Dreamers - Andrew Perry Davis

Andrew and his wife, the equally talented ceramic artist Rachel Bleil.

Read more about Andrew and his work here.

Blogs I Love

I wanted to share some blogs with you that have had a particular impact on me in one way or another. Either a singular blog post, or the blog as a whole (or sometimes both). Just as a little thank you to some of the blogs that have really inspired me. Thank you guys for sharing your lives and your art!

Sofia's Dad's Pots
If you're a potter, maybe I don't have to tell you about this blog. He's been featured in Ceramic Arts Daily, and his blog is probably on everyone's blog roll. It's for good reason. Not only are the wax resist decorated pots he makes absolutely stunning, but his blog is such a pleasure to read. In case the title of the blog didn't tip you off, he writes a lot about his daughter, who he calls "The Bug", and his daily experiences with her as well. I don't know how long I've been following him, but when I first found him I was delighted to read about his awesome little girl, her Christmas super hero outfit, her own forays into clay, and her pink ukelele. It was encouraging to me to see a parent that was still an amazing artist. I guess I had this irrational fear that I'd have kids and completely lose myself to motherhood, becoming this Stepford Wife that drives a minivan and goes to PTA meetings. I continue to read his blog both for inspiration in ceramics and to see what I have to look forward to with Maddy.

Gary Jackson: Fire When Ready Pottery
Gary's thrown forms are just beautiful, and oh, all that lovely texture! His blog has given me inspiration for class lessons again and again. I especially appreciated this post about throwing "bowls on purpose". Anyone who's ever jumped on a potter's wheel knows how everything tends to turn into a bowl when you're starting out. I really love all those different bowls!

Jenny Mendes
Oh, her work is so lovely! The colors she uses! I love all the faces and decorative patterns on her stuff, and I like that she moves so easily between functional pottery and sculpture, something I really struggle with. I really have a soft spot for illustrative surfaces on pots:)

Peter's Pottery
I've just recently started following this blog, but I've already saved three of his blog posts to my favorites list. Considering my struggles with glaze testing recently, I found this blog post particularly helpful. Those are some lovely glaze colors!

We Swim with the Fishes
Linda Fahey is another ceramic artist I've followed for a while now. Her surfaces are gorgeous, and I love the seams and lines of those thin slabs she works with. One day, I'm going to own one of her beautiful tumblers. It's not often that you see such precision and skill in both the building and the surface, but her drawings look painstakingly precise and labor intensive, and her pieces are so well formed. Love love love her work! And I love all her whales!

A Plate a Day
I look forward to Mignon Khargie's daily plate posts with relish. She has such a great eye. Many many many of her posts end up on my Pinterest boards! It's because of this post  that I've discovered and fallen head over heels for the work of Natalie Choux and Lili Scratchy.

Pink Cheeks Studios
Finally, this last blog is not a ceramic artist, but a fabric artist. She lives here in Indiana, and I've been lucky enough to see her work in person at several craft shows, though I've always been too shy to actually introduce myself. Nichol Brinkman recently curated a plushy/stuffie artist show and gave a talk about her own work, and she published her talk in installments on her blog. It's a very personal and inspiring series of essays that I'd recommend to anyone. I especially enjoyed her post here about her time in Prague learning about puppet making, and her realization that "art doesn't have to be heavy, you can and should make things just because you can.  Joy and whimsy are important." That was something I've really needed to hear of late. You are sure to enjoy reading these essays, and you will certainly fall in love with Nichols awesome dolls. They have so much personality!


I really hope you'll check out all of these blogs. They are some of my favorites, and I think everyone should see and enjoy them. I enjoyed sharing them with you!

Kid's Clay Class

I did a kid's clay session the week before Christmas, and we had a freakin' blast. What great kids! They were fun, sweet, geeky, weird, and crazy creative. I was amused all week by the bizzaro stuff that came out of their heads!

Clam with sombrero, mustache, and exploded cigar. Totally unprompted, he just came up with this on his own.

Megan's dinosaur, who is a GIRL, for your information.

The kids all got to do some throwing too. They impressed me with their skills.

I impressed me with my skills too.

Megan painting a heart shaped bead. With the latex gloves, she thought it looked like she was holding a bloody heart. I told you these kids were awesome.

Ryan's vampire mask, before the addition of blood.

Painting the blood on the vampire. No sparkles here, thank you.

I made another bunny jar while they were sculpting.

Megan's adorable elf mask.

Cash splatter painting his alien bug mask.

Carnage!

I am so proud of them, I really am. I can't wait to take pics of everything when it comes out of the kiln!

I had a lot of fun coming up with lesson plans for this class. I just gotta say, thank god for the internet, and especially for Pinterest!

