on the road again…

once again i’ll em bark on the turtle life.  pack up all my stuff into my little house on my back and roll on to the next stop.  my next destination is gainesville, florida where i’ll be enrolled in the post-baccalaureate program at UF.
it has been a very interesting, challenging and often amazing 6 months in the city of brotherly love.  i am always lucky to meet friends wherever i go and in this short amount of time i’m delighted to have met and connected with so many awesome people,  my roommate and neighbors in west philly, inspiring artists and teachers of the philadelphia art scene and my friends and coworkers at pp.

every step you take in one direction means not taking other steps in other directions and i always kind of struggle with that.  i want to do everything!  but i feel confident that as i bumble along, on my own path, i’ll figure out the right way to go.  this crazy turtle life has taken my a lot of places and on many adventures.  i guess this is the most wild adventure of all.  bringing it all together and making dreams come true.

color!

i put a test of the blue porcelain in the gas kiln last week.  didn’t look so hot.  the body didn’t melt which was good but it got a little burned/dirty looking in reduction.  in the electric it stayed a nice bright blue.  the particular mason stain i used had vanadium in so it has a little yellowish hue which really came out in the reduction firing.  i decided to go ahead and fire the little blue wall pieces to cone 6 oxidation with a wash of gerstley borate since it had worked so well on the white piece.  the next day, while i was at work, one of my studio mates sent me a phone pic of the piece finished.  i couldn’t totally tell what was going on but i was pretty excited.  it looked amphibious……

i finally got to see it yesterday in person:

weird huh!?  i wondered if it was some kind of anomaly so i sprayed the other piece and slid it in the test kiln and this morning i pulled this out:

so now i’m wondering, is that what happens to gerstley borate at cone 6, or is some kind glaze forming between the gb and the mason stain components.  lot’s of questions.  love it.  especially love to see the BRAINS surface.

get it poppin’

last week i got to help install and attend a sweet little show called “get it poppin’ “, pop up paper sculptures by shoog mcdaniel.  shoog is a friend of mine from back in the day, florida, and was practically the only person i knew in philly when i moved here.  there were several performances during the evening in addition to shoog’s colorful, intricate landscapes.  here are some pics from my phone.

and the star of the show:

and some details:

the boat moves!

install.

today i spent the day helping install a show at a gallery in old city.   it was great to spend the day with 3 such well established, interesting and very amicable artists.  i find it very important and inspiring to be around people you respect, especially really amazing women.  i wish i would have thought to take a picture or two of installation but anyway, if you’re in the area, definitely check out the show at the rosenfeld gallery.

notes from the studio.

sorry for the rough pics.  they are from my phone.  anyway, i’m still plugging away in the studio.  the trip to florida, and working quite a bit has been keeping me away more than i would like, but that’s the way it goes. in addition to my regular job i’ve been doing something really fun and educational assisting a local artist.  so far we’ve installed a piece at the nceca invitiational and pulled some stuff out of storage, organized and packed up work.  it’s a really wonderful experience.  i’m learning a lot just seeing how she does things.

i’ve got some aps in the works, and a few deadlines coming up.  like every other  ceramic artist at the moment, i’m scurrying to finish up aps and wondering what i’ll be doing next fall.

in the studio i’ve been amassing some work, but i’m still really struggling with how to finish it.  i haven’t even bisqued any large sculptures yet.  i’m waiting for them to get super bone dry, but i’ve been keeping plastic on them for weeks.  i’m afraid to keep them uncovered and risk cracking.  and since i don’t know exactly how i’ll finish them i need them to be perfectly smooth.  ehhhhh, finished work…..sometime….eventually…….:-)

new sculpture in progress….

studio mate e. with her giant math mold……