Above the clouds

Just when you think it's a normal day around here, things can get interesting with the weather. All morning the usual fog lingered around the valley, not burning off until later in the day. Then, later in the afternoon when I was at a friends house about to drive home, I noticed the clouds were getting even more interesting. So I turned the car a different direction and drove up to my favorite stomping ground, Roan Mountain, only a hop, skip and a jump away. Sure enough, the blanket of clouds were spread like a glacier over our Bakersville valley. Looming in the distance is not the Himalayas, but Mount Mitchell. It seems much larger than it appears when the clouds aren't filling in the valley floor. The clouds were moving slowly like a glacier, inching their way east towards the setting sun, while the ridges in the west were spilling over with seeping patches of clouds.


I am so fortunate to live in such a beautiful place as this. But I feel even more fortunate that I notice these moments and can take the time to notice the beauty that is always all around me. Such a nice way to end the day...

"It's All in the Details", Pottery Exhibit

Tonight is the opening reception for my shared pottery exhibit, "It's All in the Details", at Pottery 101 Gallery in Salisbury, NC. The other featured potter is Annie Singletary, from Black Mountain, NC. Below are the pieces I selected to display for the show, which feels like a nice sampling of my work. Come check out the exhibit, the opening is tonight from 6-9 pm.

Buttercup Cups

These new butter cups were in the soda firing I did this week in the small kiln. I actually refired them because the glaze was immature and dry from the last firing. This is a new glaze I've been testing. Now that they are refired they are much better. Does buttercup cups sound funny? I'm still working on titles for my pots, and that one popped in my mind. These will be in the Salisbury show. I like this new form with minimal texture and all glaze. It's kind of different for me.

Where the soda hits the glaze, it sure gets nice!

This pair of contrasted lobed mugs are another idea I'm playing around with, trying different glazes in different places on the pot. Again, it's very different for me to glaze the entire pot without leaving bare slipped clay for the soda to react on. I just thought it would be fun to change things around a little bit with my mugs to see where it would lead me.

A new view

I have a new view in my studio. The past few weeks I've been slowing rearranging and cleaning both my studio rooms. One room still has a looooong way to go. But my main room that I throw and make everything in is finished. It's a new view! I moved my wheel, shelves and table around. The work flow seems much better now and more efficient. It actually seems bigger in there now. And now while I throw, I can look out the window into the woods and at the birds...nice, isn't it? It feels very refreshing to have a new view, a physical new view, but mentally and emotionally I feel recharged and at a good place right now. The year is wrapping up with a few more shows, but the major push (and worry) is over and now I can get ready for 'hunkering down' for the winter, as they say 'round here. I'm excited to work on some winter projects I have in mind, like some new forms, and some harder forms that I don't practice enough, like large bowls.

I fired the baby soda kiln this week to get out a round of new mugs, this time a lot of them were fully glazed! It was a nice firing; I'll show some details of them tomorrow. For now, I have to get ready to go out of town for my next exhibit that opens tomorrow night in Salisbury, NC.

Asheville Art Museum

If you're in the Asheville area, don't miss this holiday market going on this week at the art museum. I dropped off a nice selection of carved mugs, bowls and tumblers for this sale!

Holiday Shopping Extravaganza

NOVEMBER 17 - 22 - Tuesday - Sunday, Museum Hours

Pack Place Community Gallery

Buy unique gifts by local artists for everyone on your holiday shopping list!

20% off for Museum Members on Friday, November 20, 2009.

Light

I found the light this morning inching its' way up this burning bush. The fog is thick around here in the morning and with each sunrise, the sun fights its' way through. It looks like it's going to be another beautiful day.

Even though I am always trying to be observant, I get caught up in my busy day to day life. But it really does help me to slow down and appreciate those little moments in life. The sun rises every single morning but half the time we are all rushing around doing things. This morning it was refreshing to wake up to it and notice the beauty in the details. Now as I write this, the sun is strong in the sky and the light has taken on a different feeling. I'm glad I caught that moment and slowed down.

Live Online Holiday Pottery Sale Today!

I just listed 75 new soda fired pots, the largest selection I've ever shown online. Hope to 'see' you there!

Holiday Sale Tomorrow!

small pitcher detail (this piece will be in the sale)

I've been busy getting all of the pots photographed and the images ready for listing for the big sale tomorrow at my Etsy shop. I'm going to be listing about 75 new pieces, so that's been a lot of prep work getting all of the details squared away with all of the images and the listing details. I like to explain each piece a bit so people can have an idea what the piece is like in reality!

Don't forget to stop in to my shop after 10 am Saturday morning. Lots of new pots!

Save the date! Online Pottery Sale

This Saturday, November 14, 2009 at my Online Etsy Pottery Shop, I will be having an online sale at 10:00 am EST. I am busy photographing images of a large selection of new pots that I will post online for the sale. Come visit my shop Saturday morning with your coffee in hand! There will be a lot of new items including mugs, tumblers, cups, pitchers, reed jars, baskets, vases, wall tiles, and more!