Criaturas - First Friday Art Opening at Earth House

We have sent out a press release for our show in January. I keep joking about how I feel like an adult now, but it seriously is a little weird to be doing something so grown up and... I don't know, responsible? Professional, maybe? For some reason, no matter how long I'm at this whole trying-to-make-a-living-at-my-craft business, I always feel a bit like I'm just playing pretend. I'm really just a 12 year old who has no idea whats going on 90% of the time in the adult world. 

Anyway, here it is in all its press release-y glory.

PRESS RELEASE

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:                                        
FROM:                                    Earth House Collective
                                                237 North East Street
                                                Indianapolis, IN 46204

CONTACT:                            Vanessa Monfreda

            (317) 946-9365

            vanessamonfreda@yahoo.com

                                                      
DATE:                                    12/10/2011

Criaturas - First Friday Art Opening

Earth House Collective will be hosting Criaturas, a three woman show by artists Vanessa Monfreda, Lori Leaumont, and Beatriz Vasquez-Schlebecker. Each artist will present work interpreting the theme of "criaturas", or "creatures" in Spanish, using their respective mediums of paper maché, ceramics, and papel picado to create monsters, animals, and grumpy little girls.

Artist Vanessa Monfreda creates colorful paper maché sculptures she calls "my imaginary friends", first inspired by her own children. Hot pink mustachioed pigs, larger-than-life cats, and 3 eyed monsters immediately attract bright eyed kids, something Monfreda aims for in her work. "First Fridays shouldn't just be for adults," says Monfreda. "Kids get bored at art shows. We need more art events that are interactive and fun for them."

The show also features the work of Lori Leaumont and Beatriz Vasquez-Schlebecker. Leaumont makes colorful, hand painted porcelain sculptures, "doll" jars, and tableware that are heavily inspired by children's book illustration and "girlhood". Schlebecker uses a traditional Mexican paper cutting technique to create lacy, intricate images that reflect her bi-cultural upbringing as a first generation Mexican-American originally from South Texas, as well as her training in children's book illustration.

The show takes place on First Friday, January 6th, from 7pm - 11pm, and will feature a piñata bash at 7:30 with a handmade piñata by Monfreda, as well as music provided by DJ Kyle Long, and monster cakes and cupcakes by food stylist Ellen Nylen.

For more information, contact Vanessa Monfreda at vanessamonfreda@yahoo.com.

--
Jonathan McAfee
Program Manager
Earth House Collective
237 N. East St.
Indianapolis, IN 46203
317-636-4060

Mother and Child by Beatriz Vasquez-Schlebecker

Gato by Vanessa Monfreda

My mini dolls.

Hope to see you in January! It's going to be an awesome show!

A Spoon with a View

You may remember a while back (though probably not - who reads this thing, anyway) that I posted a link to Jeanette Zeis's spoon tutorial, and that I tried making some spoons of my own. Those spoons did not turn out well, but I made some more, and I just got them out of the kiln this past weekend. I must say, I'm pretty pleased with them.

 I did a little bowl, too. I did a couple, actually, but the other one cracked, unfortunately. Maybe I'll take a pic of it later, as the drawing is pretty awesome. At least I get to keep it now:)

Has anyone else tried making ceramic spoons? I'm dying to see more of them! I think this could become an obsession...

Ceramic Spooooooons

So cute!

I just had to share this awesome tutorial from Jeanette Zeis's blog on how to make ceramic spoons. These spoons are fantastic! I will definitely be trying this in the next week or two, and I'll share my results. If anyone else makes ceramic spoons, I'd love to see yours too. Thanks, Jeanette!

New things, and glaze issues

Here's some crappy cell phone pics. Real, honest to god pics to come. Honest.

I'm pretty pleased with my test tile birds. I may continue to use bird forms for testing glazes. They're quick and easy to make, have nice texture from the serrated rib, and now I have extra quick sell things for upcoming art fairs.

(Ceramic tech geek stuff to follow. If you're not a ceramicist, this is the boring part. You can skip it.)

All the pink glazed stuff got messed up. The glaze crawled like crazy on the inside. I wonder why that keeps happening? I applied the glazes all the same way, pouring them on the inside of the cup, and brushing the outside. The blue and aqua glazes are fine, but the pink keeps crawling. I'm thinking I either need to thin the glaze, or just brush on the interior from now on. I also read that tin and zinc oxide in a glaze can make it more likely to crawl. I wonder whether the Amaco Pink has either in it? Don't both act as opacifiers and whiteners? I'm guessing they needed some sort of white to make that particular pink shade. (Just looked up glaze colorants, and tin oxide is used in chrome tin pink stains. Aha!)

Does anyone know whether there's anyway to fix a glaze that's crawled? I'm debating whether to sell them as seconds, or to put a layer of clear on and refire them, in the hopes that the glaze with settle down. Any advice would be appreciated.

