Packaging

   I found a place online that sells recycled packaging supplies in the odd size I need...so, I ordered 100 boxes to pack my icon boxes in....I also ordered packing excelsior, twine, and mesh, hemp ribbon (which hasn't arrived yet)...all made from 100% recycled material...this is good.

In The Kiln

Here's what's in the kiln so far...one large tree of life,  6 small ones, a couple of saints....and a few things, that I can't remember, under the shelf .  I hope the porcelain dries soon, then I'll have the kiln full enough to sort of justify firing...I'd really like the heat from the kiln...the shed will be much more cozy when it's warm...my hands get SO cold!

More Porcelain

These are the porcelain fairy boxes I've been working on....they're all sort of the same because I'm still working out some construction kinks.  I like sculpting the faces with the porcelain.... the boxes are still a bit of a challenge...and who knows what will happen in the kiln.....but then, I like surprises

....mostly

Porcelain

As I've been pondering how to glaze the new little boxes I've been making, I remembered a bag of porcelain clay I had tucked away some time last year....so... I'm thinking that these new boxes should be fairies (not saints) made from porcelain and then not glazed at all. Of course, I'm having to modify the entire construction process since I'm discovering that raku clay and porcelain clay are not at all the same to work with...the raku clay stays put...the porcelain sort of folds over and slides around...I'm hoping I'll get the hang of this soon...these would be something I could actually finish during the months that are too cold to raku fire....and I think they would be really nice outside on garden walls hidden amongst the plants...the white would show up nicely but they're small enough that they wouldn't be the first thing you noticed...I like that.

Saint Francis and the New Hard Drive

I've been having computer issues lately...hence the sparse blogging...sometimes my computer would just turn off, things would be lost, the computer would have to be restarted and then last week it wouldn't come back on at all....I don't like to go to the store where I bought it because I hate being herded and they start the herding process the minute you step into the store...so....I went to a place in Decatur that said MAC and PC repair on the side of the building and ta da! my computer has a new hard drive and more memory and I wasn't herded and I didn't have to talk to the man in green who would walk (herd) me to the lady in yellow while waiting for my turn to talk to the man in blue who would walk (herd) me to the man in red who would tell me there was moisture in some obscure part of my computer and the warranty was void....no, these people were calm and quiet and efficient...so I came home and celebrated by making a new Saint Francis icon box...he's holding a nest and has a couple of birds on him (his body will show up more when he's glazed).

Middle of The Night Idea

A couple of nights ago I woke up with this new icon box idea...so, I spent some time working it out on paper and now ...behold! Saint Gertrude...patron saint of cats and people who fear mice. I'm really quite pleased with the way she turned out so far.

All Saints Fall Festival

This is my booth at the festival...I think it turned out pretty nice....I do have some new ideas to streamline the set up the next time I'm in a festival though.
I had fun and met some really nice and helpful people but I'm glad it's over and I can concentrate on clay again!

All Saints Festival

Well, I actually got everything priced, packed, painted and transported...and then unloaded, unpacked and set up..... all with wonderful and unexpected help!
If you're out and about this weekend stop in and see me.

Festival Doings

I'm going to be in the All Saints Episcopal Church Fall Festival this weekend.  This is the first time I've set up a show by myself.....I don't think I've ever thanked the friends that have helped...or just done...the paperwork, inventories, packing, transporting, gathering...THANK YOU!...what a lot of work!
I'm going to spend today printing out saint stories and punching holes in price tags...oh, and I really want to do a brochure on the raku process.... we'll see how much time I have before my "job job"....I also need to finish painting the shelves I use for display (before the rains come)...fill out the inventory sheet....
I think I need a nap

Sam's Mountain

This is a young friend working on a school project in my studio.
She made a model of Sam's mountain from the book My Side of the Mountain...complete with Sam's tree, a river, a pool with cattails, a grove, several rocks and Sam and his animal friends...I had great fun watching her come up with things to use from the yard and the studio....

Studio Open House

Make your own collage

This digital collage customized with Smilebox

Swirly Spiral Goddess

This large icon box is SO much cooler in person
(or maybe this is just proof that I am, very much, not a photographer)
....anyway..... I'm quite pleased with the way it turned out and I'll definitely make more...although they'll be different...

Studio Open House

I had my first studio open house this past weekend!  It was lovely....everything came together so nicely.....the weather was perfect, I got to see lots of friends I don't see very often, my art looked amazing on the walls....I really had a great time!
Now, it's time to concentrate on the shows I have coming up.  The first one is the 2010 All Saints (perfect...right?) Episcopal Church Fall Festival on November 6th and 7th.  If you happen to be out and about in Atlanta that weekend please stop by.....the address is 634 W Peachtree Street, Atlanta GA 30308.

