Clay'n Blogs Submissions

 

It’s been a bit of a challenge selecting works for this show... 

I guess it is rather encouraging to realize that I’m not exactly sitting on plies of work to choose from, (although the hammer of judgment did find an opportunity to accompany me while I was browsing and did manage to make the pile I could choose from for this show a bit smaller). Despite this minor setback, pulling 5 works that  all can in found somewhere in the pages of this blog was really a hoot. Most are seen in posts as greenware, but one was a recent stop motion anime. Another is one of the last 2 yunomi found tucked away in a very spooky corner of storage. They are from a whole kiln load of crackle orange that plagued me last spring, (my jaw dropped when this turned out to be a hugely successful load). One has a dreamy GhostBlue surface I just can't seem to capture in photo's yet... and one is a piece that simply embodies where I want to go this next year.

If you get out to see the show... please PLEASE feel free to pick-up my work and give it the twice over and let me know what you think...

Throwing my 2 cents on the pile

I’ve been packing up works to send out to the Clay and Blogs exhibition at the Campbell House in Southern Pines, North Carolina in October. Generally speaking, packing for a show is usually a detached activity, but this time it feels different for me…. It’s much more personal and introspective. The Clay and Blogs show has a particular relevance to me, the crust of the show is not necessarily about the work that we make… The show is more about how and why we blog. 

This is a big thing…

We are so quickly changing the way we reach out and communicate. The internet has provided us with an incredibly large classroom for hundreds of practicing and professional artists, a golden source for information, discussion, and networking.

It’s a huge pond to wade into and it’s getting bigger very quickly.

When I started posting just 2 years ago, these “Blog things” were generally photo diaries. I know now that there were a few other clay bloggers out there, but at the time, I couldn’t find a single one. I just started posting what I felt was fun… a visual diary of day to day studio life… studio notes… a few lessons for my kids… links (lots of links) and correspondence to and from other far away landlocked islands.

It was a convenient and fun to interact with… and I knew that generally nobody was watching for the most part, so it was for the pure fun of it.

It all changed the day I met Jim Gottuso online… all of a sudden there was someone else wasting time doing this blogging thing… and he was evidently enjoying himself as much as I was. Cool!

Honestly it’s snowballed since then… now there are hundreds of clay bloggers with more on the way. I feel like I know dozens and dozens of individuals of this community pretty well and I know that for better or worse a whole lot of people know me darn well now.
I enjoy sharing the ups and downs of studio life. Even more important, I enjoy following the day to day personal insights of a nearly a hundred other ceramic artists. The interaction feeds my enthusiasm to continually keep diving into the breach over and over despite the odds.

For these reasons, and oh so many more, I have to shout out…
Thanks everyone! It’s been a fun 2 years…

Time to get work… stay tuned!

Clay and Blogs; Please Pass the Soap

I know I’ve said this before… nearly all of what I do in the studio is analogous with “singing in the shower”… I do it for mostly my own amusement and, from where I’m standing, I usually enjoy the results. This strategy is loosely based on the idea that if I can’t sell what I’m making, it better be something I can live with because... well… I’ll be living with it. So with that in mind, I put my head down and I keep busy. I think a whole lot of us approach what we do in the studio this way.

My studio blog was originally started with the same thoughts in mind. It was simply a studio diary that gave anyone that might be interested a bit of insight into the studio life of a niche ceramic artist in Northern California. The blog had a purpose… it was simple… it was to show people that I wasn’t simply pooping out studio ceramics. (Some artists may actually do this… not me… I joyously sweat mine out.)

The blog has changed and grown since then. It wouldn’t have gone very much further if it wasn’t so much fun… so it’s back to that “singing in the shower” analogy… (I really do enjoy myself).

Now I’m still in this shower (just to keep the analogy going), but now I’m finding a whole lot more people in here singing away too! A whole lot more! Most everyone seems to be enjoying themselves grandly while singing a different tune.

A golden moment happened a few weeks ago…Meredith from WhyNotPottery asked me if I’d be interested in stepping out of the shower and show what I got… (just keeping with the a fore mentioned analogy going so to speak).

It was an inventation to show at the “Clay and Blogs; Telling a Story” exhibition in Seagrove, North Carolina along with 32 other fellow ceramic artists. It’s a group of artists and writers that I am very, very honored to be asked to stand up with.

Just as a special note, the behind the scenes on this show has been a big hoot so far, so stay tuned on this one… the chorus from the shower could get REAL good!

Oh yeah… HAPPY DANCE!