted from the mental and physical stamina that the journey has required. I’m trying not to project too far into the future since I still have finals to get through – but I want nothing more than to click my sparkly red shoes together to fast forward to Sunday, May 13th (the day after commencement) so that I can breathe a big sigh of relief and get on with my life.
The good news is that I most likely have a part time gig lined up with a landscape firm for which I interned last summer – though it is all dependent on how many projects are on the books. To be honest, flexible part time suits me just fine – it is going to allow me to do the other things in life that I enjoy (pottery) and to spend quality time with my family. In the time that I’ve spent in graduate school, my daughter has completed middle school and has morphed into a full blown teen ready to tackle high school next year. Speaking of my daughter, she has chosen to take ceramics 1 as an elective next year – it makes her momma proud! Though, I will be honest, my first thought was, “Really? I have had the wheel, the kilns, the clay and everything else since you were a babe, and now you want to have someone else teach you?” Actually, I get it – it’s hard to teach those closest to you and she’ll be more receptive to an official teacher who will most likely be more objective than I. After all, she is 14.5 years old now with all the typical behaviors of a teenangster.
Full Circle Inspiration
Chandler Romeo's ceramic cityscape featured in "11.11.11" at Gallery Nord in San Antonio, TX. Photo Credit: Steve Bennett / SA
A funny thing happened late last fall during a field trip for a class I took called “Field Books”. For this class we kept a “field book“, or sketchbook as a tool to map, make notations, sketch, journal, and analyze a site over the period of a semester as a generative process to document and as a way to make an intelligent design leap that an aspiring landscape architect might utilize when beginning a new project. Artists, use a sketchbook regularly to keeps notes, and to test potential design ideas – and this is very much a similar creative process. Historically, a field book has been used by scientists, cartographers, and others to document notes and imagery of the flora, fauna, and physical landscape of areas visited which was used at a later time to further research.
I LOVED this class and imagine my surprise when the instructor took us to an artist’s – a ceramicist’s – studio no less, to check out her clay work. I was slightly nervous since I know quite a few people in the local clay community, and had actually been introduced to Chandler at Plinth Gallery by my friend and ceramic’s mentor, Mary Cay, last summer during their Colorado Clay show – which incidentally coincided with the Marvelous Mud show at the Denver Art Museum (you can read the review here). It was an incredibly exciting summer for clay enthusiasts last summer! But I digress….
Of course, she didn’t remember me – nor did I expect her to after a brief 10 second chat 6 months prior. At any rate, the purpose of the field trip was to look at Chandler’s ceramic landscape installations through an alternate lens and as a way to begin to “sketch” landscapes in 3D. I am enamored with her work and pine more than just a little for some clay to squish between my fingers. Luckily or perhaps wistfully, school leaves very little time to think about any extracurricular projects beyond school. The memory of the trip to her amazing studio, that she shares with her artist husband, has stayed with me through winter break and I am am beginning to start imagining when I can get back in my studio on a regular basis. With less than 4 months until graduation, I feel energized and ready to craft a new creative career bridging art + landscape. I don’t know what it’s going to look like, but I’m ready.
*As a side note, I believe that Chandler’s ceramicscapes are handbuilt using slabs of clay, rigorously laid out using a map that she creates so that when an installation goes to a gallery, it can be installed as she originally envisioned.
Re-entry is Rough
Roughly 3 weeks ago, I swung by the Colorado Potters Guild to pick up 25# of clay in anticipation of a clay reboot during my winter break between semesters. Alas…the clay is still sitting in the mudroom unopened, chastising me for being such a procrastinating wuss. The truth is, I feel rusty and a little intimidated by the fresh clay. It also doesn’t help that my work space in the garagio is a freezing mess and hasn’t really been organized since we moved here back in August 2009. (see below)
What a mess!
See – my wheel (far left) is barely recognizable underneath piles of stuff and while I wired our garage for my Skutt kiln, I have never fired it even once since moving here. I have two other kilns that are buried under other stuff somewhere else in the garage. sigh…. It also doesn’t help that the garage is not insulated – makes working in there pretty unbearable this time of the year.
So what’s a girl to do? I need a flexible warm space that’s convenient and works with my crazy school schedule – what if the clay mood strikes me at 1am in the morning? I could work at the shared studio at the guild when I have the time to drive cross town, or I could utilize part of my basement (if I can talk my husband into this) – though I don’t really like the idea of clay dust in the house. It’s a conundrum that I’m going to have to tackle this weekend because my last semester of school starts January 17th – a date that is rushing towards me at a lightning fast speed.
As an aside, we might be moving this summer – so I don’t really want to get too cozy. As for the clay – I know I just need to open it up and start by just touching it – the rest will hopefully follow.
