Colorado Art Studio

Double Walled Porcelain Salt Shaker
Bottom view of salt shaker
Several weeks ago, there was discussion on the Etsy Mud Team forum about double walled, hole-less salt and pepper shakers. I couldn’t quite fathom how they worked, until I made one. It came out of the glaze fire the other morning and I can’t stop shaking a little salt out of it every time I walk by. I know, it doesn’t take much.

Basically, you fill the salt from the bottom and it rests in the walls until you shake. When you do give it a shake, the salt hits the “ceiling” and then exits through the hole in the bottom. Very cool if you ask me. Now I’m asking myself why I only made a salt shaker and not a pepper to match. I think I’m going to make 20 sets for gifts and sale.

Meanwhile, I received a lovely email early Saturday morning notifying me that I have been awarded space at Fancy Tiger’s first alt craft fair to be held at the Capsule Event Center on Friday, Nov. 30 (6 - 9PM) and Saturday, Dec. 1st (10 - 6AM), 560 Sante Fe Drive. I’m not quite sure what to expect since it’s their inaugural event, but it’s close to the holidays, it’s in the art’s district and they plan to advertise heavily.

Team ING, 2007 Denver Marathon. l-r Greg McGreevey, me, Chris Solarz (documenter & photographer), Toby Hoden, and Dave Pendergrass
On October 14th, I pinch hitted for Team ING in the Denver Marathon and had quite a lovely time, despite the freezing rain. Now, how couldn’t I - being the only woman running with these guys?? Gee, I felt special. How did I end up on Team ING? The team lost a member a couple of weeks before the race and needed a fourth. ING had already tapped every available employee who runs, so my husband asked me to help out. Being the procrastinator that I am, I hadn’t yet registered for the half and jumped at the opportunity to run 6 miles instead of 13.1. The free entry fee didn’t hurt either!

Chris ran the first leg with me as part of his official ING marathon duties.
Aren’t we stylish in our garbage bags? I wore mine for half the distance to stay dry and warm until I couldn’t take the plastic anymore. Our official team time was 4:03:48. I was the slowest of the bunch…but I’m okay with that.

Meanwhile, I have an unexpected gift today - time. I was supposed to chaperone a field trip with my daughter’s class. We were going to go gold panning on the South Platte River with SPREE, but it was canceled because of the snow we received yesterday and our expected highs in the 50’s today. Yes - I said snow. Yikes, I’m not ready for winter, weren’t we all trying to stay cool just a few weeks ago?

That’s all for today, and I promise not to mention the marathon again…
~Cynthia

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Porcelain Buttons
This past weekend was a busy one! In addition to running on an ING Marathon Relay team, I participated in a small craft fair at my daughter’s school on Sunday afternoon. It was the school’s annual Fall Carnival - one of several annual school fund raising events and the kid’s favorite. It’s normally held outside; however, this year we awoke to freezing rain and temps in the high 30’s. Needless to say the event was held inside which was actually quite fun - though noisy.

I brought my ceramic jewelry and buttons to the event. After running that morning, I had no desire to lug my pottery over to the school. As it turns out, the jewelry was the perfect choice. I sold a little bit, with 20% of the proceeds going back to the school. There were other Moms/crafters selling a variety of items including handmade balms, felted purses, sewn purses and belts, jewelry, cards, kid’s art smocks and little dolls. I sold the buttons (above) to the woman making sewn purses and belts and she ordered 5 more custom buttons to use in her creations. I purchased some organic lip balm from Tulip’s Balms who began making organic creams and balms for her son. It’s fabulous and a product I highly recommend.

Meanwhile, did I mention that I ran the first leg of the Denver Marathon - 6 miles in the freezing rain and cold? I wouldn’t have chosen to run in the rain, but you get what you get on race day. I ran strong (for me), 6 miles in 1:05. While that is a sub 11 minute mile, it’s much faster than my leisurely 12-13 minute miles I run with the ladies in my training group! We’re a chatty group and very social - not hard core running machines. Instead of talking about fartleks, interval training, carbo-loading, favorite sports gels etc., we talk about the newest cupcake shop or Italian restaurant to open. We share stories about work, family, and favorite recipes. It makes those 2 hours Saturday training runs go so much faster! My training season is over now, and I now go into maintenance mode - solo runs 4 days a week. I plug in my iPod and veg out to the latest Craftcast.

