Proud Production

Yesterday afternoon, I was let go early from my first job and I thought to my self, "What the heck. Should I go to the studio today and make some things?"  Well that decision took all of five seconds and I was marching from the school cafe right over to the ceramics building.

Even though I am no longer an undergraduate student, I still work for NHIA and am enrolled in an alumni studio ceramics class.  I haven't really had the drive to want to make anything in the studio, until now.  This is certainly a small step in motivation and productivity but I'm happy it is a step at that.  After Art Attack! this weekend, aside from making a pretty decent amount of money, it made me realize that I love doing what I do.  I love working with clay.  I love being an artist, and I love selling my work, so why not make more work? Long story short, some of my hot sellers were necklaces and bowls. I really enjoyed making the necklace pendants, so that's what I made last night.

When I'm sitting at the security desk at work, I just stare into the screen of my lap top for hours and want to hurt myself because being on facebook THAT long is just bad for your health.  Granted I'm working, but the job is not super difficult, so I waste a lot of my time all the time.

Minus about an hour or so of prep, here is what I wound up with after 7 hours of work:

17 pendants later, I now have 14 Russian Nesting Doll pendants, some with a Day of the Dead twist to them, and three other random little gems, charming.  I am really excited for these to get fired so I cant paint and seal them!

I will post a picture soon of some left over finished pendants from Art Attack!

T is for Tea and Thinking

I put this as a 'note to self' on facebook, but I also want to put in on here.

I can't stop thinking about tea staining paper, letting the crinkly pages to be crackle as I burn the edges with a lighter, watching all the darkest blacks form on the edges and fade to browns where the heat from the flame hits the paper and not the flame itself. I want to try passion tea and make pinkish cranberry red paper.  I want to try different kinds of tea to see how they react to the paper, and see the colors the make, super rich dyes or faintly colored wet marks.  I may even drink some different kinds of tea to see how they taste. Then maybe I can kill two birds with one stone and taste some tasty tea and have some new and exciting tea bags to test out.

I'm trying to use words that start with the letter 'T' as much as possible. Now it's time for a nap because my thinking tank aka brain is tired, tucker out.

Pushing along and finishing up.

This top image is of some pendants I made towards the end of September and put them up for bisque firing sometime last week.  I am very excited to see how these hold up through the firing because I have not made a lot of pendants like this before.  I decided to make a list of various things that I love and have always been intrigued by and interested in, and turned each into a pendant.  From an emu head, to a jelly fish, to a russian nesting doll, to a pineapple and then some.  There is a lot I did not get to making, but this was a great start for me.

This image I took this past week.  I made these pendants towards the end of April of this year and had them bisque fired in June.  I had decided to paint them by layering different acrylic paints and washes of color to complete them since I did not have access to a kiln at the time to finish them any other way.  Since then, they have sat in the trunk of my car for the last few months, unloved, and unfinished in my eyes.  I finally took them out of hibernation and put string on them and am quite pleased with the final result.  I will be selling these at an upcoming art show in the park called ART ATTACK! which will be taking place on October 23rd in Victory Park in Manchester, NH from 12-4.  I will have other work there for sale as well so come check it out.