Adios 2015! Hola 2016!

Day; 237. Sunny and cold, but beautiful. Deep blue sky with crisp air.

Temperature on the outside kiln; 25 degrees
kiln firings; none
music in the studio; none

The last day of the year, December 31st... Relaxed in bed and then had my sister come over and examine throat and ears.. not lookin' that bad so no more antibiotics, so that is good news. She did prescribe some Magic Mouthwash to gargle with that will hopefully help with the sore throat...

After that I had to compose and send a difficult e-mail to my fellow Magpie's...I just don't feel ready to return to singing quite yet and I had to let the girls' band know I would not be back to making music with them in January. It was hard for me, it is actually one of the few really positive things going on in my life outside of work. But I have no voice right now, so singing is out. Since my energy level seems to ebb and flow and it is unpredictable, I just had to tell them that I would be back but I didn't know when... I hope it can be held together until my return,  I so want to sing with them all again...

So, a new year, a new way of working/living/loving. For whatever reason this year feels different, like I finally get that unless I stop working myself to death, I will eventually succeed in that endeavor... More concretely than ever I see that my life is not sustainable in the way I have been living it, and that is very hard to admit to myself. I feel like I have failed as an artist/business woman. But there has to be an easier way; a way of making a living doing what I love that doesn't kill me physically/spiritually in the process. I have had to stop looking at other potters on Instagram as well , something that I love to do, but all it was currently bringing me was frustration instead of inspiration. I loved looking at their work but then I would think, they can do it, why can't I? It just stopped being helpful. Comparing myself to others constitutes resistance, and keeps me focused on what I don't want instead of what I do.

So, now I am committed to looking for and finding abundance in my everyday life, that which surrounds me already, and being thankful for it. I truly believe a life lived in gratitude is the way forward, other than that I haven't got a clue.....

Relaxing Reprieve...

Day; 236. Overcast, very cold, a little blowing snow...

Temperature on outside kiln; 26 degrees
kiln firings; watching the bisque kiln cool...
Music in the studio; Patty Griffin

I have been SAVED! The ART GODS are with me!! Yesterday the gallery I was supposed to deliver work to next week emailed and reported that the work was not due for another 3-4 weeks, at the end of Jan. instead of the beginning!! I can hear  Handels' Hallelujah chorus playing in the background as I write... Apparently they are not quite ready to open so it has been postponed... Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, I am so relieved!! I really wanted to make another kiln of large pieces so I would have more to choose from, I was not all that thrilled with what came out of the glaze kiln yesterday. There are 5-6 good pieces but I needed 7-8, soooo, I have plenty of time to make a few more and deliver a body of work that I am more proud of...
I am really digging this go-slow type of pottery business I got goin' now, so much more relaxing and fun! No pressure!, no stress! Just make what you want and assume all will be well!! Takes a bit of practice not to run into the studio and throw a bunch of dog bowls, but hey, like they say in New Mexico, Manana!

I also was so pleased yesterday to deliver the first load of commissioned tiles to the sub-contractor, and pick up a check! Jeez, maybe now I can pay my new health insurance premium that is currently double last year's rate!! (don't get me started!!) Anyway, happy to drop them off at their new home and say goodbye, although as the foreman threw them in to the corner without a care, I was almost sad to leave them in a dingy warehouse, if only he knew of the sweat and tears that went into them...  I wanted to load them back into the truck and tuck them safely back into the studio... I assume they will be taken care of and installed properly..!?

Not feeling potterly today so I am practicing my go-slow mo-jo, and filling up my Etsy shop instead.. It has only been about 9 months since Pepe-the-intern posted something for me, gee I wander if all my followers have jumped ship and assumed Magpie Pottery has sunk somewhere, they will be surprised to see me! But I thought a year-end on-line sale might be just the thing to clear out my studio and start the year anew.. God knows I could use a new beginning after the last month. And considering I missed all the holiday markets, I have quite a few pieces left over from 2015 that need new homes...

