Colorado Art Studio

In an ideal world, I am super organized and plan for all possible outcomes. My make up is always perfect and I am the the epitome of calm and cool. In reality, I seem to be flying by the seat of my pants these days and it ain’t pretty. I have been meaning to change my ways, I just don’t know how to do it since I’ve been operating like this for so long now. I look more and more like Bill everyday:

Meanwhile, I’ve been a pottery making, glazing, firing fool all whilst working against deadlines and being a mom and wife. My porcelain boxes came out of the bisque kiln on Saturday morning (among other things), and by yesterday afternoon, I had the ware glazed and the kiln locked and loaded. The kiln has cooled down to 750 degrees F, as I write this and I’m hoping by noon, I’ll be able to unload her. I’m trying to speed things along for those of you rolling your eyes at me right now in disbelief since work needs to be delivered to Evergreen today for the show that opens on Friday.

Included in the glaze fire is my first wholesale order. I did a little dance and prayer to the Kiln Goddess before firing. If ever I needed a good outcome, today is it!

Things will relax a bit in May - and when the adrenaline calms down to a normal state, I vow to change my ways. It’s not good for my sanity or health. I was just reading an article in the paper yesterday about super centenarians - those who live past 110 years of age - and the consensus seems to be that the common underlying factor of their longevity is low stress levels. Even though I love pottery - I don’t like having clay stress. That can’t be healthy.

I hope to share a few photos of the pieces fresh out of the kiln before the show opens. Everything will be for sale - so I might not even get some nice photographs for posterity.

Have a great week,

~Cynthia

I experienced a few delays after ordering my new kiln from Mile Hi Ceramics last December - but am happy to report that my new Skutt 1027 with Envirovent was delivered Friday afternoon. Thank you Mike! The Skutt 1027 has a 7 cu. ft. interior - which is almost triple the size of my old Paragon kiln you see pictured next to my new kiln. For the time, I’m keeping my Paragon - it will come in handy firing student work. Plus, I need to have an electrician over to add a new plug receptacle and to up the breaker size from 50 to 60. My husband also needs to drill a large hole for the vent somewhere near the kiln. I could do it, but there might be more than one hole to the outside. Best to leave the power tools to him. So, for now, I just have to content myself by admiring its gleaming newness when I’m in the studio.Speaking of the studio, It’s getting warmer with an average high in the 40’s - 50’s here in Denver which means I need to make some work because of a couple of upcoming shows and some news I just received last week.

I was accepted into wholesalecrafts.com! What does that mean? I need to build my page on wholesalecrafts.com so that buyers can start ordering my work to be carried in shops and galleries. So, I definitely need to wean myself off my addiction to the computer. I’m going to institute a new policy of no computer for me between the hours of 8am - 5pm (prime studio hours for me). I will still have time in the am to login - I get up around 5:30am whether I like it or not and then again after dinner. Should be enough time, don’t you think?

I’m also going to take Lisa Call’s advice and start an account with Bloglines and start subscribing to my favorite blogs. That should save time seeing who has fresh posts.

Well, I’m heading out for some Dim Sum,

~Cynthia

I hope everyone is enjoying the Holidays, whichever one and however you celebrate!

Cynthia

P.S. I must have been a very good girl this year… look what Santa brought me:

Skutt KM 1027 Digital Kiln with envirovent

All of this work was built from porcelain clay that was flattened using a slab roller. It is all green and has not yet been bisque fired.
Just a super quick post this lovely Sunday afternoon. Ceramic production has been slower than I would like, but I am making huge gains in making the garage studio become a reality. I have moved furniture around our house and have begun boxing up all of my 2-D art supplies that are currently in my basement studio and will begin the process of dragging them to the garage.

Our TV room has become a 3rd bedroom, which my in-laws will love when they come out this next week. We have been making them sleep on a futon in the TV room for the past year and a half whenever they visit. Having an actual bed will hopefully be a pleasant surprise for them. With that accomplished, we were able to move the bedroom set that was stored in the garage into the house, thus freeing space for my studio. My current basement studio is going to become the TV room. The only thing left to move out of the garage is an upright piano and a very nice eliptical trainer.

We purchased the eliptical back in Maine because exercising out of doors was pretty much out of the question a good 4 months out of the year (ie. winter). Now, my husband rides his bike to work or takes light rail and I run nearly year round for exercise. So, we don’t need the eliptical anymore. It’s just a matter of listing it for sale on Craigslist.

Thanks to everyone who gave advice on SEO, I appreciate it and will be researching all your links. Oh, one last thing - today is April Fool’s day and every year, it never fails I manage to make my husband’s blood pressure rise quite a bit. This year was no different. I “confessed” this morning to having made a quite a large ticket purchase. I told him that I went ahead and ordered a brand new Skutt 1027 kiln with furniture kit and enviro-vent. It’s not as if I’m not planning a buy one eventually, just not right this moment. I should have milked it more, but relieved him of his agony before he had a heart attack.

Have a good week everyone!