Two Months?!?

Well, I am hardly on the once a week blogging plan that I swore to at the start of this year. It seems like the longer I let the blog slide, the harder it is to get back up on the horse (and the more monumental it feels the post should be). While my first post in two months may not be of monumental proportions, the pile of clay in the photo to the left (aka Mt. Reclaim) may fit the bill. I've come to find in my two months as studio tech at ncc that reclaiming clay is a lot like doing laundry: a never ending project!

One or both?

So, I'm working a new crop duster design into my line of pots and I can't decide which one works better - crop duster dusting, or crop duster minus the dust. Any preferences??

Quick Question

I'm working on a few show applications and could use some advice on how to best give dimensions. I'll use the work below as an example (a new one fresh from the kiln!!):

Would you give the dimensions as the piece is oriented in the image, or as it is when set flat? In other words, what should the height of the piece be? My initial inclination is to put the dimensions when it is set flat (so 3.5"H x 15" L x 11" W), but as I'm thinking about it that may be a little confusing to someone looking at this image - maybe the height should be 15?? I dunno...

Any thoughts?

More new pots to come soon!!!

New Studio!

It's official, I've moved into my new studio space at Northern Clay Center. It's cozy, but luckily my new studio mate, David Swenson (aka Swen) is easy going... My shelves are filling up fast with pots waiting for decoration, thank goodness the latex resist I ordered from Laguna arrived today!

Below are a few pics from the new space, this is where I'll be spending a lot of time for the next year...

Here we go...

Things are on the move... I swapped over to my new studio space a few days ago (which I am sharing with fellow Fogelberg recipient, David Swenson and will post pictures soon!) and am nearly settled. I managed to fire off a few loads of work amid the chaos of transition, so I'm hoping I can keep the momentum going. Only a few more days now before I officially start working as the new studio tech at NCC. I am excited and nervous! I was looking yesterday at the ginormous gas kiln expertly packed by managers Pete and Irene and I was filled with jittery anticipation... But, once I start, I really won't have any time to be nervous. I'll dive right into the NCC American Pottery Festival, which is their biggest sale and exhibition of the year. People come from all over the country to see work by some of the finest ceramic artists out there working today. There are dinners and openings and workshops to tech. Lots to set up and hopefully little to pack in the end. I worked as a volunteer during the event last year and can't wait to be behind the scenes as a staff person this year.

The images I've posted are from a series of work commissioned by my mother (thanks, mom!) for her friends in Alaska. I included a picture of the moose stamps in my last post and you can see them in action in the top picture. As soon as I get photos taken of all the work fresh out of the kiln, I'll be sure to get a post up here to share...

Persistence and change

I came to Minneapolis last summer with high hopes - my husband would begin teaching at Carleton College in the fall, and I had fingers (and toes!) crossed that I would become the next studio tech at Northern Clay Center. Sadly, the job was not to be mine... So I started out small - taking a glaze calc class in the fall (with the amazingly knowledgable Margaret Bohls!) and setting up a tiny corner of our kitchen as studio space. Lucky for me, there was a private studio open in January, at which point I moved from the student side of the NCC building over to the resident side. While being a resident artist in the studios is lovely, paying for space/firings/materials can be a bit of a burden for an emerging artist. So I applied for a Jerome Fellowship to offset some expenses along with a work-study grant to help get me out to Penland for a workshop with Ayumi Horie. No dice on either. Boo. I was feeling gloomy with the weight of rejections, but at the same time excited about where my work was headed. So, I kept trying, next for the Fogleberg grant at NCC. Low and behold - I got it! And then, my work was accepted into a gallery (Local Elements). Yea! And now the big one: the tech job I applied for a year ago reopened. I applied, and this time the stars aligned. I'll be starting as the new Northern Clay Center studio tech in late August. And the final bit of exciting news - my work was just accepted into the 2010 NCECA invitational exhibition. I won't deny the thrill of floating on this surge of acceptances. But, those rejections are still out there, lingering, waiting to give me another kick in the pants. And while I don't eagerly await the next "no" on the horizon, it's overcoming those hardest rejections, getting back up and trying again, that make these yesses all the sweeter.

So this fall, my studio practice will see a very significant shift. I will go from full time maker to studio tech, teacher, and fogleberg fellow. I'm excited for these opportunities, but nervous about how I will continue to push my own work forward. Luckily, with our move to the Seward neighborhood of Minneapolis, I am now a mere three minutes by bike from the studio. I have a feeling I will be spending a lot of time in the NCC building - which, in all honesty, is exactly what I've been waiting for.

June madness...

I started off this month racing to finish up work for a group show and upcoming applications (amid much drama with elements burning out and packed kiln schedules), zipped off to Seattle, pots in hand, for a wedding on Orcas Island (lovely!!), and I am now in New Jersey visiting with the fam and headed to another wedding tomorrow (number three of four this summer). Such is the season. When I get back to Minneapolis next week, Aaron and I will round out the packed month of June by boxing up our belongings and moving a few miles east to the Seward neighborhood of the city. Come July first, we will be a grand total of four blocks from the Northern Clay Center. I am thrilled (double thrilled!!) by the prospect of walking to the studio, the grocery store and the coffee shop! Aaron doesn't have it quite so easy, he'll be commuting south to Northfield three to four times a week, but at least it's a reverse-commute... I'm hopeful that we'll find a place in the future where we can both walk to work - wishful thinking, I know - but a girl can dream!

On the clay front, I've added some tractors into my line of imagery, and I want to put them all over everything! I love having new stencils to play with and explore. I have endless lists of stamps and stencils yet to make, but the process is a tad (just a tad!) tedious, and so my image arsenal is rather slowly mounting. I really want to get back into the farm animals, cows in particular. And bees, I need some bees in the mix!

I'm still trying to resolve how much color to use in my work as well. I love the little splashes of yellow that the canaries provide and the subtle variation that I can achieve by layering the white slips. The red clay adds another lovely surface, but I'm left wanting a little more. Like some blue... I have a thing for blue, like a lot of folks do. I know that there are some potters out there who think that blue is a cop-out, just an easy way to sell some pots. But, honestly, there's a reason they sell - blue can be so spectacular! So, I'm going to keep testing glazes and continue to slowly build up my surface. There is this delicate line between too much and not enough that I try to tread upon, it can be so hard to know when enough is enough!

So my work over the next few days (besides wedding fun-ness and family time of course!) revolves around those things I manage to neglect when there is clay at my fingertips. Take this blog for example, or my website that could use another round of updating, or my etsy site that needs finishing. I'm excited to have some time to give these things the attention they deserve, and hopeful that I can eventually find a rhythm where they fit more regularly into my schedule. Do any of you clay bloggers out there set aside weekly time for the non-clay activities essential to running a successful business? How would you say your weeks/months are allocated? The more I delve into this clay business, the more I realize that there are a lot of other responsibilities other than just making work. But, all of these things are part of the package, and keeping my toe in all aspects of the business side of things only seems like it will help me in the long run. There are some times though, when I'd just rather make pots and not think about anything else. I stumbled across a great posting by Whitney smith earlier today that outlines one of many things that can get away from you if you're not careful. It was a good reminder that to be successful requires some sort of system - I'm still tinkering with what works best for me, and I while I dread excel spreadsheet days, after I enter all those numbers I feel that much more legit. It's sort of like exercise for me - painful while I'm running, but so satisfying when I'm done. If anyone has any good tips for successful accounting though, I am all ears!

Have a great weekend.