My Favorite

I really, really like the way this nativity turned out!  I used the new glaze I've been playing with...it sort of looks like hammered copper...very shiny... and the colors are pretty amazing....and best of all... all the pieces made it!

You Can Spit Later

Here's the thing......it's not that I hate glaze day...it's just that I have to stay SO focused....

Which reminds me...

A couple nights ago, while parking at the grocery store, a car pulled in next to me and a very tired mom got out.....this was her mantra as she turned to open the door for her son......

"Focus John, focus,
focus on getting out of the car,
focus,
focus on getting out of the car,
focus........

you can spit later".

SO, my glazing chant is...
Focus, Jenny, focus....
you can spit later.....
and the reason for all this angst?
See the paintbrushes in the picture?
Well, the top one is small, so small that some would question it's even calling itself a paintbrush... do I use this one...
NO!
I use the one below it...
which is basically eyelashes on a stick.
And the glaze?
Is it like water colors?
Nope....
It's like Silly Sand...all glumpy and dry but still wet... do I think about how I'm going to put three coats of glaze in the tiny little spaces I leave when I'm making the piece....
NO!
so, there is angst........
and, sometimes, the urge to spit.....

Now you know.

At Last! A Complete Nativity!

I think that part of what draws me to raku is it's unpredictable nature.....the humidity, temperature, dew point and tides can all effect the outcome......well, maybe not the tides and dew point but who knows?
But then, the little miracle of digging through the ashes and finding not one but three (5, counting baby Jesus and the angel wing) pieces that made it!
That sort of go together in color!
That didn't crack!!!
That's my favorite part....the part I really have no control over...oh, and the smell. I absolutely love the smell....it's sort of like lapsang souchong tea...which I've been told is an acquired taste.
Go buy some and just stick your nose in the box....lovely!
If you're the brave sort.... have a cup.  It tastes very different than it smells and it's best with nothing added.

Rare Before and After

I seldom do before and after
photos
...mostly because I never have my camera handy
... or I have too much clay on my hands..... or I'm just not thinking clearly....anyway  I spent today with my daughter (the beader)....she added drift wood and beads and charms to this tree of life icon box.  I think it turned out really nice and it's hanging on my wall at the moment!

Another Tree of Life

This is a larger tree of life..with a spiral sort of root ball.  The base of the box says "the tree of life whose leaves will heal the nations" ....which is my take on a verse from Revelations (the scariest book in the bible...in my opinion).
The tree of life is a bit like the goddess Tara...it's in pretty much every culture so I think I'll have fun exploring different ways to portray it.
This tree has ten leaves for the ten nodes on the tree of life in Jewish mysticism....of course mine aren't in the proper interconnecting pattern but I liked the idea...and the bird is there because I like the way it looks...and the spiral..well, that's just the whole mother earth goddess thing.

Wee Tree of Life

I made a large tree of life icon box a while back (it's still drying)...but this is one of the small icon boxes with a tree of life...complete with a small (very) bird and nest.  I rather like it and think I'll make some more...maybe I'll add some different animals or change the tree a bit or add a few charms......

Imperfect

 This is actually the top part of a three piece stacking sculpture.  It was quite amazing...with little shelves and cubbies and places to hang things and places to burn things and a really cool poem about not being perfect, written by an Atlanta poet, carved all over it.....alas, it broke before it made it to the bisque kiln....cracked right where the poem said  "I will embrace my imperfections".....soooo, this part's been sitting on a shelf for almost a year just staring at me.
  Monday, before the explosion and after much propping and adjusting and anxious debate, it JUST fit into the raku kiln.....it's the largest thing I've ever raku fired and it was very heavy....and very hot and there was much concern when it wouldn't drop down into the reduction can...it just sort of stuck there in flames but my cohort Joyce saved the day by wacking it with a humongous pair of tongs and it was sucked right down into the can.....getting it out later was a challenge but...it survived!...although some of the colors are not what they should have been....

Johnny Cash Moment or The Ring of Fire

 Notes to self:
1. never, never, never get too comfortable with gas and fire...
2. never, never, never fire one more load when you know you're tired....
3. never, never, never, never forget that raku firing can be very dangerous....
That being said...all my pieces turned out amazing yesterday and, without going into detail,  the explosion was small, the ring of fire stayed on the ground, no one was hurt....

