Posts Tagged “PFLAG Rainbow of Art Auction”

Stoneware slab construction, celadon glaze to ^6 in oxidation, lazertran decals added post firing, with sewn and painted background nestled in a wood shadow box. Approximately 15″ x 10″ x 4″
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

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Tags: ceramic wall house, mixed media, PFLAG Rainbow of Art Auction

The ingredients are assembled
I should be just about done with my donation to the Rainbow of Art Fundraising auction for PFLAG by tomorrow. Well, I better be, because the art coordinator is coming by in the afternoon to pick it up. I wish I would have finished earlier, because I think I’m going to like the way it turns out. I like to live with my artwork sometimes before releasing it into the wild.

This morning I’m going to be sewing the background for the shadow box, and am having a glaze fire for the ceramic house component. I’m not sure how visible it is, but I’m replacing the glass front with a plexiglass one - which I cut out the other day. I’m going to be drawing into the plexiglass piece to add a little more texture and backstory to the piece.

I was very excited to see that my little nichrome wire hanger fired just fine on the back of the ceramic house. It’s a little brittle now that it’s been fired, but it should be easier in the long run than sawing, attaching and glueing wood blocks onto the backs of wall pieces.

Yes, my first initial is C, but I didn’t put that big one on the bottom of this bowl - Ack!!
Waaaaaa…. Okay, it’s out of my system now. I have experienced a string of cracking issues in the bottom of my thrown pieces. This is happening during the drying process and I’m wondering if I’m not wedging correctly, or am I drying work too fast? I’m making sure that I’m compressing well with a rib during the throwing process. I just paid a visit to the Clay Art discussion group, which has a lot of technical information for people who work with clay and there are plenty of suggestions to try out in the future.

Part of the problem might be that I haven’t been throwing all that much this summer. I’m out of practice. Next week brings the start of school for my daughter, and I’m going to spend the week in my studio just making work. David, if you’re reading this - it truly will be in September that I have your work finished. So sorry…

In other news, we watched a fun documentary last night called 10 MPH: Seattle to Boston in 100 Days. It’s about this group of people who quit their corporate gig to travel cross country on a Segway traveling at, you guessed it, 10 mph. Well, actually only 1 of the members truly traveled only via Segway. The other members were the support crew, marketing staff, fundraisers etc. My favorite part of the movie was the little side stories of the people they met along the way. 2 thumbs up - inspiring story especially for my husband who would like to leave his corporate life behind! I’ve already quit my “real” job, but the truth of the matter is, you still need money to survive. The movie points this out rather week, but, sometimes, you just gotta go for it…

~Cynthia

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Tags: 10 mph, c crack in bisque, nichrome wire, PFLAG Rainbow of Art Auction

Empty Shadow Box for Art Fundraiser for PFLAG
Back in June when I had a booth at the Summer Art Market organized by the Art Student’s League of Denver, a gentleman approached me about participating in an art fundraiser for PFLAG in Denver. He showed me an empty shadow box and said that I could do whatever I wanted to it if I participated in the auction…well of course, as long as I gave it back to them resembling some kind of art work that is. I sort of have a thing for empty boxes, and he just purchased some ceramic work from me, so I said, “Yes!” I’m debating whether or not to attend the event, but would really like to see the walls lined with different interpretations of the shadow box.

I had forgotten about it, until right before I went on vacation, when I received a phone call, “When would be a good time to drop off the shadow box?” A little moment of panic set in and I said, “sooner rather than later, when is the due date?” Eegads, it’s next week and I haven’t started working on it. It’s not for lack of thinking about the project, however, these ideas don’t just come to me from out of the blue. They have to gestate and be revised over and over. I finally have a mixed media solution that I’ve devised for the shadow box which I hope to share with you within the next week. I also reviewed the paper work the other night, and was pleasantly surprised to see that PFLAG is giving artists the option to keep 50% of the proceeds from the sale of their artwork - first time I’ve seen that.

I’ve also agreed to make some work for another fund raiser scheduled on September 23rd - The Josh and Gus Run for a Cause which benefits Sudden Unexplained Death in Childhood, a cousin to SIDS. There is an accompanying 5K run at Clement Park in Littleton that I might just run myself.

As you may or may not remember, I am training for a 1/2 marathon with Denver Fit again this year - which is just about killing me. I think I must need to prove that I can still do this. That, and the company that my husband works for just signed a 5 year contract to sponsor the event. My husband is on the health and wellness committee at ING and I think he wants me to run in his stead since he has bum knees, or so he tells me….

Meanwhile, I just listened to a podcast with Art Biz Coach, Alyson Stanfield, interviewing artist Harriet Estel Berman yesterday morning. Ms. Berman has generously developed a series of downloadable forms for artists to use including inventory records, a generic gallery consignment agreement and more. The inventory records form is in a spread sheet format so that you can print your records periodically and keep a dynamic list on your computer. Visit the Society of North American Goldsmiths to access the downloadable art forms or click on the link above to listen to the hour long podcast. Seriously people, this is good stuff - no need to use your valable time fiddling with Excel, Word or Adobe when Harriet has already done the hard work for you!

Cheers everyone!

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Tags: alyson stanfield, free art document downloads for artists, Harriet Estel Berman, Josh and Gus Run for a Cause, PFLAG Rainbow of Art Auction, society of north american goldsmiths