Work in Progress

I don't have a lot of time or space to work on really large paintings these days like I used to when I used to rent 2 small studio spaces- one for my clay work and one for painting.  Since I needed more space for clay work last year I pulled everything into one studio with high hopes of being able to pull out some paintings a few times a month to work on it. Unfortunately I haven't made a practice of doing this and frankly- clay dust and painting don't really work together really well.  So I've started to do some painting at home on my desk. Just some small watercolours.  Just for my own sake, when I can fit it in, sometimes in between school pick ups or when the boys are in bed for the night.  Sure beats watching TV or doing laundry:)  It's got me all inspired to do more.  The photograph of the 'look-out tower' was taken recently on a visit to my sister's in Nanaimo.  I love that in paint you can re-arrange and change things to suit your composition or painting.  Usually I take a photograph of something I might use in a painting.  Other times I paint purely from memory of a place or a moment in time.

Noticing: Water and Rock

Reflections of trees and sky on a meandering stream made me slow down and really look at this beautiful place.  In the midst of loud and busy boys, a sometimes frantic schedule, and my to do list a mile long I'm trying to slow things down, be more observant, and to stay in tune with the things and people that matter the most to me.   This is my goal over the next little bit, to find some quiet time of noticing the little things worth noticing.  I'll be posting those little bits of moment as I find them.

Happy Mother's Day!

That's me and Oliver up there- just getting re-acquainted.  My sister and new nephew are here for his first visit to Vancouver from the Island.  I'm enjoying spending time with them again and it is great to see my sister as a new mom! Hope you have a great weekend and hats off to all you mothers out there for your dedication, love and care that you give to your children!

Shop up-dates...

I've up-date both my shops here and here with more work to come over the next couple of days as I unload another kiln!

Black & White

The studio is calling me but I just wanted to pop by and say hello to today!  I've been on the hunt for a smaller sized white kitchen hutch for the multipurpose thought of display for my booth at Christmas shows and photo-shoot staging and maybe even something that I can have on the porch here at home for the people in the neighbourhood who keep wanting to stop by to pick out some pots.  Consequently I have boxes of pottery just laying around the house awaiting a pick up-which can last a couple of weeks.  With the kitten loving boxes and bubble wrap and the boys doing gymnastic routines through the living room, I'm thinking some kind of cabinet would make sense. 
I also got a little excited when I saw this little plate in the thrift store.  How lovely is that?  I recently bought a Majolica black 'under/over glaze' by mistake- usually I use a little stamp on the bottoms of my pots with underglaze for my dh (dahlhaus/heather dahl) and noticed that this other stuff turned out glossy like a glaze but didn't stick to the kiln shelf. Hmmm.  According to the instructions it is possible to use this Majolica stuff on top of a glaze before you glaze fire.  I love how 'mistakes' in pottery give way to inspiration.  What would happen now if I silk-screened this stuff onto a glazed surface instead of silk-screening on bisque ware and putting a clear glaze on top.  I'll let you all know how that one plays out. In the meantime, this plate is my inspiration and I'll be off now:)

Kelly Austin

There is a reason I've felt a lot more relaxed over the past 2 weeks- I've had some extra help in the studio! My new studio assistant is Kelly Austin, a 3rd year ceramics student from Emily Carr University.  Kelly's own work is a really lovely, minimal combination of both throwing and slip-casting.  I love her use of coloured slips in shades of grey on her slipcast work. Soon you will be able to purchase her work at Walrus! Yay! 

I'm really pleased she has agreed to help me out in the studio for a couple of days a week over the spring and summer months so I can get ahead on my busy fall schedule.  So far she's been awesome at picking up on my methods of making.  To boot she has to listen to me say 'It's not rocket science, but it felt like it was when I was figuring it out!' a million times while I show her how I do things. 

back alley gates

 

Our walks in the evening have me looking at back alley gates, some much nicer than others.  These ones caught my eye.  Back alley's seem so luxurious when the value of the land where we live is so high.  We have been fortunate enough to rent a small 50's style house in this neighbourhood for 4 years now.  As the boys grow bigger, the house feels smaller, and sometimes we start thinking about what is next.  All I can say is that I will miss the back alley views...

It's Friday

The weekend has crept up on me again and it's already friday! Normally I spend part of Saturday at the studio, catching up on work from the previous week, but last weekend I was at Blim on Sunday too, so this weekend I'm going to try to be at 'home'.  I'll be trying to get back my bike legs again and if the weather holds out I'll get most of our little garden in- (must plant potatoes...).  There's 'Got Craft?' on Sunday and I think the Blim grand opening on Saturday.  A skate comp and hockey fundraiser that Dean is running for his work will make our weekend a little on the busy side! 

Dean and I are going on a date for the first time in a month- we're off to see our friend Jay's grad show from Photography at Langara and then to the new Ten Sun's CD release party.  Not quite a 'romantic' night for 2, but it should be fun to catch up with people sans kids!  I hope your  weekend goes well and thanks for coming by!

Project Empty Bowls

Silent Auction season is among us and I've been sifting through my emails to decide which causes I want to support.  Every year I usually pick a handful of fundraisers, hopefully spreading out the time-frame so they aren't all in the same month.  As much as these events can be a 'business' exposure thing, I would way rather think of them as just doing my part the best I know how.  Hopefully whoever goes home with a piece that I've created will be reminded to give and give generously to the needs of others both locally and globally. 

