Around the house and our expanding view

Well the sun showed itself after much much rain and dark, so I finally had the urge to pick up a real camera (not just my handy phone) and take a few photos around the house after picking the boys up from school.  My sister and her little 3 year old collected all sorts of little mosses and twigs to make an airplant terrarium for me for Christmas.  So lovely, I'm enjoying it lots. And a few postcards from friends and artists I admire make an empty spot on the wall look fun.  I also love my new calender from Rifle Paper with sweet drawings of major cities and landmarks. 
And we have a room with a view (remember that movie?).   Anyways, there have been a few trees that were taken out giving us a bit more to look at over yonder.  One day that big California Redwood tree smack in the middle of our view may have to go.  As the neighbourhood story goes, there were a bunch of redwoods planted by a kindergarten class 50 years ago.  They are all so huge, so it's easy to see them and imagine little 5 year olds planting tiny trees in their back yards.  Little did they know that 50 years ago they would be the hugest trees on the block! 

Hope your year has started off well.  We are all looking forward to the weekend!

Another one for the archive...c. 2000

I hope you are ok with a bit more reminiscing.  You can see more of my old work on this post here.

These were some of the images I showed at the Gardiner Museum when I did my talk.  Sometimes I think it's helpful to see how far a maker can come with their ideas.  I feel like sharing some of this old work here on my blog is a little glimpse into my past and also into some of the decisions I continue to make as a practicing artist today.
  
At some point in my education I was extremely concerned with elevating the status or perception of utilitarian ceramics.  I guess I still am concerned with the value-system that is in out there when it comes to clay, but the work that I did in Art school was interested in the setting that functional pottery was placed in.  So I made a series of ceramic trays and ceramic shelves that were interested in the idea of display and creating a setting or place for this work to exist within the context of a gallery space.  For the most part the trays and shelves held a mixture of sculptural objects along with some vessels- mostly teacups and teapots.  I love making teapots after-all, and the ritual behind pouring a cup of tea ha led me to all sorts of conversations in clay.

This was really the only piece out of all my work in this series that actually made it to the gallery- it was exhibited in the Museum of Anthropology along with some other student's work.  Soda fired, this piece is called 'Tea for Two'.  It's a nostalgic and rather whimsical take on the long-distant relationship that I had with Dean for a year- where we wrote letters (hence the scrunched up 'paper' and 'envelope') back and forth between Winnipeg and Langley (BC) when we were still dating and sorting out what kind of relationship we wanted to have. 

Inspiration was needed

It's soggy outside.  Cold, wet, gray and dark.  It's no wonder I need a little colour and pattern injection in my life!  I've been a little slow on the blog front, partly because this light is so horrible to take photos in, and partly because life is just humming along with nothing too new to report (lots in the works though!) Nonetheless here's the latest:

+On a recent excursion on Commercial I popped by the vintage shop to admire all the ceramics.

+At home the boys are knee deep in class projects, math tests and snowboarding.  Naturally all of this takes some effort so we've been busy.  Who knew kids could be this much work?!?

+Our 'new' to us arborite table and chairs passed on from Dean's brother and wife this past weekend.  Dean helped them move and we got first dibs- not too shabby!  It looks rediculously cute in our yellow vintage kitchen.  Now if I could only move that light switch so I could hang artwork properly...

+At the studio I started on my first glaze firing for the new year!  I'd love to be filling it with new designs and all sorts of fun, but I'm going to have to settle on a finishing up a bunch of orders to start off with. 

That's pretty much it.  All the really exciting stuff is still in the works and can't quite be let out of the bag yet.