Life comes at you fast...

Unfortunately, I have no update on my sculpture for you this week. My grandmother passed away yesterday and I just didn't have the energy to go to class and be creative. My grandma had been sick for some time, living in a nursing home for the last year, and had just been moved to hospice this week. She had widespread cancer and it just finally got the best of her.

I think this photo from earlier this year shows my Grandma as I'll always remember her. I'm trying to pose for a photo with her, but can't get her attention because she's totally cracking up over a joke my dad is telling her. She was a tough, funny, stubborn, and incredibly loving woman who always fascinated me with her stories. She was the child of Eastern European immigrants and would teach me sayings in her native Slovenian language. My favorite is Na zdravje ("to your health"), which we would always say during a toast.

I'll be flying back to Wisconsin this weekend, just as I did in July when my grandfather passed away. It will be strange to go there and not see my grandparents, not to go to the old farm on which they lived for more than 60 years, not to hear all the old stories. I take comfort in knowing that my grandparents are freed from their failing bodies and that their suffering is over, and I'm so grateful that they each lived long, full lives. But I'll miss them just the same.

Weekend Update

Hooray, it's Friday! I'm excited the weekend is about here, especially because the beautiful 80-degree weather is supposed to hold out for a few more days.

Here's the latest version of my portrait head from my sculpture class. As you recall, it's supposed to be of my three-year-old niece. It still doesn't really look like her, but it no longer looks like a monkey-alien either. It now somewhat resembles a human, and for that, I'm grateful.

Summerset Festival went well this weekend. We had a record number of Foothills students and staff participating in the sale, so our booth was full of great pieces. I sold a ton of jewelry and discovered that I need a much better display method for my necklaces, as they got continually tangled while customers looked through them all. If you have any ideas, let me know!

Dear Texas...

I'm so saddened by the devastation Hurricane Ike has caused along the Texas coast. It sounds like Galveston Island, which I wrote about it an earlier post, has been just devastated in parts, along with several other communities along the coast. I hope everyone affected will be able to put their lives back together again. You're in my thoughts and prayers.

Summerset Festival

Hey all! I almost forgot to mention that my work will be available for sale this weekend at Summerset Festival in Littleton, Colorado. My stuff will be part of the Foothills Clay Arts program booth, which will be the great big pottery booth right out front.

I'm unloading some stuff in preparation for the holiday season, so stop by to save a bundle on jewelry pieces and pottery too! The weather looks to be fantastic, so I hope to see you there!

Another time and place

So, this is not clay-related, but I feel there is something you need to know about me, especially if you're going to follow this blog, because I'm sure it's going to come up over and over again.

I am totally in love with old houses.

I have an complete and total fascination with almost any building built before 1950. (Even though my jewelry line has a bit of a modern flair to it, I just don't like mid-century modern buildings. I think they pale in comparison to what came before them. But that's just me.)

I swoon over traditional architectural details like rafter tails, crown moulding, and dormer windows. I pine away for my very own wraparound front porch, beadboard walls, and subway-tiled shower. I love the elegant stained glass windows found in stately Victorians, and the humble grace of Craftsman-style built-ins.

That being said, I have only lived in an old house for two years of my life. The house I grew up in was built in the late 1970s, and my current house was built in 1983. My husband and I tried in vain to buy a vintage home, but we couldn't find one in our budget that wasn't totally falling apart. Because we were under the gun, we settled on a very nice and well-laid out, if slightly vanilla, suburban tri-level. It's been a lovely home for us, in a safe and friendly neighborhood, and I feel so lucky to even have a home in this time of foreclosures following risky mortgages. That being said, part of me is still looking for The House, the one with the wood floors, wide baseboards, and divided-light windows.

Because of this longing, I spend quite a bit of time on the realtor.com website, looking at lovely houses all around the country. I routinely hit the "Saved Properties" limit of 100 houses and have to delete some that are not as great as others.

Because Hurricane Ike is headed towards the Texas coastline, today's photos are from one of the fabulous houses for sale on the island of Galveston, Texas. Galveston has a tremendous concentration of late 19th- and early 20th-century architecture, and I've always wanted to visit there to see these buildings for myself. I do hope the hurricane weakens and that the people (and the houses) of the Gulf Coast will be safe.

The teacher has become the student...

For the last five years, I've been teaching adult pottery classes for Foothills Park & Recreation District here in Colorado. Right now though, I'm taking some time off from teaching in order to be a student myself! Foothills has just started offering sculpture classes with the very talented Bob Allison, and I had my very first sculpture class last night. Despite working in clay for ten years now, I've never done any clay sculpture. I've found that most clay classes don't offer it as part of the standard curriculum.

