slow like a turtle

I'm not sure I will ever get used to this slow pace, but oh well, guess I'm in no hurry and it gives me time to think and rethink. (which is kinda a problem sometimes)


first the exciting part of this post








now, the ceramics.

So the last batch of test work that I wasn't excited about, still not excited about. I liked the imagery, but the feel/coloring not up to par or the feeling I want to get from them. They were kinda sterile for my taste.

I don't want to mess around with glazes since I feel weird about keeping so many dry chemicals in the garage with Hunter around plus.. I HAVE NO TIME to test glazes... unless I want to take a month to make 4 glazes. lol. Making a simple clear was disaster enough.

so now I am trying this.. mixing in mason stains to slip, simple enough. I'm not one for test tiles anymore (bad monica bad) so I just started to experiment on some bowls and tumblers.

SO i've got some light pink slip on the bottom and then blue over the top and then another blue on different spots. More painterly I suppose... and I have no idea what it's going to look like. awesome.



Next I will carve into the slip and add some fun commercial underglaze. I love this dark brown clay. The feet just look so yummy unglazed.

anyway.. wish me luck! This could be pretty neat or a big fat disaster.

6am ramblings

So it's 6am. Jake and Hunter are asleep and I'm all sorts of stuffy. blah.

I haven't been in the studio for about a week now. (also blah) Hunter was just teasing me with the few day consistent napping. Jake has been really busy so no time to watch the little man. Suppose if I were awesome I'd go in right now.

but instead i'm rocking out to The White Buffalo He is fantastic.

Anyway lots to think about in experimenting and changing my work to where I want it to be. It's definitely not there yet, but I'm hoping someday sooner than later I'll get there.

objects

with hunter around we just have a lot of stuff.

So i'm trying to find a way to work it into my imagery and visual vocabulary.

 

left to right
Hunters crib, car Pj's
Hunters room, bib
sleep sac and receiving blanket pile, unopened crib sheets
alligator centipede, bath towel
baby hawaiian shirt, baby blanket
tissue box (which reminds me of Jen Meccas work), crib sheets
Hunter, more crib sheets

blog roll update

It's nice to be back in the swing of reading blogs. :)

I've updated my blog roll to some of my new favorites. I know I'm late to the party on some of these

Emily Dyer- http://emilydyer.blogspot.com/

Heather Dahl- http://dahlhausart.blogspot.com/

Shawna Pincus- http://pinkkisspottery.blogspot.com/

Aaron Sober- http://welcometotheyard.blogspot.com/

Viki Hartman- http://these2words.blogspot.com/

Leah Bearce Guerin- http://www.leahguerin.com/blog/

etsy

man.. i am out of etsy shape.

taking pictures (not even good pictures) cropping, uploading, writing a blurb, tagging takes a lot of time. And time is a precious thing :) Hopefully I get faster at this.

but this post gives me another chance to talk about my favorite subject: Hunter!

We had epic tummy time, he lifted his head so high and kept it up!



don't mind the bugger :)

pictures

I think one of my favorite times is the time I get to organize and learn from the pots.

The above plate is super warped, lol. I would tell you how I did it, but it is slightly embarrassing and a mistake i'm likely not to repeat anytime soon.

Hunter inspired pots. Need more color. I really enjoy the pops of color inside of 2 of the bowls.







name alphabet tumblers for a friend and her husband



mix tape yunomis inspired by my husbands website dirtyhippieradio



I really like the dark brown clay body and sgraffito.






and my little man :)

kiln unloaded!

Not too shabby, will post pictures later.

I'm not jumping up and down, but do really like them. I'm looking forward from learning and tweaking the glaze applications.

I finally gave up on mixing a clear recipe and used the studios. It took 6 days to end up with a bucket of mystery glaze. Each day I had enough time to measure out 1 ingredient. I had it all mixed, added water... oops too much water. No problem right? just add 500g... by the time i got around to adding 100g of wollastonite I had messed up on writing down what I had already added. :/

sigh. my focus just isn't here. I need a magical glaze gnome to mix and test glazes for me.

going to the beach

Going to the beach today... someday I'll finish mixing my glazes and get a glaze firing going.

things take sooooo much longer to do now. I have been mixing 1 glaze for 5 days now. Each day I get to measure out 1 dry ingredient.

Oh well. Slow and steady....

plate(s)

plates are really fun. holy cow I love a big surface. (i may feel differently after glazing)






and my little swimmer

go hunter!

Man this consistent nap time is getting to be so nice.

I decided to make some plates today, I'm pretty excited about decorating a large surface. I haven't made a plate in... forever.



and some test tiles. Love me some test tiles.. now to get the organization and time to mix glazes.



I made this bowl yesterday and I hope it turns out like I want it to. I'm really enjoying my new to me combination of techniques.

exterior


interior


and I have a few non carved into porcelain cups left over so I decided to have some underglaze fun.



and here is Hunter in a bounceroo thing. His awake playtimes are getting so much more active. Laying in one spot staring at the ceiling isn't cutting it anymore. :)

wednesday naptime fun

It's naptime! Well not for me, but little man. I just finished up some deco on a few cups, cleaned my wheel for the first time in months, organized some stuff, took some pictures and now I get to read blogs and blog.

1. I'm in love with Jen Mecca's blog and work. I need to pick her brain on doing the mom thing and having time for ceramics.

2. Carole Epp had an interesting post about things I have been thinking about in regards to decoration vs content. I like where in ended in sometimes you just need to make something that makes you happy.

3.I wish I lived in NC so I could go to Ron Philbeck's pottery sale! Well.. I'd probably be super broke, so maybe it is better this way. ;)



Here are some cups in progress


the lamb mobile


and my favorite, hopefully glazing goes well.


The cassette tape image comes from something Jake has been working on. My husband, Jake, made this incredible website www.dirtyhippieradio.com which features so many great indie/jamband/semi unsigned bands. The White Buffalo and Iguanamen de Galapagos are certainly worth a listen.


and finally for the cuteness

content vs decoration

There are many reasons why I love my husband but one of them is that he keeps me in check and pushes me to do better.

The last firing was my first time back to clay and everything was a bit scattered. I was trying a few new to me things and slowly feeling my way back. I had my cups all lined up in a row and Jake looks at me and says "great now what?". I looked at him like what do you mean. He started explaining that my cups lack content.

so we had a decent discussion about content vs decoration. Some of my drawings, okay all of them, just felt forced and didn't have much thought behind them. I sat down with my sketch book and realized that the common thread between the drawings I liked was hunter.



I'm around him 24hrs a day (give or take 2)and why wouldn't my inspiration come from him and the objects around him. So I gave in and realized that he is what interests me and makes most sense in my world and then the drawings finally made sense.



I get to throw while little man naps and I love love love my video monitor.

we have action, well sort of

After an 11 month hiatus I have 13 cups. lol. Man everything takes so much longer when I'm running back in to check up on Hunter.

So many things change. I thought I was happy where I left off making work that looked like this



but upon coming back to clay I decided to play around a bit, no rush in going back into "production" mode. (nothing is ever a rush anymore)

So I joined a clay class so I could get out of the house for 2hrs a week, but that didn't last long before I started feeling guilty. I have a studio set up in the garage so I tried to sneak in time during daytime naps... lo and behold Hunter doesn't like to nap during the day unless he is attached to me.

But with the small amount of time I had this is what I played around with and ended up using the studio glazes and underglazes. I really wanted to do some glaze testing but it is nearly impossible to do such things 10 minutes at a time. :)