Kickin' Back

We've been quite spoiled here in Northern California lately.  I'm not complaining!  I went up to the park today in capris and a short sleeve t-shirt to soak up some rays.  I can feel the days starting to get a teensy, weeny bit longer already and every little bit of light helps.  I do fear with all this gorgeous weather that if I doesn't rain sometime soon we may be in for a bit of a draught.  But knock on wood, winter has only just begin.  I think I need some more sun, though.  Check out those lily white winter legs!

I really, really wanted to hike down to the creek and sit on that little beach there.  Except for there being no leaves on the trees it looked deceptively like a beautiful summer day.  I could just imaging jumping into that refreshing water in late August.

But the path goes almost straight down and it was over wet, slippery rocks and I could just see myself falling and breaking a leg.  Maybe not the best way to start out the new year.  No, I think not.

So, instead I basked in front of this big basalt rock.  The sun was so bright it made my eyes tear up just trying to keep them open a split second to take this pic.  Love the shadow of me on the rock.

I'm lichen this rock. He he he!

This one looks like a mini mountain.  I love the cleft.

May you have a clear view in 2012.  Happy New Year!

Penland and Christmas and All That

I surprised my mom today with this fun hand built, textured, oval vase.  Surprising her with potter is pretty hard, she can sniff it out like a bloodhound.  Luckily, this was cooling in a kiln and just came out Friday morning and got wrapped up in box before none were the wiser.  Phew.  She was delighted as she hardly ever sees anything from me not built on the wheel.  I really had fun with this little experiment and want to work on some more.

I blame my absence from my blog to continued work on my grad school applications.  I have most of the apps submitted and some of the portfolio's done.  I should bite the bullet and submit the portfolios but I still have time to get a few more good pieces through the kiln.  If not, I have the images ordered and ready to upload and burn to disk.  I will breathe a deep sigh of relief when they are all done and then comes the waiting part.  Ugh!

Luckily I will be too busy working to worry.  I just found out that I have been awarded a studio assistantship at Penland School of Crafts.  This it for their spring eight week concentration with artist, Kathy King.  I was so excited when I found out that it took a couple of days to get down out of the clouds.  I really can't wait to go back to North Carolina.  I had such a wonderful time last June.

Here is another fun piece I gave my mom.  She saw me making it and just had to have it.  But I kept it over at the studio for the last month so it hasn't been on her mind.

About a week ago I was able to get these three mugs into a cone ten gas reduction firing and I am in love with them.  The one in the middle is my favorite.  I dipped the shino and next time I will try spraying for more control.  I want to get more of the orange color so I need to get the glaze on thinner.  I have some more of these mugs all ready to go plus some other forms to apply the paper resist and underglaze to.  Can't wait to see how they turn out.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year

Open House and New Work

If you happen to be in Chico, CA tomorrow come on by and say hello.  Our host, the illustrious, Pat Koszis, went to Penland School of Crafts last summer and had such a great time that we all decided we wanted to go.  In order to raise some funds to attend a workshop we decided to have this holiday sale.  So if you want to help us get to Penland next summer come on down!

Since I promised, oh so long ago, to upload some images of what I have been working on, ta dah!  Here they are.

I started playing around with paper resist and underglazes and am really learning a lot. I'm so used to firing cone 10 reduction that some of this has a bit of a learning curve now at cone 6.  I am loving the direction this is taking.  My mom and I are already fighting over the red plate above.  It is luscious and the satin was in the perfect spot to cool slowly.

I started this body of work with tumblers and then moved on to the mugs.  When I started everything looked like the mug in the flyer above but I felt like they just needed a little something so I started adding texture and staining them.  Love! Love! Love!