Colorado Art Studio

A few nights ago, I was walking my dog around my neighborhood in Denver, when I happened upon this manhold cover. While I had passed by on this street many a time, I never noticed it. Maybe, I noticed this time because the sun was setting and the last rays of the day highlighted the fishes’ silhouette. I’m not sure, but I did a double take and knew I had to come back with my camera in tow.

I’ve been wondering what a fish is doing on a manhole cover in the city of Denver. When I saw it today, I realized it reads “Drains to Rivers”. I googled images of manhole covers and there’s quite an assortment of eye candy if only we look down.

Drawing of Bee on linoleum
I have decided to add to my lino-cuts. My lone dragonfly needed another insect companion - the bee.

Bee relief print on clay
I have found that the relief prints on clay work better on flat pieces than ones in the round, so I’m playing around with some different clay shapes to print on. I like the idea of a house and once it’s fired I’ll add a wood block to the reverse side so that this will be able to hang on the wall as a small art piece. I think these might look great in small groupings. Mile Hi Ceramics does carry “ceramic ink pads” that I think I’m going to try out. I imagine these would work like regular stamps and ink pads on paper, only the ceramic ink will be fired onto the piece. What I’m curious to find out is whether the ceramic ink is to be applied on top of other glaze like china paint, or if it’s an underglaze.

Ginkgo Cup - need to work on my technique
Printing the relief prints in the round isn’t working out too great. I suppose I could use commercial rubber stamps, but I like the fact that I’m using my own stamps. It might be better to use the ceramic ink pads to apply my images.

Top view, ginkgo cup

For this cup, I tried to make it square after I had thrown it on the wheel, but, I don’t have the right size paddle. Consequently, the cup has all kinds of dings on it. I’ll most likely recycle this cup.

In other news, I joined another Etsy Street Team called Etsy Mud Team or EMT a group that works exclusively with clay. While it might seem counter productive for a ceramic artist do join other ceramic artists in marketing promotion. I actually think it will be beneficial. We all have different styles and use different materials and firing methods. When I did the Summer Art Market, I noticed that when people came into our booth, they either gravitated to my work, Kathleen’s or Mary Cay’s. There didn’t seem to be any cross-over. So I think this is going to be good!

That’s it for today,

Bird Painting, porcelain clay & glaze which has been poured, stamped and painted in layers, 10.5″ x 12″
Several weeks ago, I shared a photo in one of my posts of some ceramic canvases that I had in the works. Last week, I finally got around to “painting” one of the canvases (only one because the other cracked during the bisque fire). I wanted to finish it before the Summer Art Market to gauge reaction to the piece. In some respects, ceramic paintings are essentially tiles and tiles are viewed perhaps as a lesser art form than traditional paintings even though this one proved to be every bit as time consuming for me as an oil or acrylic painting. But, that’s another post - no whining from me today.

I poured on the base glaze and then used a homemade stamp for the next layer followed by painting on the 2 birds with a commercial glaze. I had the idea of layers from the fabulous dream I had had the night before. I dreamt about painting and I woke up so energized that I can’t even properly describe it to you. Suffice it to say, I am going to try to do some painting this summer in my spare time (ha ha - who has that anymore?), and more specifically the type of painting that I did in my dream. When it came to planning the ceramic painting, I had to think about how glaze behaves in a firing. I had to place the darker colors over the lighter ones to get the effect that I was looking for. Light over dark just doesn’t really work together because of the chemical and melting reaction of the glaze chemicals during the firing.

It did not sell during SAM, but, I’m not deterred. I did receive a lot of good feedback from people about the piece, but being the lonely single painting among my thrown functional pottery did not help matters. It would be better to present the piece among similar ones in future shows. I used Gorilla Glue to attach 3 little balsa wood squares to the reverse side of the painting and then added hooks and hanging wire. The wood pieces cause the painting to look like it’s floating about .75″ from the wall since no hanging wire is visible.

Hanging technique for ceramic painting
Gorilla glue is incredibly strong and I’ve had a lot of success with the product for hanging ceramic work in the past. One word of caution, use sparingly and neatly. The glue will foam and rise as it dries which could leave an unsightly amber colored goop on the glued pieces. I chose Gorilla Glue over 2 part epoxy after a demo at Meininger Art Supply last year. The 175 pound sales person hung his entire body weight from a rock glued to a shelf at the store and it did not come off.

Meanwhile, I was incredibly stressed out last week trying to get all my work completed. I must have fired both my kilns 4 times last week. On Saturday morning (yes the morning of the Summer Art Market), I opened the final glaze kiln at 6 am in the hopes that I could get the kiln to cool off enough so that I could unload it by 9am, followed by setting up the booth at 9:30am. I don’t like to operate like this. I am going to practice being more mindful and aware from now on, so that accidents like the one below don’t happen again.

Burn from hot kiln on my arm
I woke up at 5:15 am this morning to go for a quick run before the day really started. I love this time of the day and it felt so good to exercise since I didn’t do much of it last week. I listened to a podcast of Alyson Stanfield interviewing Eric Maisel, who talked about his new book, Ten Zen Seconds. I could have really used this info last week during the stress and chaos of getting ready for the show. If I had, I might have avoided the unsightly burn on my arm. He had some really good tips for creative people that I’m going to try to implement.