I first heard about Project Empty Bowls back in my art school days when all us ceramic students got together once a year to throw and glaze a bunch of bowls to donate to this fundraiser.  Within the last few years I've once again had the opportunity to be involved.  A Loving Spoonful provides free meals for people living with HIV/AIDS in the Greater Vancouver area.  The fundraiser is an annual event that potters in BC have been involved with since it started. A really simple concept of Soup and a handmade bowl in exchange for a donation was started by a high school art teacher who had his students make bowls for the event. Since then many of the potters I know have generously donated their hand-made bowls year after year.

leaving home, going home

Back when I transferred into Art School as a 3rd year student, one of my first people I met was Disa.  She was taking both ceramics and painting (just like me) and we instantly connected over similar aesthetics and interests.  That was about 12 years ago now, and despite Disa moving back to her hometown of Toronto and then back to Vancouver to do an intensive Graphic Design program, Disa and I have stayed good friends.  Today she and her partner are headed back to Toronto, this time for good, and as sad as I am to say goodbye, I know that we'll have lots of visits between us still to come. 

Last fall Disa and I started talking about working on a collaborative project that we could do together in my studio before she moved back to Toronto.  We had long conversations late into the night over drinks discussing trends, ideas, product design, and ceramics.  In February we had our first studio session and we did some wheel-throwing, worked on some tiles, and then came up with these slab-built vase forms with our own cut out designs that we pressed/rolled into the clay multiple times to make a pattern.  We both felt like these were the direction we needed to go in for our studio sessions together and our excitement about the vases built.  Working in the studio together on these spurred on the idea of opening an online shop of our collaborative, one of a kind vases.  (Coming soon!)

Today Disa is leaving home and going home all in the same day.  I'm thinking of her as she says goodbye to a city she has lived in for over 10 years.  It's going to feel lonely without her around...

A post without pictures...

I'm not sure about you but blogger seems to have a new system for uploading images and mine's not working. Technical assistance, anyone?

A little up-date on the Wedding Magazine shoot and my cake stands... thankfully all went extremely well and the only 'glitch' was that whoever made the cake didn't quite take the theme or colours into consideration! Thankfully they found other ways to use the cake/cupcake stands! I might even get a glimpse later today...

Here's off to a busy Wednesday!  For those of you in Toronto I'm shipping off a pretty large order of new work for the Gardiner Museum Gift Shop today, and for those of you in Vancouver, the Gallery of BC Ceramics will finally get some work! And my online shops are looking a little bare again- I'll hopefully get to uploading what's left tomorrow!  Thanks for hanging in with me while I sort out the photo up-load issues and have a great day!

Pre-wedding shoot jitters...

Truly, I did bite off a little more than I could chew when I took on the assignment of making cake plates and Tile frames in 3.5 weeks for a wedding magazine shoot in PINKS, creams and whites.  Pink, for those of you that understand anything about glazing, is actually a tricky colour to get for mid-range to high fire glazes.  I fire to a cone 6-7 and pink stain mostly burns off at this temperature.  3.5 weeks is not quite enough time to actually burn screens of my pattern ideas, wheel-throw and assemble cake plates, screenprint 'raspberry coloured' underglaze, dry and bisque fire the cake plates, make 2 new glazes, including one matt pink and one transparent pink glaze, test the glazes and then try to paint gold luster around the rims of the cake plates once they've been fired.  I will say that I ended up falling into the cardinal sin of completely winging it in the end, for lack of time.  And yes, one of the 2 pink glazes I committed to completely burned out and is now milky clear.  Not wanting to end this journey in tragedy, I've decided not to do the gold luster after-all.  Besides all the toxic fumes, I'm not sure I wanted to risk the gold looking 'brassy' or copper.  Finger's crossed that what I've made is what the stylist/photographer/editor were hoping for...

Cupcakes by CocoCakes- seriously, these melt in your mouth and are the best- not too crazy sweet, cupcakes I've ever had.  So pretty too!

Amber Tiger says 'hello'

Custom Orders

A few weeks ago I got an email about whether or not I make kitchen canisters, and while I've made lidded jars before, I hadn't really made canisters.  The taller of these will be for coffee, with the smaller holding tea- pretty, aren't they?  I just thought I'd show you the picture of my bottoms and lids- I trim feet on both my teapots and, in this case, the canisters so that the pots look like they are 'floating' on the counter top.  As a little detail the stems go all the way to the foot- which look so lovely when you turn it over.  Of course a really great fitting lid is a must...
For custom orders I always make an extra set, because you never know if something is going to go a little awry in the process.  And it's a good thing in this case too- I've still got a tall one in the cupboard with a stubborn lid that won't come off and a short one who's lid ended up being a bit to big- so it currently doesn't even have a lid. It's extra time to make the doubles, and frustrating when something doesn't turn out, but it's a huge relief to have a set ready to ship at the time I had estimated for the client!
I'm currently making a Poppy jug for a wedding present, but this time with the Turquoise blue and white with red poppies. It's great to have an excuse to play around with my designs based on someone else's request but taking custom orders can often be a challenge.  At the end of it all I'm always hopeful that it has turned out to the expectation of the person ordering it and that it didn't take so much time out of my regular work that it wasn't financially worth it.  In both these cases it hasn't felt that way so I'm pleased that I took the projects on.  And maybe I'll start making canisters or turquoise blue and poppy jugs from now on because of those requests!

Blim Monthly Market- the Inside scoop!

heyday designs by Claire Madill- loving the new beaver jar!

Wikkerink Design- belts and wallets made out of recycled bicycle tires would make a great gift for Dad's for Father's Day!

I'm all for a little cupcake now and again too- Coco Cake's will be at the market!  Remember to get there early- she always sells out really quick!

So the details again:  the Blim Spring Market- happening at Heritage Hall on Main street in Vancouver, from 11-4pm.  I'll be sharing a table with the lovely Amy again and there will be lots of handmade local lovelies to be had for Mother's Day, Father's Day, weddings, gifts and more!