Hap, Hap, Happy Girl on Joya Court

Day; 92. Sunny, warm, beautiful. Temperature on outside kiln; 65 degrees.
Firings; Just unloading the last image transfer kiln for the Contemporary Clay Fair.

Writing this blog, doing the dishes, laundry, anything at all to keep me from opening the kiln too soon and cracking all the hard-won pieces that are in there. Still a little hot to the touch so I am giving them all another 30 minutes...

Teaching/meeting with student Kris again this morning and reviewing handles and how to make and attach, I think these pieces look pretty good!...

(Back in 5 minutes, I know I said 30 minutes but I want to see what's in the kiln, damn it..)

Okay, unloaded everything and I am a hap, hap, happy girl. Really some beautiful stuff in there. I wish I could keep some it for myself. Someday  I will begin to do that..! Here are my 3 faves for the show;

Very tempted to keep the two noodle bowls, really love them, oh well, I can always make more, but then I never do?! Feeling relieved and proud of the work, especially as it was touch and go 2 days ago. Now to sand all the pretty bare bottoms so they feel like a baby's you know what and then price and pack. Off to new homes go my challenging children in clay.....

Out of the Kiln and Into the Marketplace....

Day 78. Sunny and warm, beautiful spring day. Temperature on outside kiln; 56

Pepe the-potter-in-training and I had a really productive day together. And he will be in Santa Fe for the summer! Internship continues through June/July, great news for me, not so sure for Pepe. This means he goes to summer school and doesn't graduate completely in May. I'm ecstatic, Pepe not so much....But atleast he has a summer job!

Anyway, we rocked the studio today!; unloaded the kiln, sanded buttons and earrings. made cute little square plates and recycled 100#'s of clay. I'm exhausted  and ready for the couch but he had homework to do and a class to go to...ahhhhhh to be 22 again, so much energy! I kept trying to feed him but he wasn't hungry. How can a person work that hard and not eat for 5 hours?! No wonder he weights about as much as I do...

 Here is a small part of what we did today... plus my favorite little tumbler from this kiln-load complete with new images..(enough with birds and bees already!)

Looking forward to the Clay Fair at the end of this month, especially if everything comes out as good as this kiln-load did!

Contemporary Clay Fair A-comin' Down the Pike

Day; 77. Sunny, warm and a bit breezy again. Temperature on outside kiln; 60 degrees
Firings; image transfer firing afternoon/evening to cone 02, about 8 hours total. Off by 9pm. Unload
finished work in the morning! Yipeeeeeeee

I spent this  morning finishing up image transfers that I started on Friday!? Finally got kiln fully loaded and firing by early afternoon. I tried to take  a brief nap for 30 minutes, that is  until dog sled team woke me up to dish out their puppy chow. Somehow they can tell what time it is without being able to read a clock....

Afterwards, I had an early dinner with Adele Devalcourt from Handstar Designs in Louisiana. About 18 months ago I helped her start a crowd-funding project through Indigogo. Her dream was to move back home to Lafayette and open up her own ceramics studio/school. Although the project was not fully funded, she did receive a portion of the needed  funds and subsequently used those to move, find a location, and set-up shop. As I was very involved in the prep work here in Santa Fe ( writing, scheduling, moving equipment, pricing, estimating costs, moral support, etc.... ) it was very gratifying to see her after a year in her new home and find out how it is all unfolding for her.

After fueling up at Harry's Roadhouse ( I know I was just there two days ago....) I continued on to the pre-show meeting for the Annual Spring Contemporary Clay Fair coming up in a mere 3 weeks. We divided up the postcards, scheduled the jobs for all participants for the weekend, and  made up a floor plan for the layout of the show itself. We are pretty much ready to go! Now to just make pots like a crazy woman for the next two weeks and then fire, fire, and fire!!!!!!

Taking My Show on the Road....

day; 54. Sunny and warm again. Temperature on outside kiln; 55

Everything is out of the kiln!!:

I'm a hap, hap, happy girl! Pepe and I sanded, priced and packed for 3 hours today and consequently everything is ready for the  Albuquerque and NCECA Shows. I even got a special order all packed and ready to ship. We rock! The studio looks so bare, just a bunch of boxes and plastic bins... Tomorrow I will load display stuff into the Tacoma ; tables, coverings, cash station, curtains, tent, bags, paper, etc... Everything one would need to set up a mini-store for 3 days.

Also had the semi-annual Contemporary Clay Fair jury last night for a couple of hours.. 31 spots with 35 applicants. Not too bad, in the fall we had to jury out 15 potters, and of course we knew most of them so it was hard to say no to your friends! So,  two potters didn't make it and two are on the waiting list. It was good to take all the application fees to the bank today so we could pay for the venue rental, buy some ads, and print some postcards. It's always interesting to be on both sides; to participate in the show but  also to produce it. A somewhat different skill set....It is shocking to realize just for our little show it costs us 6K to put it on!! Thank god we have a wonderful group of 7  potters willing to take this on 2x/year and look after the endless amount of small detail it takes to successfully do this...

.Just enough time to recover from the current show and start over again making inventory for this one!! I hope Pepe the studio assistant/ceramic intern isn't planning on graduating anytime soon, I need him!

Just in the Nick of Time

Day; 53. mix of clouds and sun, but very spring-like. Temperature on outside kiln; 52
Firings; unloaded 1st image transfer firing, loaded up the 2nd and last transfer firing at 4pm.

Last firing for the Spring Show in the Duke City is under way!! Whew, that was a close one. Ah, who am I kidding all my show firings are close and down to the wire! Some sanding and pricing to do, but all my little lovlies are going here.... on Thursday;





I am really pleased with the results, the best of the bunch in my opinion looks like this;

  I am really loving the white background. This is a new design and I think it sets off the images really well. I just sort of paint the other colors on top of the white and it seems to work.

Today is my boy Oso's very, very first birthday and he went from this last May.....

To this on his first Birthday March 9th......

                                                            Happy Birthday my darling boy!!!