Here is the first little whiskey cup that is up for grabs...

 Cute, isn't it? I would drink some single malt out of this...

Go to; https://www.etsy.com/shop/magpiepottery for my on-line sale and to view new items listed daily!

A Snowy Sunday...

Day; 235. Overcast, cold, snowy...
Temperature on outside kiln; 26 degrees
kiln firings; glaze firing to cone 6
music in the studio; Adele's newest album, love it, love her.....

Half a day in the studio which suits me fine these days.... Loaded up the larger pieces for the La Fonda gallery opening next week.. Fingers and toes crossed for a good firing and numerous prayers to the kiln gods, no time to make more, maybe a re-fire if necessary but I don't think need be, I went as slow as I have ever gone and did the best I could do..  I will deliver to the gallery what I've got at the time and it will have to be enough. There is always the second body of work to think about and I know I can do better when I am focused and not feeling so crummy.... I look forward to that in January.

Tomorrow I will load up the first half of the 270 piece tile commission and deliver it to Coronado Tile. I would not know how to describe how relived I am that they all turned out, god knows how that happened as I was in a fog the whole time I worked on that  order and barely able to take a deep breath..  But anyway I will carefully pack them and drive through a foot of snow to get them on their way.. They look so pretty altogether waiting for their new home...

Only 80 more to glaze.... !!

Let It Snow.....Let It Snow.... Let It Snow

Day; 134. Blizzard/white out conditions..
 Temperature on outside kiln; 26 degrees
Kiln Firings; none
Music in the studio; none
 
 Oh, the weather outside is frightful
But the fire is so delightful
And since we’ve no place to go
Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow
It doesn’t show signs of stopping
And I’ve bought some corn for popping
The lights are turned way down low
Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow
When we finally kiss goodnight
How I’ll hate going out in the storm
But if you’ll really hold me tight
All the way home I’ll be warm
The fire is slowly dying
And my dear, we’re still goodbying
As long as you love me so
Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow
When we finally kiss goodnight
How I’ll hate going out in the storm
But if you’ll really hold me tight
All the way home I’ll be warm
The fire is slowly dying
And my dear, we’re still goodbying
As long as you love me so
Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow

A Snowy Christmas Eve..

Day; 233. Overcast, cold, a bit gloomy...

Temperature on outside kiln; 36 degrees
kiln firings; watching Big Mama kiln cool, another 100 degrees until reveal...
Music in the studio; Adele's new album, jeeesusss can she sing! And a damn fine songwriter to boot, so jealous sometimes...I love how she just stands up and sings with the piano.. no fancy production, no dancers in their underwear.. a remedy to today's over-produced pop stars....

Cold and a bit snowy, apropos of X-mas eve for sure.. Just having a slow day; a little work, a little music, a little nap.. Handsome Husband is bringing dinner home from Jinja tonight, ahhh my favourite Pad Thai for Christmas Eve! Thanks Santa!
Sorta of missing the farolitos on Canyon Road tonight but not the 20,000 people that goes with them...I love to go early before all the crowds and just wander down the street looking at all the lights and bonfires..  a more festive X-mas eve is not to be found... but this year I am home by the fire, and so very glad of it! With an extra dog ( Oso's brother), that makes 5 huskies on a cold night, just the right amount! I love to lay in bed next to the kiva fireplace and listen to David playing  Bach from the other side of the house...so calming, so beautiful.. so grateful.... Merry Christmas!

Practice Makes Perfect

Day; 232. Sunny and chilly. Snow-covered after 3-4 inches of snowfall last night.

