Archive for the “Shows” Category

Bussing Mary Cay in front of her porcelain wall pieces in her new studio

My good friend and former ceramic’s instructor, Mary Cay, has just moved into a new studio in the East End Arts District in Aurora, CO.  This makes me happy on so many fronts because this means she’s going to start making work again after a bit of a hiatus due to change in her life and she’s showing her work again.  On Friday, I had the opportunity to visit her studio as part of First Fridays Art Walk and had a blast.

There are several studios in the East End Applied Arts Gallery and Studios where she has her work space now including a jeweler, painters and potters.  The owner of the building is a potter, Walt Weinberg, which is pretty cool if you ask me.  He happened to be firing the gas kiln while the opening was going on and I took a peek at the kiln yard and the back end of the studios.  While the gallery is open Thursday - Saturday, it sounds like the artist’s studios will be open to the public on First Fridays.

Look closely...

I laughed so hard when I saw one of Mary Cay’s bowls on display!  It’s so subtle, yet disarming.  I told her I coveted this, and before I knew it, Mary Cay and I struck up a trade and I walked out the door with this gem.  No, I’m not feeling the urge to have a baby or anything - I just think it’s funny.

Jules and Janet

While Mary Cay hasn’t been making any new work in awhile, she has been teaching some clay classes part time.  Jules and Janet are former classmates of mine at the Art Student’s League of Denver - we took classes together a few years back.  Janet recently built a studio at her home where she and Jules work and have continued taking classes privately with Mary Cay.  They’ve been playing around with crystalline glazes and their new work is rockin’!

Pottery Party Posse

Meanwhile, the secretary at my daughter’s school begged me to teach a “pottery party” at her home after I allowed her to participate in one of my after school clay classes a month ago.  She had so much fun making a mug and thought she could round up a few of her friends for a party.  I’ve never done anything like this before nor have I ever considered it and wasn’t sure how to price an event like this.  I cut her a deal since she does so much for the school and helps make sure my after school class runs smoothly - not to mention being one of my biggest cheerleaders.  Many of the participants were interested in doing something like this again - I suppose I should decide if I want to pursue this and post something about pricing, min. & max participants etc. on my website.

There’s a fascination with wet clay that you just can’t get from a paint your own pottery shop - and many don’t have the time to sign up for a class.  They made a variety of different kinds of cups, mugs and tumblers - along with some clay jewelry.  The ladies had fun and also have a much better appreciation for handmade pottery after last night.

Meanwhile, I’m substitute teaching the next 2 days and won’t get back in my studio till Wed.  I am going to work a couple of hours this afternoon - more of a getting ready for the next extended studio session.

Have a great week,

~Cynthia

Jim and Nan McKinnell

Ceramic exhibitions don’t receive as much press as other art mediums here in Colorado and I suspect throughout the nation (if not the world).  Imagine my delight in seeing a full page feature story on ceramic icons Jim and Nan McKinnell in the entertainment section of the Friday edition of the Denver Post.   Even though they’re not originally from Colorado, Colorado claims them as their own after they settled in Ft. Collins, CO in 1970 after teaching and studying ceramics in many different locales.

A retrospective of the couple’s work is on view at the Beyers-Evans House Gallery courtesy of the Colorado Historical Society.  Included in the exhibition are 84 pieces of pottery from full scale work to miniatures just a few inches tall, as well as some of their pottery tools, correspondence, framed and loose photographs.  I’m intrigued by the artist couple - they both shared a love of ceramics and collaborated on nearly everything they made making it difficult to assign credit to a specific piece.

I’m looking forward to seeing the show and have been meaning to go to the Kirkland Museum, which also has a large collection of ceramics and pottery and is a few blocks away from the Beyers-Evans House Gallery.  The only downside of going to the Kirkland Museum is that no one under 13 is allowed entrance.  That puts the kibosh on going with my 10 year old daughter.

After looking for more information about the McKinnells, I stumbled upon the Smithsonian Archives of American Artists.  The Smithsonian has digitized many of their collections and the information is available online.  Isn’t that cool?  The site also has a written transcript of an interview of Nan McKinnell archived, but the audio is not available online.

Meanwhile, I decided not to read Thoreau again, because I’m going to listen to it instead while I work.  After cruisin’ the ‘net this  morning I found LibriVox, a group of volunteers whose goal it is to record all public domain books in the USA (basically anything published before 1925) and make the audio recordings available for free to anyone who wants to listen.  I found the full Walden audiobook on the site and am going to load it onto my iPod Nano.  A list of cataloged books in on their site, but can also be found under Podcasts in iTunes.

As to a Thoreauesque family experiment, I suggested the idea to my husband and daughter over dinner last night.  My husband is interested, but my daughter was sputtering like I just asked her to cut off her right foot or something.

Finally, my mom and a few others emailed me yesterday  to tell me that my blog wasn’t showing up correctly.  I checked it out in my browser (Firefox) and it looked fine, but then decided to open my site in IE after suspecting that there might be a compatibility issue since a similar thing has happened in the past.  Lo and behold, it looked like gremlins had eaten everything!  I checked the html code editor in Wordpress (I normally use the WYSIWYG editor) and some weird code was present.  It must have happened yesterday when I did a cut and paste of my post after I edited it in Word.  Luckily it was a quick fix and nothing serious.

Have a good week,

~Cynthia

Before becoming a member of the Colorado Potter’s Guild this year, I attended the show as a shopper for the past few years. This year I was both a member and a shopper. It’s hard to resist the temptation to buy everything, so I limited myself to 1 purchase. I bought the little soda fired wine cups above, by Jackie Harper and used them as soon as I got home from the show Saturday night. I suppose they could be purposed for tea or other beverages, but I knew that I was going to drink red wine from these as soon as I spotted them. It didn’t hurt that I was present the same day that Jackie was firing these little gems in the vapor kiln.

I love the look of soda fired ceramics and it looks like the guild is going to do a group soda firing this summer, so I’ll be able to get a couple of pieces in the kiln without having to sign up to fire the kiln myself. It will be a good way to try it out.

I want to thank those of you who were able to make it to the Guild’s spring sale this past weekend. Castle Clay artists have their show next weekend and I’m going to attend with a friend of mine. This year, they’ve invited some glass & jewelry artists to display their work at the show as well as a soap maker, so I’m looking forward to seeing what they produce.

Happy Monday,

~Cynthia