My first clay workshop!

My little sis in law, Lillie Joy, had her BFF in town staying with us for the week, and she threw her a sweet 16 party while she was here. She saw the slab built mug my Dad made at the studio while he was in town, and asked me if I'd be willing to teach the girls at the party how to make their own mugs. I've never done any teaching before, but I've always wanted to, so I jumped at the chance.

Rachel Bleil taught us how to make these mugs at BGCW, and I thought it was a perfect project for the teens. They took rolled out slabs and decorated them with texture from a pile of materials we put together, and then rolled them into cylinders and put bottoms and handles on them. Lillie and Abbie had fun looking around the house for things that would make a cool texture in the clay, and I also brought some stamps, doilies, and press molds from the studio. I'm going to bisque them and glaze them with pink and blue glaze, which were the colors chosen by the birthday girl.

Wish these mugs luck! I hope they turn out ok. In any case, the girls all had fun, and I got my first teaching experience. I'm thinking of suggesting some mini teen workshops like this at the studio, maybe next summer? Or maybe even this one, if we could pull it together soon.

I'll post pics of the finished projects!

Covered in bees! Help!

I've been doing more sketching to get ready for making more tiles and cups. Thing is, as much as I love drawing, it feels more like I'm procrastinating. I need to just sit down and make the cups and tiles. I've been doing studies for a couple weeks now, and I only made one tile (see above). I really like the way my Thumbelina tile came out, though!

I guess I shouldn't be so hard on myself. Even with a house full of people to help me watch the baby, it's still hard to find uninterrupted time to work. Not to mention I'd much rather snuggle with Maddy than get any real work done. I don't think anyone can blame me for that;)

I start back at the clay studio on 18th, so that will at least be time devoted to making and doing. I'm pretty excited to get back in there. I'm debating which craft fairs to apply to this year, if any. Should I just stick to Etsy and applying for juried shows? I'm just not sure what I can handle yet. I wish I could hire an assistant!

Unrelated to ceramics, I had a pretty eventful day today. My husband is a beekeeper, and he's been getting new hives built and ready for three new boxes of bees. I haven't taken pics of the hives yet, but they are really cool! He's trying a different kind of hive than the traditional langstroth hive. This year he built two topbar hives, which are supposed to be a more natural way of keeping bees, allowing them to make their own comb from scratch instead of using man made frames of beeswax. You can check out this website if you want more info about this type of beekeeping. It's really fascinating!

Top bar hive

Anyway, today his first hive swarmed, which is to say that they felt their hive was overcrowded, so they left the hive en masse along with the queen, and sat along the back fence on our neighbors property. He came knocking on our door this morning to tell us they had swarmed, and my husband was at work and couldn't get off. So, brilliant woman that I am, I decided to try to go out there and catch them myself. Normally you try to knock the whole mass into a box, seal it quick, and then replace it in a new hive, or expand their original one. Thing is, Nich had told me they are somewhat docile when they swarm because they're distracted by the queen. I totally overestimated how docile they would be, and went out there without a protective helmet! Dumbest move ever, right? In my defense, I wasn't quite awake yet, and was a little panicked over the thought of losing our established hive, which had been thriving.

Not my pic - I pulled this from Google - but this is what a swarm looks like.

They stung me about 8 times in the face, ears, and neck, and I had to go to the hospital because I had a moderate allergic reaction. Now I'm all swollen and sore, and I have to take benedryl and steroids for a couple days. This is particularly stupid on my part, because you can't take benedryl while breastfeeding, something that didn't even occur to me when I went out there, knowing there was a chance I might get stung at least once. Thankfully I have some breastmilk stored in the deep freeze to make it thru a day of taking benedryl, and then hopefully I'll be ok by then.

I just want to be clear - this is not something that happens all the time! Nich has kept bees for years now, and most of the time they do not sting us. Bees are not aggressive, and we've been known to be able to open the hive without them even stirring, even without using a smoker. I've walked through small clouds of bees in order to refill the sugar water at their hive, and as long as I'm calm and don't bother them, I never get stung. I did that every week last summer without wearing any protective gear at all. Bees do not attack you unless they have good reason, because they don't survive the sting. We normally feel very safe keeping bees. In today's case, I just felt a little too safe, and took for granted the fact that they're still an animal that can hurt you if you don't respect them. Today was just a total loss of rationality on my part. You can't whack a ball of bees into a box and expect them to not get angry! Lesson learned.

The good news is, we did get the bees into a box, and Nich will reinstate them in a new home tomorrow morning. There is also a chance that the swarm was a split with a new queen, and that we might actually get two hives out of this ordeal instead of just saving the one. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that we just got a free hive out this adventure!