Temperature on outside kiln; 30 degrees
kiln firings; Glaze firing to cone 6 (2,210 degrees with an eight minute hold)
Music in the studio; Acoustic Winter on Spotify

I'm making progress on my 270-tile commission.... This is about as slow as I have ever worked and it is kinda surreal... I work for an hour or two and then that is it, maybe another hour after lunch but no more. I am deeply into pacing myself, and it is taking some practice, but I am doing it.... It has been a bit strange, the slow down in the studio has made me realize how I speed through everything in my life; thrown the dishes in the dish washer, quickly vacuum the house, race to feed the dogs, do some laundry, run the garbage can out to the curb.... it is all at a certain hectic pace... Now I am moving with a certain deliberateness that I have never possess before. I rather like it now that I have gotten use to it, it is so much more calming and at ease. It will be interesting to see if I get just as much work done slowly as I was at Warp Factor 5, I anticipate that this will be so....
Today I loaded the last of the glazed blue tiles into the kiln, now only 120 yellow ones to go! There is some progress goin' on. This afternoon I will switch gears and glaze two of the dozen pieces for the La Fonda Hotel's new gallery. Just last week I might have glazed 6 pieces in an afternoon but not now... I am first going to design the surfaces, mix the glazes, and then execute my idea. That will be enough, I have two weeks to glaze and do the last image-transfer firing on these larger plates and platters, plenty of time.........

Besides it is the 23rd of December and it is time to celebrate our lives and have a little Christmas cheer..!

Every Breath You Take

Day; 231. Sunny, gorgeous blue sky, chilly

Temperature on outside kiln; 27 degrees
kiln firings; watching the bisque kiln cool
music in the studio; the ventilation fan....

After only one working day in the studio last Monday, I was 4 days laying around trying to cope with  inflammed lungs and sore throat. Finally Friday morning I got up and went to the Urgent Care that my sister works at... After looking at pictures of my lungs, the Doc ruled out the big scary stuff; pneumonia, masses of any sort, etc... I brought up silica and how I breathe it all day long but he didnt seem to think that was it, my oxygen levels were good. He seemed to think it was perhaps bronchitis so gave me some antibiotics to take... While they may treat the symtoms, I know it is up to me to see the overall big picture..

So, as usual when I get sick, the mystery continues.  I believe it is an elaborate trick my body keeps playing on me to slowwwww wayyyyy down and get really good at pacing myself... So, that is what I am doing... Yesterday I had Dave help me cut out some of the last tile for the large commission I am working on.. He worked the slab roller while I used the tile cookie cutter.  I worked in the studio for exactly one hour, that is pretty good for me what with two large orders waiting to be completed. After that I went back to bed!

 So, that is my plan right now, work for an hour each day, get the two commissions out of the kiln and on their way, and then take two weeks off in January and do nothing but have fun and eat and sleep. I believe this will do it, but I am mighty mad at missing all the holiday parties/eggnog/festivities. I plan to make up for it in Jan/Feb. however! I am going shopping for new boots, eating at Harry's as much as I want, drinking cosmos at said Roadhouse, soaking in the tubs at 10,000 waves, skiing with the dogs, and anything and everything else that puts a smile on my face, SO THERE UNIVERSE!  That's my plan and I am sticking to it.....

No Pushing, No Resistance...

Day; 230. Sunny and gorgeous after 7-8 inches of snow yesterday..

Temperature on outside kiln; 36 degrees
kiln firings; none
music in the studio; Democracy Now with Amy Goodman at the Paris Climate Change Summit

Jeezzz 3 days in bed just went by... Had a great week working Monday-Thursday and then woke up on Friday feeling like hell again, I could have screamed and thrown shoes at the wall but I didn't.. Same sore throat, same burning lungs... WTF!! I had to cancel participation in the Sunday Railyard Market and miss out on a night out with the Magpie's. Very disappointed but it had to be done. I can no longer push... it creates resistance, and that is keeping all the goodies in  life from reaching me...

I'm beginning to believe it is the best thing that ever happened to me however.... I am being forced to slow down and pace myself, to relax, to trust.... It is the life lesson that I most need to learn/practice.  And let's face it, I would just keep on working if my body would let me, but it won't anymore, and that is a good thing. I anticipate that the rewards of going slow and trusting that all  will be well, will heavily outweigh those that I might have achieved if I had kept working myself to death. So, even though I did work some today in the studio I took numerous breaks and relaxed in between glazing sessions. I can still feel that soreness/burning in my respiratory system but it is not as bad and I feel like once again I have turned a corner, let's hope I keep going in this direction and don't do something stupid...
Here are the tiles I glazed today, most of the blues are almost done.... !!