....and it was still fun...

Waiting

A box of freshly glazed saints, hamsa hands and icon boxes...waiting to head to Winder to be heated, dropped into a trash can, set on fire, plunged into cold water and then admired!  I'm fairly excited...they look a little anxious....

Silly Pots

These are some odd little three legged pots I made to hold my paintbrushes and cutting tools and sponges and such.  They sort of look like little fat pants and they make me smile...smiling is very important when creating!

Shelves!

The shelves are up...the walls are painted...supplies are organized (sort of)... spiders have been encouraged to move elsewhere...all is well in my world!  I even have a few empty shelves!

Saint Giles

A portion of my Saint Giles' face has been used on the business card of a wonderful Atlanta musician.
This Saint Giles looks like he's singing so he was deemed appropriate...the business card looks like this.


The musician is Phil McWilliams...he plays pretty much anything with strings and has a lovely, earthy voice....I am so honored!

Getting Ready For Shelves!

I've spent the past several days (and hours) moving deities from the shed to various places in safe houses.... making room for SHELVES!!!  I'm so excited...more room to work...more room for storage!  The shelves should be completed sometime this week by Jorge...the amazing rock wall building man who builds shelves on rainy days.  Never again will my work table look like this picture (and no, that is NOT a specimen cup...it's Arizona green tea...which I like)

Wahoo...Something New!

Sometimes there's no rhyme or reason to what I decide to do with dirt.  When I went to the shed this morning I had intended to make some small icon boxes of Saint Lawrence, patron saint of cooks.... but then this happened.....the green woman (she's very rare).  I sort of modeled her after a gravestone in Ireland.  The bits of leaves left on her will burn out in the bisque.

Fresh From the Bisque Kiln

These are the two different size icon boxes I'm making at the moment.  The small box is Saint Giles...patron saint of those who fear the night.... the larger one is a goddess.  The sides of the goddess box have some texture that should look really amazing with the glaze on it!

So Far So Good!

I've had some trouble with pieces cracking lately...I think my studio has just been a little too hot and the clay has been drying too fast...but this Mary and Joseph and baby Jesus (the one that's been so passed around lately) made it!

The mornings have been just a touch cooler and I'm hoping the "cracking weather" will pass soon....I think I'll stick to icon boxes and hamsa hands until then.

Icon Boxes...Prebeads

A goddess box and a nativity box.  

The goddess will have some beads hanging from the bottom  and the nativity will have a star charm that will hang down from the top.They both can hang on a wall

New Glaze on an Unwashed Pot

This is the new glaze that looks somewhat like hammered copper....except in this photo. The flash on my camera made the colors all muddy and greenish.  In real life it's actually blue and magenta and red.  

I haven't finished scrubbing the ash left from the reduction off completely...those are all the little crinkly black lines. 

 Anyway, I like it.

Lone Mary

This is the finished Mary (the one borrowing the baby Jesus from an earlier post).  I'm hoping to fire the bisque kiln tonight, then the baby will be ready to raku .... I'm not sure  Joseph is dry enough to bisque....it could be awhile before her family is all together. 

I think she looks fairly patient.

Tree of Life

This is one of the new larger icon boxes that I've just started making.  I've been wanting to do something with the tree of life on it and this seemed like a good place to start.
I tried out a new glaze on Friday....it turned out looking like hammered copper...really pretty!  I'll post a picture of it in a day or two....anyway, I think that this will be the glaze that I use on this piece.

Hamsa Hands

I've been working on two different styles of hamsa hands.  One is rather plain, so that I can use an interesting glaze,  and the other is made up of lots of small coils...I'll use a wash on those.  This is a picture of a coil one.

I'm off to Raku....nothing like playing with fire on a 100 degree day!

The Borrowed Baby Jesus

Second nativity!  
I've kept these pieces pretty simple to give the glaze a chance to be the focal point.  The angel has been glazed but not yet raku fired (that will be Friday), Mary has been bisque fired and will be glazed tomorrow and then join the angel in the raku kiln, the baby Jesus made for this set is in the bisque kiln waiting to be fired (Mary has borrowed the first nativities baby...for photo purposes) and Joseph is still drying...the baby Jesus for this set is also a rattle...just because I like it that way!

The First of Three Nativities

This is the first of several (three, I hope) nativities.  The angel has already been bisque fired...that's why she is a different color than Mary, Joseph and baby Jesus... who are still drying.  All three of them have flowers in their hair...or Joseph's staff...the baby Jesus is a rattle....I know, you shouldn't shake babies but it's a kind of fun surprise!
I think I'll glaze the angel with crackle white...maybe the baby too and then use the new oil slick glaze on Mary and Joseph and maybe the angels wings...or I might do something else...I never really plan ahead too much.