Until then, you can poke around at my Etsy shop, here, where I have been cleaning up my shop and have discounted some more items in the SALE Category.

shining rocks

I'm home from the potter's show that went by in a zip. It was a one day show, set up the booth in the morning and took it all back down in the afternoon. The show was okay for me, and I'm glad I tried out a new one I hadn't been to before. I would definitely like to go back next year because it brought a huge crowd of pottery appreciators. I got to meet Richard Aerni, a great potter from Rochester, New York who was also in the show. We've corresponded through the blog and our etsy shops and I've always wanted to meet him. It's fun meeting potters after you might get a feeling of their personality through their pottery and their writings. Richard definitely seems like a kindred spirit and I was glad to finally meet him and talk pots, life and other such tidbits.

After the show, on the way back home, Will and I were able to take off into the Shining Rock Wilderness Area for a nice 10 mile dayhike. Sunday was such an amazing, warm day for November. It's great when I can do a show and on the way home, take an extra day off and enjoy a hike! The picture below is a detail of the white quartz with some interesting lichen growing on it. This remote and untouched wilderness area gets its name from this huge outcrop of 'shining rocks'.


"The kind of beauty I want most is the hard-to-get kind that comes from within; strength, courage, and dignity." ~Ruby Dee

WNC Pottery Festival

This Saturday I'm headed out for another pottery show, in Dillsboro, NC. It's the WNC Pottery Festival, a popular all-pottery show in the area. With 65 potters of all shapes and flavors, there are also pottery demonstrations as well as wood, raku, and soda firings. Here is a map to get you there. It's located an hour southwest of Asheville, NC, right near the Great Smoky Mountains. The weather predicted is supposed to be beautiful and fall is definitely lingering in the air!

Hope to see you there!

Inspirations

I love to collect seed pods on my walks with my dog. This time of year you can easily find Honesty Plant, or (Lunaria annua) growing nearby. This is also called money plant due to its' pods resembling silver coins. You can find more about this interesting plant, here. Just another one to put in my collection bowls.

My Assistant

Always one to appear when there are boxes to hide in and packing peanuts to bat around, my cat Ziggy has been watching over me to make sure I ship the right pots out. It's nice to have help!

I've been slowly cleaning up and rearranging the studio, just one corner at a time. I'm trying to change things to help the work flow and to use every space more efficiently. When I'm in the middle of a big kiln load, I always run out of room to put pots and bisqueware. Sometimes things pile up in corners that don't need to be there, so I'm trying to create more space for myself. I think I'm going to build a new shelf and a new wedging table, so I'm trying to figure out the space it's going in and what dimensions they need to be. I'm excited to get it all fresh and clean and ready for working again. I haven't really deep cleaned and reorganized in the three years I've been in this studio so it was definitely time!

Decisions

I'm getting ready to send out this group of my best pots to Baltimore Clayworks for their Winterfest 2009 Exhibition in Baltimore, Maryland. After the last two kiln firings, I held back a large grouping of my best pots for the show at Baltimore, as well as another collection of pots for my next gallery exhibit, 'All in the details' at Pottery 101 in Salisbury, NC. That exhibit is a duo show of pottery put together by myself and from my friend and potter Annie Singletary from Black Mountain. A few years ago, Annie and I were both resident artists at the same time at the Odyssey Center for the Ceramic Arts in Asheville, NC. Since we moved on into different journeys of our life, we have continued to remain friends in mind and in clay. I have always felt we have similar roots in our passions for clay but interestingly branch off into our own interpretations of those inspirations. Annie has a new website and blog that you can visit here.

So for now, I'm deciding which pots go where. I need to send about 12 pots to Baltimore, of which I'll probably include a teapot, pitcher, vase, basket, ewer, reed jar, bowls, tumblers, mugs, cups and a small pitcher. So it's packing tape and bubble wrap for me as I prepare all of these pots to be shipped!

Then it's deciding which pots and how many I need for the Salisbury exhibit. Annie and I are sharing the entire gallery floor, which means that's a lot of pots! I was so lucky that I fired so many pots in the last couple of firings to get through all of the big October retail craft shows and still have enough show pots for the gallery exhibits.

A letter from the janitor

A little reality for the blog. No, this isn't a beautiful closeup of lichen on a rock, as you might think after all of my nature photography I post. Behind the scenes of my pottery, shows, and hiking excursions, this is the mold growing on ALL of my shelving and ware boards in the studio. Living in western North Carolina poses it's problems in a dark clay studio, especially with this extremely damp year we've had. I've been plagued by this recurring mold in the studio and now I've had it! I'm currently working on a HUGE studio cleanup and it's hard to know where to start. I rarely do a deep clean so things have been cluttering up. Lately I've been feeling like it's getting way out of hand and the mold takes it to a whole new level!

So, this potter is busy cleaning her studio and is feeling a little overwhelmed. Sometimes this roller coaster ride is a little rough, with the ups and downs of the self employed artist wearing so many hats. But it will surely feel good to get back in there once everything is clean again.