Here's what I had by the end of class last night. Bob is a wonderful figurative sculptor, so I'm taking advantage of his expertise and trying my hand at a portrait head of my three-year-old niece. So far, I think it looks a bit like a generic monkeyish alien, but hopefully it will resemble her in the end! I'll take photos every week and post them here to track my progress.

It was so lovely to be a student again. Lately, I've been into taking more classes and really enjoying getting to be the person with lots of questions, instead of needing to be the person with lots of answers. I took a really wonderful World Ceramics class at Arapahoe Community College this past January with the always-awesome Kathy Holt. If you're in the Denver area and into clay, I highly recommend you take an ACC class at some point. It's a terrific clay program.

And on a total tangent, I took the above photo with my cell phone and was able to beam it to my computer using wireless Bluetooth technology. Isn't that amazing? Technology is so cool (when it's working...)

Pots and Gunshots?

You know, real controversy is pretty rare in the pottery world. Potters will argue over where to place pots in a wood kiln or over the merits of Gerstley Borate as a glaze material, but real honest-to-God controversy is rare.

That's why I was so surprised to see this article while on AOL today:

Pottery Feud Divides NC Town of Seagrove

In case this link stops working in the future, basically a new pottery festival has been planned for the same weekend as one that's been running for the last 26 years. Here's an explanation from the article:

"The schism generally involves differences between potters who support the Museum of North Carolina Traditional Pottery — which is more of a welcome center with samples of local work — and artisans who have broken from it.

Some in the breakaway group also support the financially struggling North Carolina Pottery Center, which displays and promotes work from artists statewide, not just those based in Seagrove. It also sells pottery, which critics say hurts local artists and takes business away from their shops."

Also from the article:

"The divide, and all the confusing reasons for a fight over pottery, can appear ridiculous to outsiders. But it's venomous for those involved, resulting in ugly propaganda, reports of a gunshot fired at one shop and allegations of assault. Attempts to settle it have gotten nowhere."

A gunshot?! Over pottery festivals?! Now, I know the people of North Carolina take their pottery very seriously because they have several hundred years worth of clay traditions. But really, they're coming to gunshots over it? Wow. This is definitely NOT something that happens every day in the clay world!

(On a sidenote: Why is Seagrove called Seagrove when it's several hours from the coast? I've always wondered...)

The Almost Perfect Studio Day

Yesterday was one of those rare, almost-perfect days in the studio. I really didn't think it would be because I was having most of the windows in my house replaced, which I thought would make it hard to focus. There was a lot of noise and racket, but I was forced to stay holed up in my home studio with my dog Josie all day and just work, which was lovely and somewhat rare! I hate studio days that get broken up by appointments and trips to the grocery store, vet, post office, and so on. I just lose momentum and energy...

Yesterday was a plate-throwing and jewelry-making extravaganza. I'm working on a custom dinner plate order right now and some of the plates from my original round of throwing didn't quite turn out, so I needed to throw replacements. I've also been trying to get as much jewelry made as possible this summer, because each piece requires quite a bit of sanding and it has to be done outside. My tentative plan was to spend the summer mostly making jewelry, and then go back to pot-making once the weather turned colder.


Speaking of summer, I absolutely love it, it's my all time favorite season! Summer in Colorado is fantastically gorgeous, and yesterday was a beautiful day with a high around 70 degrees and the sun shining brightly. My studio opens onto my deck, which I consider an extension of my work space for four months out of the year. I still at the table and sand jewelry and listen to music and bask in the warmth. Why can't every day be like this? :)

The First Post

Ah, blogs. I love blogs, and I read a lot of them, especially artists' blogs. I love seeing artists' lives through their own eyes, especially when they write openly and honestly about their struggles as well as their triumphs. I love vicariously getting to know the people behind the work.

I lose interest in blogs that consist only of pictures, or that seem to be censored into a picture-perfect rendering of the artist's life. The reality is, things go wrong for everyone once in a while, and if you happen to work in clay, things go wrong often!

Despite this, I resisted writing a blog for a long time because I was afraid that then people would find out something most horrifying about me:

I HAVE ALMOST NO IDEA WHAT I'M DOING.

It's true, I have really no idea how to be an artist. I've been working at it for a few years now, and although I almost never feel like I know what I'm doing, I look back now and I see that I've become an artist in spite of that. I'm not a full-time, professional, self-supporting artist, but I am a part-time artist who has managed to have some success amidst all the struggles.

So, rather than trying to write a blog that shows me only in my best light, I thought it would be far better for me, and far more interesting for you, to learn about my actual life in clay, with all its ups and downs. Maybe we'll both learn something along the way...