New Glazes and Icon Boxes

The new glazes I tried out on Thursday turned out amazing!  This is the Cherokee Tara with one of them...I really like the way the colors turned out so vivid yet the glaze isn't too shiny (the picture makes her look more so than she really is...I'm SO not a photographer).



The other new glaze is a white crackle...I tried it on an angel ( her wings aren't finished yet)....and, again, the picture makes her look much more shiny than she is.













I also raku fired all the little icon boxes I made a while back...I'll post a picture of one and the rest will be on facebook.


My daughter did the beadwork...she's so much better at it than I am!

from the shed: Glaze Day

from the shed: Glaze Day

Glaze Day

I spent much of the day glazing stuff.  I'm trying out a new glaze...I really hope it turns out  'cause it was very nice to work with.
Here's what things look like when they are glazed...I'm going to raku next Thursday and then we'll see!  From right to left this is Tara, an angel (her wings are in the kiln) and Hillin....Tara is the one with the new glaze...hopefully it will look like oil...all dark and rainbowy


I painted a few sayings on the walls of the shed and loaded the kiln.....things still need to dry a bit but I'm hoping I can bisque next week!  Oh...and I bought new raku gloves...no more burnt fingers!

Some Random Stuff

 I've been thinking of making the saints, etc into a more useful type thing and so....I think I'm going to make some saint containers for human ashes and probably pet ashes also.

Yesterday I made a large pot with a lid...something I've been wanting to try to hand build....the outside looks pretty good but the inside is questionable...anyway it was what got me thinking about ash containers...the paper towel is just to keep the lid from sticking and/or shrinking and not fitting anymore.


While I was pondering life and death I painted the door of the circuit breaker box in the shed...if you look closely there are little faces in the tree (seems I've always drawn on walls when frustrated)....

 and I made an angel (the circle thing is her wings...trust me it will be cool) and a few more hamsa hands...I guess I've been busy...mostly just hot.

First of the Tara Goddess Series

I've been fascinated with the stories of the goddess Tara lately...she's in myths from many cultures..she's either born from the earth or sea, falls from the sky or springs from the compassionate tears of a male deity...regardless of how she arrives she is always given the chance to be reborn as a male..... but she chooses to remain a female as long as there is suffering on the earth (she'll be around awhile).  I've decided to make 12 different renditions of her and then take pictures and make them into a calendar.....so....I started with the Cheyenne Tara.  She fell from the sky as a star and the places her body touched the earth made food for the Cheyenne people grow.  Those who ate the food from her body became more enlightened (remind you of anyone?).  I googled "food of the Cheyene" and, other than fish and buffalo, the only thing that kept coming up was corn...so... her braids end in corn...her hands have holes (?) for me to add star charms after she is raku fired...I think the next Tara I make will be the Polynesian one...she was born from the sea....

I also made some more small icon boxes.  In an effort to make something that is less expensive than a saint or goddess I keep experimenting with the icon boxes. I made two today that are different than the others, less time consuming, hopefully easier to glaze and still appealing...a goddess and a nativity.  The nativity will have a star charm hanging from the top and the goddess will have a place for three charms...so, she's sort of generic until I add the charms.  I really prefer knowing who someone is as I make them but I think this is a good marketing option....

Web Page!

At last!  I've got the first page of my website up.  I pressed the publish button at 2:22 pm today...that's got to be a good sign.
Just a couple more days of computer work and then I can get back to my dirt....there has been much missing!

check it out   www.firebrushedpottery.com

Dirt On My Hands

Sooooo...I made three small icon boxes.


St Giles, Rhiannon and a sea nymph and the norse goddess of compassion, Hillin.




 I did a little more tidying and some tax stuff...all is well in my world!

Clean Shed!

After the last minute hurries to get everything finished for the artist market last weekend, the shed was sort of an explosion of clay, brushes, beads and lots of little bits of wire.  I spent yesterday cleaning...everything was nice and tidy until I dropped the newly organized box of beads! The next several hours were spent picking up beads....lots of beads......I finally decided my eyesite was worth more than the remainder of the beads and swept them up.....today, dirt!

Finished Bowls

These are the before and after pictures of the I-can't-believe-this-made-it bowls.  I'm pretty pleased with the results and I'll definitely be making more!