New Shelves, New Clay, and a New Look for my Glazes

I'm really excited about the new adjustable shelves my husband is putting up in the studio. They look great and make my life so much easier.

The piece on the upper shelf is a lot of fun. It's an explosion of carved roses all the way around the pot. I threw the bottom pretty thick in order to carve really deeply (the petals point downward, while the body of the pot curves in, out of sight). On Tuesday I got up at 5:30 am, marched into my studio, and carved for seven hours straight. Yesterday I cleaned and refined the roses for another three hours. It's hard to stop myself! I'm so glad clay dries out or else I'd never have a reason to put down my carving tools.

Now it's on to thoughts of glazing... My regular clay manufacturer recently went out of business, and although the new clay doesn't look much different from the old, my glazes are turning out much differently on the new clay body. I'm very excited! There are glaze tests in the kiln right now -- (going to go check on it right now, be back in a sec!) -- so as I get to know my new colors I'll get new ideas for my pieces.

Leafy tea bowls show off the new look of my green glaze.

This glaze used to be a dark lilac.

Voilà the lovely fountain inside the Apothecary. I dropped of my new pieces on Wednesday. I'd like to think the koi fish on the teapot are feeling right at home here.

 

Soul Searching

Hi.

I've been very quiet for a while.

I went to Paris in October and had a great time hanging out with my Dad, eating delicious food, drinking wine, and walking around endlessly. Also I got sick, which was very frustrating while my taste buds were on strike. On the other hand, I loved being able to lean on my Dad when I wasn't feeling well.

Never too sick for hot, melty chocolate and delicious coffee. Heaven!

Paris is like my second home and I'm always happy to visit. I floated on a cloud all the way back to Colorado. Then I watched myself making major changes: I stopped going to my studio, I stopped talking to many of my friends, and I took all my extra time and threw myself fully into my job. Although I'm thankful to be employed, what I do in my job is not my passion nor does it feed my soul. So what would possess me to spend nearly all my waking hours at work, and the minute I leave, worrying about how to work even harder to make up for other people's inadequacies?

A container for keeping some of the ashes after we scatter the rest.

The anniversary of Jesse's death is fast approaching and I feel very anxious and also very calm. I think I'm experiencing a major internal struggle. I'm also aware I keep feeding both sides, which is incredibly frustrating. At times I have moments of clarity that seem like amazing epiphanies; then I realize it's like pushing a very heavy object and rejoicing at each budge forward. Obviously this is a long-term effort, as the "life is a journey" motivational quotes always tell us. I just have to keep going.

Nature + prayer flags for Jesse

Watching Glee the other day (apologies! but there's a point to this), I was pleasantly surprised to see a character as strong as Santana struggle with focus. She insisted she has huge dreams, she just doesn't know what they are exactly. The show balanced that large question mark with an homage to ballet, to the childhood experience that awakened in her a happiness through movement, expression, technique, and hard work. It made my heart soar. I started dancing ballet again a year and a half ago and it continues to be an incredible inspiration. There are many days I want to quit my job and simply dance!

"Om" casserole dish with lotus handles: inspiration from a dear friend. This piece is one of several that sat, cooled, in my kiln for 6 months while I was busy with other things.

I'm quick to ground my dreams and remind myself of obligations. How can I be such an out-of-the-box thinker in my job while I insist on keeping my own dreams tightly constrained and limited?

Glazing an extra large planter for our lemon tree, which reached the living room ceiling six weeks ago.

 Since the beginning of March, I've found myself in my studio sporadically. My first firing of 2013 was too hot, completely overfired, maybe cone 8-9 instead of 5. Oops. I'm using brand new clay, so I have yet to see what it will look like after a normal firing. The surface looks interesting overfired, but the ware isn't particularly usable.

Gritty & burnt, like the surface of another planet.

I make my living by creating solutions for small businesses and steering people toward success. When am I going to turn my talents to myself?

Tea set currently being fired in the kiln.

I am where I am because of my own choices. Nothing is terrible, but I'm not happy standing here. Like Santana, I have huge dreams and I don't know exactly what they are. So let's get moving and take a step somewhere, see where it goes.

End of Summer

On Wednesday we spent the night at Cottonwood hot springs in an impromptu, relaxing getaway. We drove back the next morning and, turning off the highway toward our house, we were greeted by the most gorgeous aspens: breathtakingly vivid golds, oranges, reds, and even a few stubborn spring greens. It was the peak of the season; this morning everything is still quite lovely, but not the stunning show I saw yesterday. I took a different route home this morning and snapped some photos with my cell phone.

This is my favorite view on the way home. I look forward to it every day.

An old abandoned house; a mining structure from the 1800s back among the aspens.

Summer is nearly gone. It's been a tragic, difficult season but also gorgeous, sunny, and filled with ceramics. Here are some of the more interesting commissions I've had the pleasure to make.

First is Lydia, a beautiful baby who celebrated her birthday in August. I enjoy making work for people I meet because I can make the right glaze choices for their pieces. Lydia's mother was completely uninterested in anything easily breakable or overly girly, but she wanted Lydia to have something special out of clay.

I made Lydia a free-standing name display. Hopefully she'll enjoy looking at it until she's old enough to play with it in a carpeted room.

Next, I met a woman at Alma Fest, Cynthia, who really liked a vase I had with blue flowers, but preferred dark pink flowers instead. I totally agree with her, the dark pink is a great choice!

