Posts Tagged “summer art market”

Moi

What a great weekend for an outdoor art festival! It was a bit hot, but otherwise perfect weather and crowds for the weekend.

I originally wanted to have a solo booth, but realized early in the spring that I wouldn’t have enough work to fill a booth. I was asked to share a booth which turned out to be the perfect option for me. I shared a booth with Joe, Ross and Jane, all members of the Art Student’s League of Denver. Our work is all so different to so I thought we really complimented each other. Joe makes some amazing sculptures from clay, Ross makes these crazy clay masks and Jane makes beautiful sculptural and mostly functional pieces from clay.

Some of my work

Last year, I took an art marketing class online taught by Alyson Stanfield and talked with many other artists virtually, meaning we have never actually met each other in person. Our class formed a Google group after the class was over since we didn’t want to let go of the camaraderie that had developed over the course of the month we spent together. This past weekend, I got to meet one of the members of the group in person! Peggy recently relocated from North Carolina to Colorado and popped into my booth on Sunday afternoon to say “Hi”. It was so fun to meet her! In addition to meeting Peggy, I also met Annie Chrietzberg on Saturday and will be spending the day with her next Saturday taking one of her hand-building workshops. I can hardly wait!

Meanwhile, I’m going to spend this next week making some new lino-cuts to use in my ceramic work. I have a lot of ideas that I’m going to start sketching and will post some photos when I start carving. I like to use golden linoleum for my ceramics. It’s soft enough to cut, yet sturdy and will hold up to under clay and moisture.

Have a good week everyone!

~Cynthia

P.S. The market was a little slower than last year. I credit that to the economy and the fact that Sunday was Father’s Day. I still have some ceramic boxes and other work that I will be photographing and slowly listing in my Etsy Shop over the next week.

Summer Art Market

Saturday, June 14 & Sunday, June 15

10:00 am-5:00 pm

More than 200 artists, food, music, FREE kids art projects, FREE art demonstrations

Art Students League of Denver | 200 Grant Street | 303-778-6990

VISIT WEBSITE for more information.

Look for me - I’ll be in booth 151 and am sharing with 3 other clay people.

See ya next week,

~Cynthia

Tags: art student's league of denver, summer art market

Trimming Faux Pas

While I was getting ready for the Potter’s Guild show in April, I made a grave mistake. It’s one that many novice clay people make and apparently one that I make too occasionally when I’m in a hurry. If there’s anything I’ve learned about myself it’s that I can’t rush because it results in mistakes! When I was cleaning the other day, I happened upon this non-functional porcelain bowl that was previously destined for the gas kiln before I trimmed right through the bottom! Doh!

In the past couple of weeks, I’ve been making little porcelain boxes which start out as slabs of clay. I don’t normally wedge this clay up unless I’m throwing, so imagine my surprise when I saw brown clay swirled into the creamy white porcelain clay. I complained to Mile Hi - it’s apparently from the first batch when they’re making it and are switching clay bodies. You might remember that I don’t use brown clay at home since I don’t want to contaminate the white clay I use. It’s easy to do. I decided to take a deep breath and left the swirls intact.  It’s okay that it’s not what I expected - oh, what’s that Japanese term I’m looking for… maybe, “wabi-sabi“?

Work in Progress

These 6 boxes above are still in progress. The lids have been cut off and I’ve added knobs, feet and also an embellishment to the front of the boxes to hide the little notched section. My goal for the Summer Art Market is to have 20 of these boxes of varying sizes. I sat down with my sketchbook and decided to make a list of themes that I’d like to explore. I divided it into botanical and animal/insect/bird sections and each box has a theme that I’ve dictated based on the knob. Most of these will get additional painted details in the next week or so.

My favorites are the ones with intricate knobs such as a crow…

The chicken…

And the monkey (though he is a little scary)…

Meanwhile, I finished constructing 8 more boxes in various sizes and will cut off the lids and begin adding the knobs & feet today. I have 6 more boxes to construct to make my goal of having 20 in time for the Summer Art Market June 14th and 15th. I’m not going to have much else this year, however. Early next week, I might throw a bunch of mugs and bowls - but that will be about it.

It’s Memorial weekend here in the states - we’re going to host a BBQ and basically take it easy. Well, I’ll be working just a bit on these boxes - but at my leisure. I only have one thing I HAVE to do. The show in Evergreen closes tonight and I’m going to make a drive up to the mountains and pick up my work tomorrow. I wonder how much sold???

Have a great weekend,

~Cynthia