What grabs you? (part II)

Continuing the discussion of what "grabs" me in this world, I have to bring up plants and flowers. Now, this is something that grabs a lot of artists, as evidenced by the amount of botanically-inspired artwork out there.

I think what I notice the most about plants is their colors. I can't get enough of the brilliant, saturated colors of flowers in bloom, and the soothing green of trees and open fields. I've never been as interested in the specific shapes and forms of plants, although the shape and proportion of a lovely tree or orchid blossom will catch my eye from time to time.

No, what I love the most about plants is their very vitality, the fact that they are growing, moving, changing, and filling the world with their color and life. I think this is why I've never been a winter person. The monochromatic grays and browns of the winter landscape leave me feeling weary. The brilliant, shining colors of summer are energizing and uplifting, and I think that's why I've always been attracted to them in my work.

What grabs you?

I have been entertaining the idea of applying to graduate school next year. I'm going to spend the summer working with my teacher Kathy at ACC in order to try to advance my work as much as possible over the next six months. I don't know if my work will be ready at that point for the competitive world of MFA spots, but I'm going to give it a shot.

One of my first summer assignments from Kathy was to answer the question, "What grabs you?" Specifically, what catches your eye or heart in this world? What interests you that you want to share with the world through your artwork? This is precisely the question I've been trying to answer for years, but I've been coming up a little empty-handed. I've never felt a clear understanding of my sources of inspiration. So I just sat down with my sketchbook and started a list. I figured I'd share of few of the things that grab me over a few blog posts.

Numero Uno on my list is old houses. I LOVE old houses, and other buildings for that matter, with a passion and fervor other people reserve for soccer teams. I know I've gone on about this before, but old houses are probably my greatest visual love in this world. They may even top pots (gasp!).

Old buildings of any sort are great, but there's something about houses in particular that grabs me. Pretty much any American house built until 1940 is amazing to me. Maybe it's that they're each different, despite the fact that you could buy kit houses in the 1920s. Maybe it's that they each have a level of detail that you just don't see in residential architecture anymore. Maybe it's because they tend to be located on tree-line streets (also a great love of mine). Maybe it's because being inside one feels like living inside a piece of art.


At any rate, I have a serious crush on this house right now. I love to search through Realtor.com for beautiful old houses for sale. This one is in St. Petersburg, Florida and I am in love with it something fierce. It's drop dead gorgeous, inside and out, and I can't stop thinking about it. I want to buy this house despite the fact that I don't live in Florida and already have one mortgage payment to make! It's got a little guest cottage out back that would make a great studio. My perfect world would be made up of houses like this.


That being said, I don't know exactly how to translate this love into my pots. I've never made a ceramic house, but I don't think I would like to just literally translate the gorgeousness of an old house into a ceramic replica. Maybe I need to think about making the kinds of pots that would live in this kind of house, that would enhance it's interior landscape. Maybe I can capture the level of detail and color in this house that is attractive to me. Maybe answering this question will be my next assignment....

Mother's Day is May 10th!

Hi everyone! I've been away from the studio for a few days because my husband had surgery last week. He's doing well, although he needs a lot of help right now. I wanted to pop in to remind you that Mother's Day is coming up and I've got lots of great gifts in my store. Order by May 2nd to guarantee arrival!

I haven't thrown it at the wall quite yet...

I got some focused shots today of my light-colored pots! I talked about the situation with an old dear friend of mine who happens to be a high school photography teacher, and she agreed that for some reason, the camera isn't able to distinguish the light-colored pots from the background. So I tried changing the shutter speed and some other settings but still wasn't getting anywhere, although I learned about the camera in the process.

Then I happened upon a decidedly low-tech solution. I held a chopstick directly in front of the pot, focused the camera by depressing the shutter button halfway, and then removed the chopstick and took the photo. Voila! Perfect focus.


Check out the improvement in the final images:

Now the question is, do I want to have to do this little chopstick trick every time the camera can't focus on a pot? It's quick and easy, but it seems like when you spend a good chunk of cash on something, it should work without having to resort to this. On the other hand, it's only certain pots that cause trouble, and the camera's super fast, and the photos look great, and it's working fabulously for my close-up jewelry shots. I guess I have a decision to make. At least for now I finally got some new photos for the store!

Photo Woes

So, I was all excited yesterday because I finally bought a new digital camera. Mine died at the beginning of February, and I've been hemming and hawing over what kind to buy. So I finally went out yesterday, armed with my research, to test drive a few in person and settled on a Canon PowerShot SX10is, which is an EVF or "bridge" camera, meaning it's sort of halfway between a point-and-shoot and a digital SLR camera.

I got the thing home and started taking photos, of my pets, my husband, things around the house. And the photos looked great. Then I took it down to my studio, where I had some new pots to photograph. Here's the first studio shot:


Pretty nice huh? Not too shabby at all. Here's the next shot:




Great! No problems whatsoever. Here's the next one:



What the..?! And thus a good day spiraled into a bad afternoon.

I absolutely could NOT get the camera to focus on this pot. Hadn't changed any settings or anything at all. I tried repeatedly, but I could not get a focused shot of this pot or the green celadon one shown in the first photo.

So then I started changing every single setting, poring over the manual, trying to figure out what was going on. I got so frustrated that I had to leave the studio, or I thought I might throw the camera at the wall. Why would a brand-new, highly advanced, expensive Canon camera not be able to take the same shots that my crappy old Canon point-and-shoot took just fine?!

I think for some reason, the camera can't find the light-colored pots to focus on, like maybe it can't distinguish them from the background. I don't know what I'm going to do here. I think there must be some way to make it work, short of returning the camera and trying a different model, which will get expensive quickly, given the 15% restocking fee charged everywhere on camera returns. If you have any ideas or advice, please leave me some comments! Here's a shot of my photo setup, in case you were wondering how I've got things set up. I need help!

NCECA Recap

Well, I'm back from my weekend at NCECA in sunny Phoenix. Yesterday was my 29th birthday, and the trip was a gift to myself to celebrate the start of my last year in my twenties.

This was my first NCECA and I had no idea what to expect. Because the conference is kind of expensive, I just purchased a day pass to go on Thursday. I had the opportunity to watch some demonstrations, go to a few panel discussions, and explore the annual cup show and sale and the K-12 exhibition (which was very cool).

So the conference was pretty cool, but the real fun started when I ventured out of the convention center. A number of concurrent exhibitions are held alongside NCECA, so I had the opportunity to look at a lot of people's work in one weekend. My favorite discoveries were the Artstream Nomadic Gallery show (where I snapped up a beautiful Jen Allen mug), and the "La Mesa" show put on by Santa Fe Clay, which featured 150 place settings by 150 different artists. After the other hands-off, pots-on-pedestals exhibits, it was such a joy to be able to handle and examine the work of so many talented artists. Here's a few you might recognize:

This is Lisa Orr's place setting. Lisa Orr produces work that is sort of the direct opposite of the aesthetic of my work, but I just love her vibrancy and the depth of her surfaces. More is more indeed.


Here's Bonnie Seeman, senior lecturer at the University of Miami, and the creator of some amazingly intricate and detailed work. Do you see the tiny bugs all over the cups?


And here's Christa Assad's place setting. I love the fresh feel of her work and the bright and somewhat unusual colors.


All in all, I had a fabulous time. Next year's NCECA is in Philadephia, which is a great, great town. Maybe I'll just have to attend that one too...

NCECA

I'm flying off to Phoenix tomorrow to attend the NCECA conference. I'm so excited! NCECA is like the clay arts Mecca, and I've never been. I'll tell you all about the trip when I get back!