Colorado Art Studio

In my comments yesterday, I wrote how clay speak is sort of bizarre and cryptic. Since I had already written about the “slump” mold, I decided that I would demonstrate “throwing off the hump”. Sound like an odd ritual or maybe some sort of offbeat sport? It’s actually an easy way to throw multiples of the same form from one piece of centered clay on a pottery wheel. So, it saves some time and it’s much easier to handle 2+ pounds of clay than a 1/3 lb.

In this case I decided to throw some more spoon rests. Before I began to throw, I decided what size I wanted to make them - roughly 4″ across and 1″ tall. Choose an amount of clay that you can comfortable manage. I wasn’t quite sure how many spoon rests I would get out of 2.5 pounds before I began, but now I know that I can get about 6-7 from this amount. I’ll add this to my studio journal for future reference.

Meanwhile, I did something yesterday that I’ve wanted to do for quite some time… I’ll share a photo in my next post. (^_~) (want more emoticons?)

Last night I went to a party made some excellent contacts. I gave my friend one of my new ceramic pendant necklaces which she promptly put on after I gave it to her. I was introduced to a lot of people who wanted to know where I sold these. Of course, I didn’t have any more with me other than the one I gave my friend and the one I was wearing. I could have had a trunk show right then and there if I did! Not the right time though. Major faux pas on my part - I didn’t have my business cards with me! Silly me. Then I met someone whose wife has a boutique in tony Cherry Creek in Denver. He asked me how much I was selling them for. Right now I’ve got them listed for $14.00 in my Etsy shop. He told me his wife could sell them for $70.00 - $80.00 apiece in her shop. Yikes. Maybe I’ve got them in the wrong place, wrong market.

Well, I did do something right. I’ve got his business card and a good introduction and referral to follow up with. By the way, he’s the founder and CEO of iTZADOG if you need any pet tag silencers.

I have to go now. My 1/2 marathon training group has started up again. I have to go lace up!

Have a good weekend everyone,

Celadon Glazed Stoneware Plate with Dip Bowl
I was at the Art Student’s League all day yesterday making new work. I threw 6 forms on the wheel including a plate which I hadn’t done in at least a year. I’m pretty happy with the results too. I also brought home a 16″ x 24″ slab of clay that I rolled out at the league to make some more slumped pieces. The plate you see above is one that I made from a slab with a small bowl which was thrown on the wheel “off the hump”. Sushi anyone??

All the spoon rests that I threw off the hump a couple of weeks ago just came out of the glaze firing and I’m going to start listing those on Etsy tomorrow, if not today, depending on time. Here’s an example of one of them below.

My sister in law just popped in and and asked what I was up to. She came by right in the middle of my photo shoot for my new work and my subsequent resizing in Photoshop. I mentioned that “making the art is just a fraction of what goes into being an artist”. She thought that might be a good tag line for a class I’m thinking of pitching to the league in the future ie., basically everything I’ve learned about the internet, setting up a free website, blogging and using other tools to get my art into the public realm.

I’m bisquing my ceramic pendants today and hope to fire up the bigger kiln later this week.

Talk soon,

A few weeks ago, Kismet Designs, a fellow Etsy seller, contacted me and about 8-10 other local Denver artists about possibly starting a Denver Etsy Street Team. 4 of us met in person this past Sunday, including Kismet, Kastroll Kreations, Carla Sonheim and myself.

Not only was it nice to meet some fellow creatives, but it was also wonderful to brainstorm about doing some group marketing promotions together in the coming months. We have started a group blog, which will mainly serve to announce events, sales and other news and we hope to possibly test having a group booth at a few arts and crafts events locally.

In other news, I tested my new mini Aim Kiln yesterday and it’s working perfectly. I didn’t get any porcelain pendants started this weekend, but will do so in the next few days. I also tested my larger Paragon Kiln yesterday. I purchased it used last year and didn’t even know if it even worked. Good news! It got up to temperature for a bisque fire, and today, I’m going to test it at cone 6 (roughly 2230 degrees F). I thought maybe I would need to replace the elements, but it looks like I may squeak by for a little more time. I also found a pyrometer, hydrometer, tons of stilts, shelves and other kiln related bonuses. I guess I had never investigated my purchase fully when I brought it home.

I did make 8 wheel thrown spoon rests yesterday. They’re setting up right now and will be ready to trim today or tomorrow. I was practicing “throwing off the hump” to make these. No, that’s not some perverse clay technique, “throwing off the hump” is basically a technique where multiple forms are thrown from 1 large centered piece of clay on the wheel head. It saves time since you only need to center 1 hunk of clay.