Solo Show!

Well my solo show at the Gallery of BC Ceramics has been one I've been planning for all year since I was invited to do the show last November! I had to make a lot of work to commit to this show and feel like I accomplished a lot already! The show officially opens this coming Saturday, July 4th from 1-3pm, and will be up for the month of July! I have some lovely little surprises in the show so come on out if you are on Granville Island at all this summer! I still have one kiln-load to unload and then it's photo-shoot time with my photographer extraordinaire: Curtis Hildebrand! So I'd better be off!

Out of Jam...

We took a trip to a local berry farm this past weekend to pick up a flat of strawberries for making jam. Surprisingly, strawberry season is nearly over here- the berries were small but sweet and juicy. With raspberry season on the horizon, I'm hoping to fill all our empty jars in our basement with homemade jam for the year to come!

Summer Party Treasury!

Treasuries on Etsy are curated by members and sometimes they make it to the front page of etsy! The last treasury my work was featured in, sold the teapot before the treasury made it to the front page of Etsy, so it can be great exposure! Anyways, this delightful treasury of all things summer included my poppy jug, just perfect for summer lemonade or sangria!

Modern Country

Sometimes it's great to good to just get my work out of the studio and into a setting that inspires me in a new way. My work is in general pretty modern and minimally inspired, but paired with antiques becomes charming and romantic! A neighbour to Dean's family owns an antique store in Fort Langley- it's a lovely store called 'Country Lane Antiques' (no website, sorry), and she, along with her husband re-furnish most of the furniture at their home studio. I brought a small sampling of my work to photograph hoping she would have an old kitchen hutch near her front window (for natural light) and she did! And I couldn't pass up that old tin with the boat on the front- that had to come home with me:)

still buzzin'

Yesterday morning a wave of fatigue hit me (I ran a red light on the way to the studio- that should have been my first clue not to forget coffee in the morning! Ahhh) and my studio mate Grace saved the day with a bit of caffeine and a little help painting poppies on mugs for me to keep me going! Thanks to Grace I got my second glaze done (which I will pull out later tonight), and then it's 'only' a mere 2 to go before it's all done! My bisque (first firing for those unfamiliar with clay language) is firing today so I had a good day of making slip for my slip-cast vases, picking up my vinyl decal for the show and being with the boys.

Busy day, busy week...

It's a really busy week as Dean leaves on Friday for a week in Yellowknife, school and daycare/preschool are ending, and my solo show opens in a mere 2 weeks!!!!! Yikes. So I'm going to get right to it and will be loading 3 glaze kilns and 1 bisque this week, hoping that everything turns out in my firings as I have no room for re-fires and can't start over again even if I wanted to. Here's hoping! Have a great week - the poppytalk handmade market has been down for about a week now due to them needing a new server, but once that kicks in again, I'll hopefully post a little give-a-way in time for some summer fun!
PS I also have another professional photo session in the works for next monday so stay tuned for some beautiful photographs.. Thanks so much Curtis!

Portrait of a Good Dad on Father's Day!

There are so many photos I have of Dean and the boys together, but this recent one of him teaching Johnny how to change his tire on his bike speaks volumes! Happy Father's Day!

Coming to Vancouver!!!

I jumped at the opportunity to be apart of the opening for the documentary 'Handmade Nation' by Faythe Levine coming up on July 9th at the Rio Theatre, 1660 E. Broadway near Commercial Dr.! The Craft showcase starts at 7pm and the screening at 8pm GET YOUR TICKETS HERE!!! The first 100 that sign up get a free swag bag and with Faythe Levine giving a little talk after the screening along with all the fine local talent (see below) that will be present, it is THE event of the summer!
Joining me will be some of (hopefully I'll be able to find links on more of these soon...)
Colleen Baran
Flaming Angels
Laura Bucci Handmade
Messy Kid Products
My Little Eye
Olive
Plantscapes
pomo mama design
telly designs
Coco Cake Cupcakes
Bliss in a teacup

More on the film Handmade Nation here!

Good times!

It was good to get away for the past 5 days, to spend time in a beautiful setting, connecting with new and old friends, and enjoying my kids as they had so much fun! We went on a little walk to the old homestead on the property, a far cry from the grandness of the camp that is there now! It was wonderful to be back and we're already talking about next year...

Feel Fuzzy for Dad

I'm shopping local again on etsy and with Birthday season and Father's Day on it's way, Feel Fuzzy has some great little items to add to any gift in the works. Temporarily based in Vancouver, (heading back to Scotland after the summer), this shop has a lot of vintage remixes at play! I love the buttons and lapel brooches, the magnets out of old puzzles are so great, and the packaging is really clever! I'm also intrigued by Debi's willingness to do a custom order... hmm, perhaps a vintage scooter set of cards for my husband, an old 'Ford' button for my father-in-law, and a vintage horse magnet set for the 'cowboy' in my dad. Check out her blog for more info about Feel Fuzzy, Debi's time in Vancouver, and more great photos from such a sweet etsy shop!

