I never promised you a rose garden

Happy Sunday from me to you.  I've been loving this song by Shad who spent some time in Vancouver and clearly understood about the rain gettin' a person down...

the lyrics of the original version:

I never promised you a rose garden.
Along with the sunshine,
There's gotta be a little rain sometimes.
When you take, you gotta give, so live and let live,
Or let go.
I beg your pardon,
I never promised you a rose garden.

Been raining all week, folks, so much for summer...

SF day 3 & 4

Highlight: Probably the biggest highlight and reason for my whole trip down to Renegade were meeting such great people:  Janine from Uppercase (who wrote a lovely post re: her Canadians that included yours truly!), Diana Fayt, Rae Dunn, and Sara Paloma.  All these women were so warm and friendly- and of course, seeing their work in person was so amazing! Really, the show was so well curated- I could have bought everything in that building and didn't leave empty handed!  A few trades, and some purchases were made!
Lowlights: It was tough to step away from the booth and see more of the show or meet more vendors.   It also seems like times are tougher and people weren't as ready to make purchases.  Since I shipped my best work out, and had a very limited amount of table space (the 8 ft table we had ordered ended up only being 6 ft), I didn't offer any 'seconds' or 'sales' as an incentive for people looking for less expensive items.  I also chose the items most sold off my Etsy site, which meant if someone was in the market for a bowl, platter or large vase of mine, I didn't have any available at the show.  It's so tricky to sort out what to ship, how much to ship, and a table display for ceramics when your shipping the work and relying on a friend's car and taxi's to transport it to and from the show...and then having to pack it up and ship it back home at the end of the show.  Amazingly enough, I had no breakages in transport- fingers crossed I'll have none on the way home too!

SF day 2

Highlights: finding the Curiosity Shoppe and Paxton Gate (they didn't allow photos but you can find a few on this blog post from 2009), shopping and having drinks and lunch with Claire and Grace, my lovely Vancouver studio buddies, checking out the view as we rode a bus up to Haight-Ashbury.

Lowlights: both Grace and I feeling unwell- me in the morning, Grace in the afternoon (the water?  wacky eating schedules? catching a chill the night before?), waiting 2 hours longer then expected for our boxes of ceramics to arrive at our hotel, a really inebriated and rude man that came and sat beside us while we were having dinner...

SF day 1

 Highlights: having a yummy lunch at Bread & Cocoa, finding a sale at the Camper store, riding the Trolley Cable Car to Fisherman's Wharf with Grace,  and eating the most amazing seafood pasta at a little Italian restaurant that we found in an alley.
Lowlights: being incredibly cold and realizing we hadn't packed for how cold and windy it was going to get, and the long cue for the trolley to head back, while being hungry and cold! brr

back from San Fransisco

Hello there! I just got back from SF and will need a day or two to get things organized here, but wanted to touch base and say 'thanks' for the warm reception I received while doing Renegade!  I had a lot of reasons to want to make this trip happen this year and I'm so glad that it worked out for me to go.  While it wasn't the best show for me sales-wise (considering my expenses to go to the show/shipping work/accommodations etc. were so high), it was an amazing show to be part of!  There was so many amazing people to meet and connect with!
If you are curious about what the show was like, check out Renegade's flickr site right here.  They'll be updating it during the week as well!

Renegade SF

 Please come by and visit if you are in the neighborhood- we are booth #100!  My lovely studio neighbor  (and booth sharer) and I have arrived and are taking in all the great sights this city has to offer!  I'll be back with photos soon, in the meantime, hope you are having a lovely week!

red, white & blue

Happ

Happy Independence Day to my US neighbours! These were taken at the family farm this last weekend, where we ate local strawberries and admired the garden! 
I'm now on 'summer time' which means that I'm at the studio at odd hours- late on Sundays, early on Mondays, and so on, so that Dean and I can still work while the other is looking after the boys.  So I'll be popping by here at random times to say hello! Hope you all are having a great start to your week!

Happy Canada Day!

Happy Canada Day! I saw this Canada Flag in lace at North Vancouver's History Fair about a month ago and, besides being blown away by it's intricate design, thought it would be perfect for today!  I hope you have a great weekend- Happy Independence Weekend to those of you across the line as well!  I know we Canadian's aren't often quite as outwardly patriotic, however I do think there's a lot my country has to offer and I'm proud to live here. 

Colour Spray Bottle Vase

 

Based on my 'colour spray' series (see below) I also came up with this bottle vase design in my last firing.  I'm slowly working out enough of a collection to possibly introduce it more often into my regular work, although, it's extremely fussy to get the little stripes of glaze co-operating well.  Basically each piece has been one of a kind for me, but hopefully I'll be able to sit down this fall and actually create the full collection for my website, including new colours or thinking about how the design could work on a teapot form or a bowl.  The options are pretty wide open- a rainbow spray or colour gradient would look pretty rad too (definitely OOAK work- WAY too complicated for production!).  So many ideas, so little time...

