Summer Solstice Fern Icon

Eventually, I'm going to make cards for the five sacred summer solstice plants (like the winter solstice cards...see the 1/30/2013 post) but while I wait for my pen muse to visit I made a raku icon for the first of them....fern (because the clay muse seems to visit more frequently than the pen muse...and it's almost time to eat fiddleheads...yum!)
To give someone the gift of a fern is to give them the hope of confidence, shelter, wealth and happiness....and, as an added bonus, protection from lightning damage!...so, give someone a fern......better yet buy this one and give it to someone you love and care about.
She's 48.00 and on the back has a hanger to hang her (!) on the wall...otherwise, she'll join my other pieces at Gallery 262 on Main Street in Waynesville, N.C.


...my small icons (like this one) are approximately 4" X 2 1/2" and have a tiny (get out your readers) handwritten card with their story included

Cold, Snowy Glaze Day And Saint Brendan

Monday was windy and cold and snowy.  I stayed home from school because I wasn't sure I'd make it up my road later that evening.....I probably wouldn't have.....it just kept snowing...all through Tuesday...and then it was all gone!

I did get some glazing done on several raku pieces I've been working on.  Hopefully the new Raku kiln will be here soon and I can fire them!
I also made a Saint Brendan icon....he's the patron saint of older adventurers.....
When he was 80 he set sail from Ireland to find the promised land.....he didn't find it but he did have a picnic on a whale's back (I do love saint stories)!
When he's finished the little compass will be hanging from the bottom of the box.

P.S.... he's looking through a spyglass...not chugging wine!

Pretty Little Wine Cups...Part 2

I think this is the second most ugly stage of glazing....the worst being the actual glaze...ugly, ugly, ugly!  Hopefully we'll get the salt kiln working soon and I can finish these.
In the meantime I'm going to keep making them because I like them and it's just dirt...and time...and when my hands are busy I don't think so much....

I Don't Know, I Don't Even Know

My entire class, except Helen and myself, have been in Texas at a clay convention most of the week and we have been left to our own devices....
Helen's making a huge tile wall hanging that covers much of the studio floor....me....I made this teapot...an odd combination of a much cooler pot a visiting artist made (Charity Davis-Woodard), an avocado that turned into an octopus (something I made for design class) and a pot that started as a vase but met with a mishap when I tried to lift it off the wheel.....
"I don't know, I don't even know" (something said frequently by a dazed friend from Alabama when he visited us in the Oz-like Little Five Points part of Atlanta).

Pretty Little Wine Cups

I've had a few bad wheel days...mostly I've thrown more clay into the reclaim bucket than into actual pots....but today my muse settled into my space and ideas started flowing.  These cups are the beginning of one...I think I like the shape of the one in the middle the best...the carved design was inspired by the the handle of my favorite silverplate knife and some zentangles.  I'm thinking I will fill the carving in with black slip, make the inside a pretty color, fire them in the salt kiln....for some funk...
and then have a glass of wine!

Anyone Want To Buy A Coffee Mug (or two)?

I only have six of these mugs left for sale. They are dishwasher and microwave safe and they hold about 12 oz of your favorite hot beverage.  The inside is a nice amber honey color and the outside is a greenish weathered copper.  These are class projects so I am selling them for less than I would my other work....15.00 for one mug or 25.00 for two and a 3.00 shipping fee.  If you're interested (please be interested...it will help me pay tuition), you can email me your mailing address (375.jenny@gmail.com) and let me know how many you would like and I'll send them to you with a SASE that you can send back to me with a check.

Keep checking my blog because I'll have more mugs and bowls and teapots for sale soon!

Glazed Pottery....Finally!

At last...glazed pots!
It's taken me forever to try and find combinations of glazes that I like...I'm fairly pleased with these although I'm not sure what made me put little squares on everything...I'm usually more of a spiral person....
I started two more kiln loads today with different glaze combinations (same square pattern though)....hopefully I can unload them tomorrow before spring break starts......

A Day Off And No Monkeys

I woke up to this!  No school today, which is a real problem since I have 20 mugs that need to be trimmed and have the handles attached.....perhaps they won't dry out too much before Thursday.....
Since my internet appears to be working today, I think I'll try and figure out mail chimp.....I believe I've mentioned, several times, that I've always stayed away from anything that involves a monkey....I had a disturbing experience when I was 9 with a monkey, a tennis lesson and a lady tennis instructor who looked just like Johnny Cash.....the whole thing was horrible and no one would believe it...however, I do have a witness...my sister, who was 6 and going through a "phase" (according to my mother, my sisters and I went through quite a lot of these) where she wore a huge, rotting Victorian straw hat with faded flowers and frayed ribbons (I think there was the remnant of a veil too).... it was a gift from a neighbor boy....not the same neighbor boy that sat on his back porch with a bucket on his head (now, there's a good story that I should try and remember to mention sometime) and told everyone her name was Hortense...which it wasn't but she was so serious....even in the humongous hat....and really what 6 year old could make up a name like that?
Soooo.....we'll see about this mail chimp....I just hope it doesn't have a monkey logo I have to look at every time I use it....or, God forbid, a monkey logo that gets attached to my emails......