That’s it for today, I’m off to Conifer in an hour,

Left to right - Me, Mary Cay and Kathleen Laurie, aka “Slightly Off Center”
Another Summer Art Market has come and gone and now I can spend the next few days recovering. It’s a 2 day affair which is physically exhausting but is also so much fun. It’s a chance to meet new people, goof around with booth mates and more importantly, it’s also an opportunity to talk with people about my work. After this weekend, I realized that I need to practice being able to talk about my work better. I think it’s often difficult for artists to do so without getting too technical or esoteric. Although I don’t think people want to hear “I like green and that’s why I did this,” either. Add another thing to my to-do list.

A sampling of my space and work
Sharing a 10′ x 10′ space with 2 other artists has its challenges, one of which is deciding which items make it onto the table and which ones to rotate. Mary Cay, Kathleen and I decided that we need a better booth design if we are going to do this again next year. We need more vertical space and perhaps some shelves. We toured around the market and talked about what we thought were some better booth layouts. And, of course, it’s difficult when 3 people with different visions need to come to a consensus. Actually, it wasn’t really so difficult with Mary Cay and Kathleen because they’re both pretty easy going. I’m not quite sure what they’d say about me though….

One of the most magical experiences of the weekend, was being able to meet two wonderful fellow artists that I’ve met via blogging. I was both nervous and anxious to meet them after they said that they would be stopping by my booth. After both ladies introduced themselves to me, I was so happy to be able to put a face to their names. Now there’s a benefit to blogging that I never really anticipated. There are real people behind their online personas and I never imagined that I would be able to personally meet some of them. Though, I have met Lisa Call, in person, through blogging too in the past year on two occasions.

Me and Mary Timme, an amazing bead artist, spent a few minutes together on Saturday
A talented painter,Paula Manning-Lewis also stopped in to say hello before going to the Police concert on Saturday evening

Thank you both for stopping by! I really enjoyed meeting you in person.

Last year, I shared a booth with Holly Buchanan, who makes really whimsical ceramic work modeled after real life everyday objects. Last year I bought a piece of “toast” with strawberry jam from her that I just love. This year we traded work. I was going to trade for another piece of toast with grape jelly, but instead, opted for a red popcicle! Her work is just so much fun. I had a hard time deciding between the red or the green. In real life I like lime popcicles better, but I am such a sucker for the color red.

My daughter and I are enjoying one of Holly’s popcicles

I didn’t quite make my financial selling goal for the weekend, but, I did double what I earned at last year’s Summer Art Market. So, I definitely think that this was a successful weekend for me. The good news is that I have some new work to put in my Etsy Shop over the next week or so. I also sold out of almost all of my ceramic pendants over the weekend. I am going to go back in the studio tomorrow after a much needed day of rest today and begin making some more pendant designs, along with new functional work. I’m also going to photograph work that is fresh from the kiln as of Saturday morning.

At any rate, I have a lot more to write about the weekend and will share more with you later this week.

Saturday evening, it’s a tent ghost town
And that’s all folks for today,

P.S. Thank you to everyone who left well wishes on my last post!

Map
If you happen to be in town and are looking for something to do this coming weekend, June 9th and 10th, pop on by the Summer Art Market and say hello. This is where you will find me and my ceramic work this weekend. I’m sharing a booth with 2 other talented ceramic artists, Mary Cay, an instructor at the ASLD, and Kathleen Laurie, a member of the Colorado Potter’s Guild. Our booth number is 114 - look for the banner that reads “Slightly Off Center”.

If you happen to stop by, expect your photograph to be taken with me, so that I can post about it here on my blog!

New business cards
I’ve been busy, busy, busy getting ready for the show - both making lots of work, listing items for Etsy and all the administrative work that goes along with the job of being an artist. Luckily, I remembered that I needed new business cards and I was able to design them and send the file to Overnight Prints, just in the knick of time. They were delivered yesterday. Nothing like some good last minute cramming. By the way, Overnight Prints is not overnight; but then again, I didn’t pay for overnight shipping either. They were fast; I received my order in about 6 days. They also do free glossy coating if that’s something you desire.
New porcelain sand dollar pendant - currently in my Etsy Shop
I’ve been hard at work making some new jewelry designs out of clay. After SAM, I’m going to experiment with adding Precious Metal Clay to my ceramic pendants. It requires more concentration which frankly I just don’t have right now. Plus, I have to do some research to see how I fire PMC with ceramic pieces. I just love this sand dollar pendant. I have 2 more in the kiln right now and I already know that I am going to keep one for myself.

About 11 people voted in my poll if you include my first one and then my re-formatted one. An overwhelming majority of people think that I should offer the pendants separately with chains on the side in my shop. I’m thinking that I might be able to get around the no jewelry sales at SAM if I sell just the pendants, so, I am going to bring them with me, albeit with no chains or cords. They will simply be ceramic beads. Oh, and I have a lot right now! Thank you to everyone who emailed me your 2¢ on the topic and for your votes.

You will most likely not hear from me again until Monday morning,