Bear Grrrrrl

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!

Pesto and pestles

Mortar and Pestle Set by clamlab

I saw this lovely mortar and pestle set on Etsy a few weeks back, and I got all excited because it's made out of porcelain on the wheel. I thought "Yay! I can make that!" I've been wanting a little mortar and pestle for the kitchen, but I never thought of making my own. I also wanted one for grinding glaze materials at the studio.

Around the same time, I saw a pesto recipe in Traditional Home magazine that calls for a mortar and pestle, and I've never made pesto by hand before. I love pesto! So I decided I had to do this.

I decided that the green one was coming home to the kitchen, and the little blue one could be my studio set.

We normally have pizza on Sundays, and my husband just got a brand new bread machine for $5 at a moving sale, so I thought we should try making our own pizza dough, and I could put pesto on it. I can't have dairy right now because baby Maddy can't digest it, so I made my half of the pizza without cheese.

Best pizza ever!!! I didn't miss the cheese at all. The crust was nice and crispy, and the olive oil soaked in and make it taste like good bread. Nich had chicken alfredo pizza, and mine was chicken with tomatoes, portabella mushrooms, and calamata olives.


Making pesto by hand with the mortar and pestle was definitely labor intensive, but man was it good! I've now decided I need to grow some basil so I can have fresh pesto whenever I want.

The pizza dough recipe I used is on allrecipes. You can find it here.

The aromatic herb pesto recipe is as follows:
Aromatic Herb Pesto:
In mortar, place pinch of coarse sea salt and five basil leaves. Crush with pestle. Add, a few at a time, about 25 fresh basil leaves, 1/2 cup parsley, 8 mint and 2 sage leaves, and 2 garlic cloves, crushing after each addition and pounding until mixture becomes a paste. Add 3 tablespoons toasted pine nuts; work into paste. Add 2 tablespoons shredded Grana Padano cheese. Slowly pour in 1/2 cup extra-virgin olive oil. Work all into creamy consistency. (If using blender, add salt, basil, parsley, mint, sage, and garlic to blender. Cover; blend to make paste. Add pine nuts. With motor running, slowly pour half the olive oil through opening in lid. Add Grana Padano cheese and remaining olive oil. Cover; blend until mixture becomes creamy paste.) You can also spread pesto on grilled Italian bread or use it as a condiment for beef and chicken.

I'm really pleased with the way my sets came out. They're not quite as elegant as the ones on Etsy, but they're pretty cute. I'm debating whether to make more or not. What do you think?

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!

Studies, tiles, and the Sketchbook Project 2012

 After weeks of doing nearly nothing creative (I've sewn a few things for Maddy, but no drawing or ceramics), I decided to unwrap the leather hard ceramic tiles I made the week before Maddy was born and decorate them. Since I couldn't decide what to put on them, I've been doing some studies and sketches the last few days to limber up my drawing skills.

One of the tiles is a gift for someone, who I know loves birds, but I didn't just want to put a bird on a tile. I've been doing a lot of things about little girls lately, so I decided that illustrating Thumbelina on a set of 5 tiles would allow me to draw a girl and a swallow, along with some other animals. I started the swallow tile last night.

All this drawing has gotten me in the mood to do more sketching, which is perfect timing, because I just got an e-mail about the 2012 Sketchbook Project. If you'd forgotten, I actually signed up for the 2011 project, and then did not come even close to filling my moleskin sketchbook. I did 3 pages, I think. I never bothered to mail it in, and I was kind of sad about it. I was completely stumped on what to draw, and I signed up very late in the year and didn't give myself much time. This time, I have 8 months to finish, and I have a theme that I'm really excited about: "Fill me with stories". So I went ahead and signed up. I plan to share my sketches for that, as well as studies and whatever from my regular sketchbook... as often as possible. I'm kidding myself and you if I promise to do it daily or even regularly. But I will definitely share what I do from time to time. Wish me luck!

Cafecito 2011

I just can't stop looking thru the shop catalog for Cafecito. In case you haven't noticed the name of my blog, I have a thing about cups. Of all the functional ceramic forms out there, cups are definitely my favorite thing. They're just such a useful, everyday object that is also so intimate and personal. In the course of making and selling cups, I've learned just how particular people are about the kind of cups they use: what they use them for, how they hold them, the size, color, everything. People become very attached to a favorite cup or mug, and devastated if it breaks. A different cup can never replace your favorite, especially if it's handmade. Handmade cups are like people. Your favorite mug is like your best friend.

I thought I'd share a few of my favorite cups from the show, including the ones my friends made. If you like one of them, please go to the site and buy it!  It might become your best friend too. Just click on their name for the link.

If you're like me and too broke to buy one, I'd encourage you to Google the artist, check out their work, and maybe even contact them if you can, just to say how much you love their piece. If it were me, I know something like that would make my day, if not my whole week, month, or possibly my year.

Andrew Davis "Duck Parade"

Yukiko Nyhan "Two Ounce Ume Blossoms"

Liz Proffetty "Teacup-Venal Pool"

Kyle Johns "White Dimple Cup"

Megan Mitchell "Black and White Cup and Saucer"

Mindy Andrews "Hanging Tree Block with Cup"

Rachel Bleil "Grazing Teddy"

Rebekah Strickland "Tawny Onion Domes Cup"

Tony Wise "Breve"

Sorry I haven't updated...

...but we had an unexpected visitor drop in on us a couple weeks ago.

My daughter, Madeleine Calliope Manuel, was born March 22nd at 4:59pm. She was 5 weeks early, but she's doing just fine. I'm already daydreaming about the day I get to let her play in mud for the first time. Should I start her off with play-doh, or just let her dive head first into porcelain?

On the ceramics front, I am taking a hiatus from the studio while I'm maternity leave, but plan to get back to work in a few more weeks.

Clayfest, the group show at University of Indianapolis, had it's reception on Monday, April 4th. My three doll jars were in it:D If you're in Indy, you can stop by the Christel DeHaan building on the U of I campus and see them. The show is up through the end of the month, I believe.

Also, I got news that my peep sculpture won a prize at the Skutt Peep Show at NCECA. I have no idea what it placed yet, but YAY! I won something!

Finally, the show catalog for Cafecito is up on their website. There is a fantastic selection of cups for sale, and I feel really honored to have been included in the show (you can see mine on page 3, if you've forgotten what it looks like. It's the Josie cat cup.)

That's all the exciting news I've got for right now...