New work: Cups & short mugs

Hello!  Well it was the last 1.5 hours of school today- just enough time for me to unload the kiln with the last of what's heading down to San Fransisco for Renegade!  I'm really excited to show you my new cups and mugs- a slip-cast design that I've been working on over the last couple of months.  I designed this based on my wheel-thrown cups and shorter mugs, however wanted the mold to be as versatile as possible: it's a one part mold that can be a cup, or if I add a handle, can be a short mug that works a little better with the size of my teapots.  I have been working on a couple of collaborations with it already, so haven't had the time to play with my existing glaze designs or get too creative with any new ones, however, I guarantee there will be more to come.  Holding about 12 oz of liquid, the handle is a good 2 finger hold, and as cups, they stack pretty good.

I will have a very limited selection of these available at Renegade- they will be up on my shop soon!

Oh, and I saw this on Pinterest the other day.  Had to chuckle... ceramic paint or pens, heh?  Let me know how that goes for you...

**The process of creating stripes (or any glaze design of mine) on my handmade mugs, teapots and vases are tediously created by use of hand-cut 'stencils' on my bisqued ware allowing the coloured glaze to sit right next to and only slightly overlap the white glaze.  Each stripe is glazed with food-safe, microwave and dishwasher safe glazes that won't ever fade or chip off.  They are made with the utmost care on my part with many steps taken to get the stripes and designs looking seamless. 

the Garden this week

 

The garden is coming alive.  It's rather exciting...

Traveling display

I finally had a bit of a brainwave last week sorting out my display with Renegade- a couple of vintage suitcases that I can bring with me on the plane.... so I don't have to ship my whole display!  Necessity is the mother of invention sometimes, and having a mother-in-law who just happens to have a 'collection' of vintage suitcases just sitting around is also extremely handy.
Happy Monday to you!

Friday fieldtrip: Point Roberts, Washington

I had the chance to go over the boarder into Point Roberts yesterday (to do some shipping- this postal strike here in Canada is just killing me!!), and took a little extra time to sneak down to Lighthouse Park.  Point Roberts is a bit of an anomaly- essentially it is a peninsula attached to Canada only and is American by virtue of it's co-ordinates being just south of the 49th Parallel.  To get into the rest of the US, you must drive through Canada's boarders and then around, so it is quite isolated in a way.  And quiet.  I'm sure that it gets busier in the summer or on holidays, but it felt like such a sleepy and peaceful place.

I hope you have a great weekend!  I'm in the final stages of getting my work together for Renegade while attempting to transform the studio to work like a little factory for the summer!

On the horizon...

 Hello! I'm slowing down on the blogging front for the next week to finish up as much as I can before my boys are home from school for the summer months!   I've got a few orders to fill and more work for Renegade to finish up, while also preparing for a summer of filling the largest order I've ever produced.  Yes, it feels exciting and harrowing all at the same time.  I know I've said this before, but this ride I'm on- making and selling my artwork and crafts, is a wild one!  If someone had told me at the beginning of the year what opportunities would come my way, I probably wouldn't have believed them.  Usually I have goals and vision for what I do, but somehow this year I was having a hard time imagining how I could possibly make 2011 better then 2010.  I guess 'better' is a loaded word, because everyone's idea of 'better' is different.  Certainly there have been highs and lows, but this year is again exceeding my expectations and I'm having to plan and make decisions that I didn't expect to make so soon on this adventure.  Needless to say, I feel really thankful to be in the midst of it, a little overwhelmed, and excited at the prospect of things to come.
I just wanted to thank you all for stopping by here, to the place that I share my inspirations and thoughts.  I'll be a bit random from here on for the summer, but I'm looking forward to sharing with you the highs and lows of producing a volume of work in a fairly short amount of time.  My due date on this order is September 5th, so basically my summer will be spent with my nose to the grindstone. I've thought a lot about this, especially concerning our kids and Dean's schedule (he's running 2 week-long skateboarding camps this year instead of just one) and hopefully we can still make this a memorable summer despite the busy works schedules!
(sorry, for some reason my blog isn't uploading images today... )  

Happy Go Skateboarding Day!

Hello and happy go skateboarding day!  Yes, summer solstice is right around the corner and with it a whole lot of skateboarding.  Skateboard culture and art really have a great way of intersecting so I thought this video was a good way to celebrate, since I would pretty much break my leg just standing on a skateboard!  And I love how husband and wife graffiti artists Kami and Sasu work together on the installation (notice she doesn't skateboard either:) Maybe someday Dean and I will be inspired to combine our art and skateboarding interests together- very cool!
Video found here: Tim McFarlane's blog
More info on the Hitotzuki website