I ended up making her two vases and they turned out quite lovely. Now I need to make her a bowl but we're both stumped as to how to glaze it. Then a week or so ago I had the pleasure of seeing a dear friend, Janie, who always comes up with interesting clay ideas. She doesn't work with clay at all but loves buying pottery and has a constant supply of "What if you tried..." or "What if you were inspired by..." I love her enthusiasm. For this visit, among many other things she showed me photos of foxgloves, pointing out how beautiful the inside of the flowers look. She thought it would be beautiful to recreate the look with glaze. This summer I bought and planted 12 foxgloves at work, but never thought of this myself. I'm excited to see if this idea can translate into something great for the bowl for Cynthia, using the colors above plus yellow or tan. (Stay tuned!)

Janie also encouraged me to make more tiny pieces, which I did at Alma Fest (and sold them all, thanks Janie!). She collects cream & sugar pieces, so I made her a set with a leafy tray (keeping with my leafy espresso and tea set style). She bought a nice blue bowl, a couple of heart bowls, and a hummus & chip tray. The hummus tray was, of course, Janie's own suggestion, and it turned out great!

This is not intended for large tortilla chips; it's wonderful for pita chips or crackers. Also, I made the hummus bowl nestle perfectly but it is separate if you want to heat it in the microwave (I'm thinking something yummy and cheesy) and for quick washing. The bottom section fits easily in the dishwasher.

In Breckenridge I brought new work to Mary-Anne at Magical Scraps Boutique: flowery mugs and coordinating stacking bowls. 

The mugs take forever to glaze, so I have to re-think the color choices. But they look so cute!...  I also restocked the Backcountry Apothecary in Frisco with more work and have some to-go mugs drying in my studio right now. I enjoy finding inspiration from each of these unique stores to put custom Wild Iris pieces on their shelves. Magical Scraps is a beautiful, cheerful space I want to fill with color and flowers. The Apothecary has supplements, herbs, and teas, and serves as the entrance to the Naturopathic clinic with massage and acupuncture as well. I make drinking vessels for them, usually inspired by or referencing their artsy logo. I'll have photos to share later.

Finally, I made a beautiful pitcher to celebrate an upcoming September wedding. My client, a dear friend of my mother's, told me the shape she wanted and then described her daughter's personality to me (the daughter and I were really close friends through grade school but I haven't seen her in at least 15 years). Maybe I've been well-trained by all the Project Runway episodes I watch, because I had a great time coming up with the right design for the pitcher. The first one I made (below) didn't dry well and when I bisqued it the handle popped off! I'm so glad it did, though, because I'm much happier with the second one.

My idea of carving the roses came about when I found an old flyer from a show I did in 2007. This time I used a similar technique as I did for the work in that show, but I created a much more delicate effect. I love the roses and I love the satiny glaze (poured on for a subtle layered look). As I always do for wedding gifts, there's something written on the bottom to celebrate the happy couple. 

1-2-3, Pitcher!

I haven't done a lot of coiling recently, and I want to do another piece with Piers, so this weekend I built a large pitcher form and decorated it with leaf images. The model plant I used is featured in my July 11th post, sweetly creeping around Syma's bottomless vessel. I love plants with such rich, luminous foliage. So far, I have not decided how I want to glaze this piece. That can wait for a while...

On the left, I'm finishing the last major coil. This piece has 12 or 13 coils - I add a moderate amount of clay each time and pinch it upward, adding 1 1/2"-2" in height. Then I make small alterations to the profile. I don't use a potter's wheel or banding wheel to create the shape, as you see in the picture. The piece sits on a bat and I eyeball the evenness of the sides as I walk around the piece or reposition the bat. What I like about a large, symmetrical piece - balance and calm, significant but gentle interaction with its environment, and quiet containment of a large space - I try to translate into softly asymmetrical shapes. Since I keep the rough texture my fingers create while I pinch, the shape will never be "exact" (as it could be if the walls were smooth). Working on a stationary bat, I am less quick to "correct" every wayward angle and the shape becomes more suggested than precise.


Here I am defiantly pajama'd (because I can, if you ask why) working in the living room, finishing the leaves on the pitcher. I pretended this was a plein air excursion - visiting a plant in its "native" environment (ie, sunny windowsill). I'm usually not supposed to cart my clay around the house because I leave little shavings everywhere!

The vases in the corner are pit fired from earlier this year. (Click here to see them unfired.) The philodendron behind my head is a gift from Lisa Kohlhepp, who clipped it from a plant at the Breckenridge Brewery and rooted it for me a few years ago. The image of his first set of leaves is on another large pot I made, and it sits outside year-round, soaking up sunshine and moisture, just like the plant. These are the mature leaves - last year, I accidentally left him in my windowless kiln shed for a week and I thought I'd killed him! Piers chopped off all the leaves (the brown sadness that was left), and two weeks later these three giants emerged. This is also the plant with 3' aerial roots exploring our living room, inspiring me to make the wall piece Aerial Roots.

Here is a close-up of the leaves. Click it for a bigger picture, and you can see the leaves more easily. Now that I've finished forming and carving, I'll let the piece dry. Next is the firing and glazing stage, and then I'll turn it over to Piers to carve and attach a handle. Easy as 1-2-3!