Colorado Art Studio

I found out last week that I have booth space at the Summer Art Market in June. This is good news, because the Art Student’s League receives way more applications than they have space. I’ll be sharing a booth with Mary Cay and Kathleen Laurie both ceramic artists living here on the Front Range. The event takes place Saturday June 9th and Sunday June 10th in Denver if you happen to be in town. Of course I’ll repost this info closer to the event.

I did a little more sgraffito work in the studio on Saturday. I really like how this turned out and plan on making more sets like this. I didn’t plan for this to happen, but these bowls stack very nicely. One is just slightly smaller than the other. Speaking of sgraffito, I have a request to craft a special order for one of my readers. I am going to be making a custom sgraffito footed cake platter. Stay tuned for images. The colored slip on these bowls is a French green, which hovers between blue and green. The gold color you see is shellac which I painted on as a guide to do the sgraffito. It will burn off during the bisque fire, which I plan to do today. I have a number of items ready to go - they will be ready to glaze tomorrow afternoon or Wednesday.

Meanwhile, on Friday, I did something that I have wanted to do for quite some time. I figured if not now, when? I had my nose pierced. I’ve always thought pierced noses are beautiful, especially on Indian women. Now, I’m obviously not Indian, but I like it and I’m glad I did it. My “trainer” is a small blueish colored opal. If you happen to live in Denver and are looking for a quality piercer, I highly recommend, Twisted Sol. James was very professional and quite tolerant of my nervousness. My mom thinks I’m having a mid life crisis of sorts. I don’t think I am. It’s actually kind of funny, my husband has tattoos, and now I have my nose pierced and while it’s not really extreme in any way, our daughter wants nothing to do with either activity. It’s just not cool if mom and dad do it.

Finally, my good friend, Janet has been trying to sell her house in the Ft. Lauderdale area of Florida for quite some time. Why? She bought a home in Minnesota to be closer to her family. So, if you are looking for a home in Florida or know someone that is, check out her home’s website.

That’s all for today,

Ceramic Tray, 11″ x 9″ x 1″, Stoneware, colored slips and clear glaze
Same tray before bisque firing
I’ve spent way more time today online that I should allow myself to an any given day. It’s Tuesday morning, my daughter is home sick and it’s rainy gray outside. I’m trying to psyche myself up to go out into the garage and get some work done. However, I thought I’d add a post today because I won’t get around to it tomorrow since I’ll be at the League all day (providing daughter is well enough to attend school).

I wasn’t super happy with the final results of my slab built tray above, but I learned something. I need to work on the brown slip recipe. Funny thing is artists are often times their own worst critics. A fellow ceramic artist at the league told me how much she liked my tray. I was admiring hers about which she was blasé and she mentioned a trade. Done and done.

I’m reading through a text by ceramic artist, Lana Wilson and came upon a bit of inspiration and self critique. In the front section, she poses a series of questions for the artist to answer in order to “Pursue a Personal Form”; one of which I thought I would share, as it’s relevant to all artists. The question is “If I were my own aesthetically mature teacher ten years from now what specific critique would I give on my own present work?”

If I look at my current work critically, I would have to answer that I want to:

1. Lighten the pot (wheel thrown)
2. Pay more attention to surface decoration
3. Pay attention to the edges, rims etc. of my work.
4. Continue to explore colored slip
5. Continue to develop a personal glaze palette.
6. Add to this list when I think of more considerations.

The other day, I was mentioning to a friend of mine, that I worry about trying to pass myself off as some kind of a ceramic expert on my blog. I’m not, I’m merely an artist who is willing to experiment and to share my successes and failures in a public forum. Then I read further in Lana’s text and found this quote:

“I am still learning.” -Michelangelo at age 80.

Yes, this is a self portrait of me drinking and sanding porcelain pendants whilst listening to Dave Mathews. I hesitated uploading this photo as it’s not terribly flattering, then I thought to myself what the heck this isn’t a beauty blog, but an artist’s blog.
Talk later,

Before carving and after glaze firing in an electric kiln, porcelain, colored slips, clear glaze, 9.5″ x 14.25″ x .25″
New glazed porcelain pendants
It’s been another productive week in “Cindy Loo Hoo Land” and the adventures of making ceramic work in a cold garage studio. Lucky for me, Denver was spared the massive spring snow storm that was predicted. Hopefully, from this day forward, we can enjoy warm spring days and warm garages.

The top image is a porcelain platter that I made by rolling out porcelain clay in the slab roller at the Art Student’s League of Denver. I applied a colored slip to the clay while it was still green, painted on my design with shellac and then sgraffitoed away. I’m not sure if that’s the proper past tense spelling of sgraffito or not, so bare with me. After bisque firing and then glaze firing with a clear cone 6 glaze, the colored slip is a soft celery green color. I will try to photograph this again in the near future, because I had a hard time capturing its true likeness without so much glare.

The bottom photograph features some of my new porcelain pendants that just came out of the kiln this morning. I have quite a collection of them right now and I need to do something with them, so I purchased a bunch of supplies today from Rio Grande. I specified 2 day air, so expect some ceramic jewelry to show up in my Etsy shop next week some time.

My one year “blogaversary” is coming up this month! Thanks to Mary Timme for the term! I plan to do something special, so stay tuned for an announcement next week. I must go now, I have an unexpected date with my husband tonight sans child, so I must get ready for the evening. Hopefully, I can stay up past 9 PM tonight! Sigh…

Have a good weekend everyone!

Floral Tray 15″ x 10.5″ unfired. Does the design look familiar to you?
Gingko Tray 11.5″ x 11.5″, unfired
This will be a super quick post this morning. I just wanted to share a couple of handbuilt trays that I’m working on this week. I rolled a number of clay slabs out on Wednesday at the Art Student’s League and brought them home to work on. Within 4 hours times, they had dried too much to make what I had originally intended, so I had to improvise and make fairly flat objects with my slabs. I settled on 2 trays, a shallow bowl, a set of chop stick rests and 5 spoon rests. I applied a aqua blue slip to the trays and will be sgraffito-ing (is that even a word?) the trays this morning.

I also had a successful glaze firing at the league and as soon as I photograph the work will share those photos with you too - maybe this weekend.

I had intended to get a lot done yesterday, but instead got sucked into cyber-space. So, after writing this post, I will not be signing back on today. I say this for myself, because I need more computer discipline!

Paula was kind enough to feature me on her blog yesterday, so if you want to know even more about me, head on over to Manning-Lewis Studios. While you’re there, check out Paula’s beautiful spiral abstract paintings, thanks Paula!

PS It’s officially spring - mother nature must know because all of a sudden the forsythias and magnolias are in full bloom!