Unfortunately, I don’t have any photos to share right now. I did feel special, however, because I was running with 3 ING executives and got to go in the VIP tent - I even saw some of the elite runners! That’s always amazing. ING is the title sponsor for the next 5 years, so there was quite an ING presence. Our team finished the marathon in 4:03 - not too bad for 3 execs and a middle aged woman. I was the slowest person on the team. Since I was running with the big guys, I had company from the ING New York employee, Chris Solarz and his fiancee, who doubled as official ING marathon photographer. There should be a slide show coming soon to the ING website. I’ll post a link when it becomes available.

Oh, I almost forgot, Nancy Van Blaricom asked if she could interview lil’ ole me for her blog a few weeks ago and you can read about what we talked about on her site. Thanks Nancy!

That’s it for today - I must go tend to my glaze firing now,

~Cynthia

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Trio of House Wall Tiles, handmade stoneware tiles fired to cone 6 in an electric kiln, sold
I’ve had a little bit of an online sales drought the past few months. Could it be because I’ve had a scarcity of new work? I’ve been working so much at my daughter’s school as a sub, that I’ve had little energy at the end of the day to create in my studio. A good bit of the time, I’ve been filling in as a special education para-professional since the beginning of school working one on one with a delightful young girl. Yesterday, I had a bit of good news - it looks like a full time person has been hired to fill the position permanently. I will still be filling in as needed for teachers, but expect my sub assignments to be more sporadic in the near future.

It’s perfect for me now that my clay class has been approved and I can concentrate on getting back to work in the studio doing what I love. I already have 5 students signed up for my class with a lot of verbal interest from parents and guardians. I’m shopping for my class supplies right now and have begun writing my lesson plans for the class. I can hardly wait and am excited about working with young people who, no doubt will inspire me with their creativitiy.

Meanwhile, I sold the above House Tile Trio above. It’s one of my favorite pieces and a direction that I’m going to pursue more now that I’ll have more time. I’d like to work on designing some images to make my own screen printed ceramic decals and might even introduce this to my students - maybe next round of classes.

Yesterday evening, I picked up my packet for the Denver Marathon that will take place tomorrow morning at 8:00am. I had been training for the 1/2 marathon with Denver Fit, but was asked to pinch hit on an ING Relay Team 2 weeks ago. You may remember that my husband works for ING and is on the marathon planning committee at work. He’s not a runner so he asked me and since my training isn’t what it was last year, I gladly agreed to run 6 miles instead of 13.2. I did some 10 mile training runs in this past summer and early fall - but no where near the 13 that would make me feel more comfortable running the distance. Those last 4-5 miles are the toughest too. So, I plan to go all out and see if I can beat my last 10K time.

I’m running the first leg, so think of me around 8am while you are enjoying your cup of joe reading the Sunday paper! The first leg is my favorite too - it’s through downtown and past Coors Field - Go Rockies!!! It’s so cool to run in the middle of the streets downtown, which are otherwise dangerous and packed with traffic.

Hope everyone has a great weekend,

~Cynthia

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I finally downloaded the photographs that my husband took of me finishing the 1/2 marathon in Denver on Sunday. Suffice it to say that I decided to share the one of me enjoying my victory beer, instead of the ones of me running up to and crossing the finish line. Those aren’t so pretty. My only complaint…Denver has so many fabulous micro breweries in town and we were served Michelob Ultra Light. Michelob was, however, a sponsor of the race, so I guess that gives them that exclusive right.

My favorite moment was when my daughter remarked, “Mom, you finished before an elite runner!” I have to give you the backstory though. I finished the half marathon in the same time as the elite runner (I think he came in second overall) finished running the full marathon! I guess it doesn’t hurt to let her think that I’m super woman! LOL! He was going twice as fast as I was and covered twice the distance!

Local Colorado runner Alan Culpepper came in first in the half and finished in 1:04 and some change. That is less than 5 minutes/mile! It was so cool to see the elites in action. They lapped us 59 minutes into the race with about 1 mile left till the finish. To put it in perspective, I finished in 2:37…about 12 minutes/mile! SLOWWWW, but steady! Anyway, I finished and I am proud of that!

In the meantime, I finished another mini quilted aceo. The inspiration for this one came from a photograph I took this past spring of a yellow and purple pansy. I used the pansy as a template and created a fabric collage, with embroidery floss and beads.

I received some potentially exciting news about my mini art quilted aceos. I will let you know more if the opportunity is cemented!