New pottery

My pottery has been getting better and more consistent. One of my friends told me they looked more 'confident,' which I thought was a good assessment. Here are a few of my latest favorites.

green & brown pear-shaped mug

caribe & white simple mug

assorted cereal bowls

blue & white plus bowls.

Homework

I spent last weekend trying to figure out the taxes and laws that would apply if I started selling my pottery. After hours of reading and confusion, I finally figured out that selling pottery, for me, would likely be considered a 'hobby' by the IRS because I wouldn't expect to make any money--just enough to cover the cost of my classes. What a headache! In any case, I'm glad I finally understand all this 'cause I think it'll come in handy. I borrowed the books above from the local public library. Libraries are pretty amazing.


I invited some of the girls over a few weeks ago for a housewarming with Moroccan food. I managed to finish enough bowls and plates that everyone could eat off of handmade pottery. One friend liked her soup bowl so much that she commissioned me to make a set of 6 for her. I delivered them today and she was really pleased! The shape and the rough quality of the turquoise glaze reminded her of the Japanese tea bowls she studied in college.


I've also had a lot of luck lately with a new (to me) glaze--Arabia green. I'm playing with layering glazes and seeing how different loose applications of design look.

Still here!

Life has really been getting in the way of blogging for the past few months. I moved to a new apartment (in the same city) after discovering a major mold problem (and terrible lying property manager) at the last place. I worked on a surprise project at work that was big and exciting, and came with lots of media coverage. I had a few visits with my loved ones. And luckily, I've still had time for creative projects. My pottery continues to improve in leaps and bounds, and I have so many ideas that I can't keep up with them. Thanks so much to everyone for their wonderful feedback on my previous pottery posts. I do hope to sell things online at some point, and will certainly post here to let you know when that happens. Until then, here are a few of my latest favorites.

Bowls with designs in slip. I loved making these, and plan to make more.

My first dinner plate!! I really adore this one. If only everything came out so well!

Gearing up

No big surprise, I'm still spending a lot of time in the pottery studio. This month, I've been focusing mostly on handbuilding and playing with different surface decoration techniques. I still feel like I have light years to go, but I have made quite a few things I'm pleased with. The annual pottery sale is next weekend--I can't wait to see how it goes!

Eggshell bowls with African textile motifs.


Blue stars bowl.


Sgraffito detail


Little square dishes.


Turquoise and white bowls.


Oh, and I saw Josh Ritter in concert the other night. What a cutie! I've never seen someone grin for an entire concert. If you haven't seen his video for the curse, please click over!

In the pottery studio

I've been spending a bunch of time in the pottery studio, getting ready for a pottery sale in late November. Lately, I've found a new favorite apron--it's a flight attendant apron from United Airlines previously worn by "Lori." Headphones on, The Arcade Fire's "The Suburbs" playing.


The glaze buckets eagerly waiting to be used.


I've been making a lot of mugs--I'm enjoying making this shape, improving my handles, and this time I tested out a bunch of different glaze combinations.


The olive green and white is one of my new favorites. Pretty yet earthy and classy at the same time.


The caribe and white is still going strong.


A bunch of my Alhambra tiles have also come out recently. I'm liking the way the darker colors break on the edges to highlight the carving. These tiles have a little ledge in the back so that they can be hung on the wall by a nail.

The latest

Gigantic tea mugs, just the way I like them. These are my favorite so far.

Small vessel, inspired by ancient Iranian pottery forms.

Mise en place bowls. I'd like to make a whole bunch in different colors.

Ceramics update

I've spent quite a lot of my free time this summer working on some things in the ceramics studio. This is my first time throwing pottery on the wheel in 11 years, and my first time back in the studio since 2004. I'm still perfecting my skills, so not everything comes out exactly as I want, but I have been rapidly improving. Here's a peek at some of the more successful items so far:

Ceramics!

I started a ceramics class several weeks ago. It's a great class with plenty of open studio hours. I try to stop by 3-4 times a week--if only for an hour. Those of you who have worked with clay know that it takes a lot of time and attention. This is my first time back at the pottery wheel in 11 years--I have done several campaigns of handbuilding since then, however. I'm still regaining my skills, and am very much at the small-bowl-stage, but hopefully by the end of the summer I'll be able to branch out a bit more.

The pots above have been bisque fired and are ready to be glazed. That's the step that always makes me a bit nervous--glazing is as much of an art as making the pot itself, and it can really make or break a piece. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that I like most of them in the end!

Awesome weekend

It was my first free weekend at home in a month, and I got to do so much! My house is clean, I got to spend some time in the ceramics studio (bit by bit I'm regaining my old skills)...

I bought myself a ticket to see The National. They're not coming til October, but it should be well worth the wait. Check 'em out here, if you want.

Library loot! I got my library card--which never ceases to be exciting--and this is what I came away with for now. I've got a few holds on other sewing books. The Built by Wendy Dresses book has some fun ideas in it. Hopefully I'll have time to make something before I have to send the book back to the library. I'm hoping the Threads Fitting DVD Series will help me figure out how to get a better fit on this tricky vintage dress I started months ago. Bag Bazaar would be a good starter book for people interested in sewing bags. The patterns I'm interested in are fairly simple though, I could probably figure them out on my own.

There happened to be a street fair outside the library, so I stopped by and picked up some free Lara bar samples. Yum!

I also walked around the art museum for the first time, and snapped some pottery inspiration photos:

The handle and spout on this South American pot are so elegant.

And I love the simple yet striking designs on these pots.

Not exactly awesome, but I've decided, after all, to unpick the messy free-motion circles from my quilt. It's just too frustrating and slow to try to do this on a queen-sized quilt on my tiny sewing machine! I was pretty crazy to think this would be a successful idea for my second time quilting ever, but hey, I like to dream big. Once I finally unpick the edge I started, I'm going to machine quilt in a zig-zag pattern following the blocks. Hopefully that will be more instant gratification!

Around the house

One of my coworkers raises chickens and goats. He brought in about 8 dozen fresh eggs for us last week. Love it!

I now live less than a block from an Ethiopian restaurant (my favorite) and an antique mall. I stopped into the antique place today after work and found this large handmade ceramic bowl for $12. All I've had for the past several years are Pyrex mixing bowls, and I think I'm now officially too old to use mixing bowls as serving bowls (I forgot to mention in my update that I also turned 30 a few weeks ago!)

I'm feeling much more attached to my current rental than my previous few. I think it's because it has a lot of great vintage details--which I love--and because I think I might be here for more than a year. This is my favorite corner so far. I got the chair off of craigslist for free, and the pillow is from Morocco--I have about 7 of them in various sizes. This one seems to fit this chair perfectly.