And a full kiln;

Tomorrow is another day... !!

When Your World is 4" x 4"...

Day; 229. Sunny, fairly warm, lovely December day...
Temperature on outside kiln; 48 degrees
kiln firings; bisque firing of the first 150 tiles of 300 tile commission...
Music in the studio; Patrick Lentz's Acoustic Covers, Vol;. 1-5

Long studio day today... I am not complaining, I am just happy to be able to work for a full day and not feel crummy afterwards... Maybe this lung/throat thing is finally leaving me in peace.....

I put together half dozen large serving pieces for the La Fonda Hotel Gallery and then cleaned up about 150 tiles and got them into Big Mamma Kiln for a first bisque firing. I feels really good to get a large portion  of the 4"x4" commissioned tiles on their way and into the fire. It reduces the deadline stress somewhat but it is really the glaze firing that keeps me tossing and turning at night. There is just so many things that can go wrong.. But the glaze tests look good and all systems are go for "Scheme B", 3 different blues on 4 different patterns for 17 showers... Scheme A is still being worked out; we will use the same embossed patterns but the client has changed their mind on one of the glazes and I am now working on 3 different terracotta glazes instead of just one... hopefully the next go-round of tests will yield acceptable results... It's either that or go to the clay/glaze store and just buy something that will complement the one we already have.. I will know in the next few days...
Meanwhile I still have 80-90 tiles to roll out and make sometime in the next week. Not a problem however, I am ahead of schedule and feeling confident...

As last weekend's Holiday Open Studio was such a bust, I have decided to sell work for the next two Sundays downtown in the Railyard.. Thank goodness for this little art market that helps me get through the winter! I am lucky to have a local market that I can pop into if my shows are somewhat soft like last weekend.. In addition, my good friend/potter Miya Endo will be there, hopefully with her ukelele, and we can at the very least have a lot of fun playing and singing inbetween customers... I look forward to it!..

Close Encounter of the Third Kind... (gotta see that movie again!!)

Day; 228. Sunny, fairly warm, not so chilly or windy today.

Temperature on outside kiln; 49 degrees
kiln firings; none
Music in the Studio; Songs to Sing To on my Ipod.

Up early glazing in the studio today after taking it easy yesterday, Sunday. A good friend and fellow artist and I went to have a burger and cosmo at Harry's Raodhouse last night, Fun! It had been awhile and I really enjoyed sitting in the bar and catching up. The thing I love about Harry's is yes the cocktails are $9, but they come with a shaker of refills and sometimes it is quite full... Like last night..
 After refills on our refills we drove home together whereupon we witnessed a burning ball of fire streaking across the night sky! I thought maybe it was the cosmopolitans we had chugged, but no, others in Santa Fe had seen the same miraculous night vision as we... This was nothing like a falling star or meteor shower, indeed it was like nothing I had ever seen before. This was HUGE and CLOSE and ON FIRE. We just kept saying "what the fu*k  was that?!!" We kept looking for smoke and some sort of impact site, it was that close, and huge, and on fire!
But I guess I just have never seen a meteor that close to the planet's  atmosphere before, so it was EXTREMELY IMPRESSIVE.
Anyway, we survived our close encounter and today it was back to work... I made up 4 terracotta glaze samples for the on-going tile commission and spent the day glazing other flotsom and jetsom in the studio in order to fill the kiln just so I could get the 4 little glaze tests fired and on their way....

Here are some tiles waiting for their turn in the kiln... Only 100 more to go... sigh!

Where Did Everyone Go..?!