Here Comes the Sun...

This is a sampling of some of the work I got ready this past week for the Poppytalk Handmade Market's 'Here Comes the Sun' edition! With my garden full of wild flowers and the 'occasional' weed, these vases are coming in handy to cheer up my desk or window sill by the sink. I'm gallery 19, come on by and check things out!

Aerial Photography of Lynann!

I love aerial images of topography (back in my Emily Carr days I painted a whole series of abstract paintings of aerial views). Which is why the photography of Lynann Colligan caught my eye as I browsed her etsy shop this week! Something about her nordic images, views of Iceland, Greenland, and Ireland really captures something wonderful, abstract and kind of dreamy. I'm hoping she exhibits locally (yes, she's based in Vancouver), as I'd love to see her work on paper, and not just on a computer screen!

A weekend plus...

One of the real reasons I've been so frantic to get work done the past 2 weeks (besides the obvious solo show at the BC Gallery of Ceramics July 4th...) is because I have been looking forward to heading off to RockRidge Canyon for Dean's annual staff conference for 5 days. It's a beautiful camp in Princeton BC and I usually get to go there twice a year, once in June and once in October for their Women's Camp, where I usually teach an art workshop! It's a great conference with childcare provided in the mornings, and activities all afternoon for us to do as a family. My boys are pretty familiar with going now and they have a line-up of activities they want to do including canoeing, going on a speedboat to watch the wakeboarders, going swimming in the pool, skim-boarding at the lake (pictured above), and hiking up to the Pinnacle (1st photo). I'm looking forward to getting my reciepts from this year in order while the childcare is going on in the mornings, going on the Zip-line and possibly the ropes course again, and having some down time from the past few months of business.
In the meantime, I'll have a few posts ready to go here on my blog, especially since I have new work coming out of the kiln for the Poppytalk Handmade Market's Here Comes the Sun edition! And I think I may have another give-a-way in the works....

Hangin' in there...

I realized my blogs have slowed down this past week, mostly due to my busy studio schedule and me feeling a little behind the 8-ball with my solo show coming up. Nevertheless, life continues and I am on to my 2nd glaze firing of 5 or 6 that will need to be done by the end of the month. My last firing did not go as hoped and I felt down-right dismal this weekend thinking about the work that had gone into the firing and the time that I don't have to make up for what was lost. But monday came and it was time to get back on the horse and get back at it. Persistence and patience...

A trip to the Z-O-O!

After a crazy week of cramming in as much studio time to get work out (my excuse for not blogging much this past week too), I figured my family deserved some devoted time from me this weekend. I took the boys out to the Z-O-O as Sasha likes to spell it out. My favourite parts were when the boys got to touch the Giraffes, and getting right up close to an Owl and Falcon.

I'm not a huge proponent of the concept of Zoos. It always disturbs me to think about these wild animals in captivity their whole life, however I do think there are some Zoos that are able to develop more 'natural' habitats for their animals and the Greater Vancouver Zoo definitely has some of that going on. It's a large chunk of land and for the most part, the animals have a wide area in which to roam and graze on. It's a little hard to see them unless it's feeding time, but it is good to see the animals have a little more space then some of the smaller city zoos. I know a lot of cities are slowly shutting down their Zoos as their animals get older and pass away. I hope that our visits to a place like the Zoo would inspire my kids to become conservationists of wild animals and their natural habitat that is slowly dwindling away. These animals are so amazing and my kids were so inspired so that was pretty cool!

Read the interview here!

I've been featured on a great blog called Indie fixx, with an interview! Read about it here!

June Bugs...

Time feels like it flies by too fast sometimes. June 1st already...
I sat down to throw another 30 mugs today. I only got around to 14 mugs + 6 bowls. Not enough... not ever enough time. 30 mugs are drying out ... but not fast enough for my bisque tomorrow. Glaze needs to be made. Kids need to be picked up from school. Husband needs to go away for another week in June. Solo show needs to have enough work to make my quotas. Yikes..
So I walked down the back alley with my camera after picking up the boys and tried to notice the world around me for a change. To not be so absorbed in trying to solve my dilemma of keeping up with the amount of work I need to make and the lack of time I have to make it in. And I came across this little dragon fly perched on a leaf. It was pretty windy out and the leaf was swaying this way and that. The dragon fly held on somehow with those thin little legs. Something held him fast and firm- I imagine he produces some kind of sticky stuff on the pads of his legs hold on to surfaces. I'm not sure, but whatever it was, he was grounded. Got me thinking...