Dreaming of a White Christmas...

Well, according to the weather forecast, it won't likely be snowing here on Christmas... but we did finally get a little snow this week! Not the 4-6 inches that was predicted (we started the week off with rain!) but enough to dust everything in a wintery white... a beautiful day to go out walking... and as luck would have it, I had the day off to do just that! 

 I walked around town for quite some time, in awe at the beauty of it all... smiling a goofy smile. It was one of those days where you just feel happy to be alive... and thankful to have the leisure time to enjoy it!

:)

Wednesday is Clay Day... Part 4

Well, truth be told... pretty much all my days off for the past 2 weeks have been clay days. Which is great, but then other things that you need to do on a daily basis don't get done. You know, thing like running errands, going grocery shopping, cooking a decent meal... those sorts of things. You see, I only have a couple short weeks left until my class ends and when it does, so does my access to the studio. Sooooooo, this is why on any given day, my kitchen table looks like this!

 I was playing around w/ slab work. My very loose template was the vase on the left... but I wanted to make it a little more "flowy," & came up with this~

It has the potential to look quite cool once it's glazed! And do you remember my little bear from "Days off are the Best," many posts ago? 

http://beckypinnick.blogspot.com/2010_08_01_archive.html

Well, I made another one, though a smaller version~

And I finally got back the original from the other post!

Here he is glazed~ I call him my good energy bear... 'cause he really is chock full of good energy!

:)

And here they are together, so you get the idea of size~

And now back to the Micaceous Clay! Well, those of you who have been following my blog since I was taking classes up in Oregon know that I love to document process, and am rather intrigued by it. But dang it... I forgot to take pictures as I was making this pot! To give you an idea... I'm showing some of the scraping & sanding that goes on to reach the finished product. Pretty exciting stuff, eh?

Here I am scraping the inside of the pot. This one was a lot smaller than my first one, and my first closed form (has a lid) pot ever. Since it was small, I felt the walls should be thin... and in order to get nice thin walls from where I started, a lot of scraping was necessary. This was actually a lot of fun! I sat out on my front porch in the sunshine in my PJ's with an endless cup of coffee... my kinda day! :) Below is the pot after the scraping, but before the sanding.

My feelings about this pot are fairly neutral. I don't absolutely love it, except in an I made it so I gotta love it, kinda way but I don't dislike it either. I do have to say this though, doesn't it kinda remind you of Charlie Brown's head?

Seriously... I didn't mean for it to come out that way, but it is kinda shaped that way, is it not?! Then on to the sanding... will this excitement ever end???

... and more sanding~

And finally, after applying 3 coats of micaceous slip, and hand burnishing w/ stones

(oops! forgot to take pictures of that~ suffice it to say it is a long and lengthy process!)

My finished pot... sparkling in the morning sun!

Whew! That was a lot of work! Now again comes the wait for the firing & the anticipation of whether it will make it through, and how the look will transform if it does. In the meantime, I finally got some glazing done on some cups & bowls I threw on the wheel weeks ago, and I'm concurrently working on 2 more Micaceous Pots... another small closed form & another big one like my first~ but they've just been placed under wraps for now... as I go back to those crazy 10 hour shifts at work. It's funny, 'cause I get tired after 8 hours in the studio... so imagine how I feel after a 10 hour work day! 

Can anyone say "Couch Potato?"

Until next week...

:) 

Days off are the Best!!!

I do enjoy my days off! Presently I am working far too much & far too hard... but sometimes this is just a part of life, and I try to accept this. I am paying down some of my tuition from going to school up in Oregon, and putting a little aside for my next "plan." It is my hope that soon, I will figure out a way to create a little more balance in my life. My plan is that by the end of the year, I'll have figured out a way to work part time, go to school part time, still make ends meet, AND have more time & energy for getting out in nature, and more time to do the things that nurture my body & spirit. Dare to Dream!!! Presently, I don't have time to squeeze in all the things in I'd love to do, and sometimes I just need to REST! That's what I did last week on my first day off. Leisurely coffee drinking, house cleaning, cloud watching... you know, the important stuff!!

"Rest is not idleness... or watching clouds float across the sky is by no means a waste of time."
J. Lubbock

On my next day off I finally got to meet one of my bloggy friends... Annie, of "Blissful Bohemian."  Annie is an artist living in Taos, New Mexico... I found her blog when I was living in Oregon, and bought one of her ceramic cups on her Esty site. Here it is, pictured in my Oregon apartment~

Isn't it just the cutest?! I thought it the perfect reminder to keep following my dreams! Annie is just as sweet & wonderful in person as she is on her blog. It was fun to see her art in person, have lunch & talk about art & life. you can visit her at:

http://blissful-bohemian.blogspot.com/.

I was also treated to a spectacular sunset on my way home!

In other news, my clay class starts next week, and I can hardly wait! I was inspired to buy a couple of bags of clay and start playing around early, so that I'll have something to fire & do some test glazing on. I love making these little bears!

 They are a little rudimentary & I still have a little cleaning up to do with them, but if they make it through the bisque & glaze firing, I think they'll turn out quite cute!

As for my upcoming class, there were so many fun classes to choose from, it was hard to decide! Below is the class I chose... a Micaceous Clay class. I doubt mine will turn out as beautiful as Anita's (pictured below) but how fun it will be to try!

Anita Ginocchio

"Micaceous clay has been used for centuries by indigenous peoples of the Southwest to create functional cookware, which has the unique quality of withstanding the direct heat of stove top cooking. We will build our pots using the traditional coil method, then scrape and sand them so that the walls are of a relatively thin and even consistency. The pots are not glazed, but are finished with several coats of micaceous slip, which are stone polished to a high luster. We will then do an outdoor pit firing, which embellishes the lustrous surface with distinctive smoke clouds. Instruction will be highly individualized, fully geared to the experience level of the student. Though the process is labor intensive, the product is a unique blend of beauty and utility. The vessels are remarkably sturdy, and once you have cooked with micaceous cookware, you’ll be hooked!"

 Sounds great, doesn't it?! I hope you're all having a wonderful week & are finding the time to do the things you love, too!

:)