Day; 227. Sunny but really chilly...
Temperature on outside kiln 38 degrees
kiln firings; none
music in the studio; Afternoon Acoustic (Spotify)

It is Sunday and I am reading in bed because I believe I have finally binged watch every series on Netflix I could possible find... After feeling crummy for 2+ weeks I worked my way through them pretty quickly due to all the extra time lying around in my PJ's...

Today is a rest day after three days of prepping and then orchestrating the Holiday Open Studio I host every year at this time. I am usually  the only studio open and have quite a loyal following and do very well for myself... except this year.... After a decade of opening my studio every year during the first weekend in December to all my loyal customers I seemed to have worn out my welcome... It was very empty, the lights were up, the luminarias were lit, and the cider was hot, but no one came, or hardly anyone in comparison to past experience. It was strange but also strangely I was ok with it; I read, I ate cookies, I made conversation with the few folks who did show up. I dissected what might have gone wrong.. not enough advertising, a deluge of Magpie Pottery already out in the world, too much competition with a Holiday Pop-Up down the street.. I don't know really but since I have two large commissions to complete I am already thinking of them and moving forward, I will re-evaluate next year and go from there...
 I was sad however that hardly anyone was there  to see how cute my studio looked all dressed up and no where to go... x-mas lights and farolitos included....

Hard Day on the Planet

Day; 226. Sunny and beautiful again, but cold...
 Temperature on outside kiln; 38 degrees
kiln firings; none
music in the studio; Amy Winehouse

The world has gone crazy... another mass shooting today in So. Cal after the shooting in Colorado two days ago at Planned Parenthood.. That's two shootings in 3 days!? WTF!!?? to say the least..
I am reminded of the old Louden Wainwright III song...

 Hard Day on the Planet...

The dollar went down and the President said
Whos in charge, now? I don't know, take your pick.
A new disease every day and the old ones are coming back
Things are looking kind of gray, like they're going to black

Don't turn on the tv, don't show me the paper
(I) don't want to know he got kidnapped or why they all raped her
I want to go on vacation till the pressure lets up
But they keep hijacking airplanes and blowing them up

(Refrain)
Its been a hard day on the planet
How much is it all worth?
Its getting harder to understand it
Things are tough all over on earth.

Its hot in December and cold in July
When it rains it pours out of a poisonous sky
In California the body counts keep getting higher
Its evil out there, man that state is always on fire.

Everyone has a system, but they can't seem to win
Even Bob Geldorf looks alarmingly thin
I got to get on that shuttle get me out of this place
But there's gonna be warfare up there in outer space
(Refrain)
I've got clothes on my back and shoes on my feet
A roof over my head and something to eat
My kids are all healthy and my folks are alive
You know, it's amazing but sometimes I think I'll survive

I've got all of my fingers and all of my toes
I'm pretty well off I guess, I suppose
So how come I feel bad so much of the time?
A man ain't an island John Dunn wasn't lying
(Refrain)
Its business as usual; some things never change
Its unfair, it's tough, unkind and it's strange
We don't seem to learn; we can't seem to stop
Maybe some explosions would close up the shop

You know, maybe that would be fine: we would be off the hook
We resolved all our problems, never mind what it took
And it all would be over, finito, the end
Until the survivors started up all over again
(Refrain)

Magpie Gets Her Groove Back....

Day; 225. Sunny and crisp but really cold
Temperature on outside kiln; 29 degrees
kiln firings; image transfer firing cooling
Music in the Studio; India.Arie

Trying to get my groove back after a cold and sore throat that has lasted for 3 weeks off and on... Sometimes little nasties take up residence in my lungs and I cannot evict them!!?? I give up and am only thinking about what I do want;  flat tiles, beautiful glazes, happy clients... 
I went to Home Depot early this morning and got some fancy dry wall to sandwich all 300 tiles between so that they will dry evenly and not warp... I have about half of the order done, at least rolled and cut, but not fired or glazed. But at least they are stacked and drying in the studio and that makes me feel less panicky..

Now to make 12 large gorgeous masterpieces for the La Fonda Hotel.... but no pressure..?~! Ha!