Tonight my stamped cylinders became mugs… funny what a few handles can do!!!

Oddly appropriate… and somewhat sad.
As my Apple Laptop is currently “dead” and being resurrected by some “data recovery specialists”!!! So does that mean that I’ll now have a Laptop Zombie being brought back from the dead?

While down at Navy Pier for a holiday meeting today, I got a quick sneak-peek into SOFA Chicago… which stands for “Sculptural Objects and Functional Art.” This huge art event runs through this weekend. If you have a chance, there’s a lot of great art to see down on the Pier!!! Sure, they were still setting up today, but a sneak-peek is a sneak-peek, right?

We’re part way into the session, and my students are just now getting their first pieces back from the glaze kiln. They’ve been learning all the steps of the process. Wedging, centering, throwing, drying, trimming, drying more, bisque firing and glazing. And even though they are just now getting their very first pots from the first night of class,
the excitement is growing as they’ve all progressed so far since the beginning of this session!

Congratulations Claire! It’s a precious little beauty… and you’re well on your way to making even larger, even better pots! Keep up the good work.

So you know that one of my personal goals for my Holiday Home Show is to start off with more than a hundred mugs!!! Sure, I could have counted to see how many I have done… but it’s just more fun to make more!

And I was excited today that I threw all of the cylinders AND for some strange reason, they were ready to stamp today too? So I did. Usually it’s overnight under plastic before they’re ready to be stamped. One step closer, and one step faster, in getting ready for the Holiday Home Show. Mark your calendars…

“My Home For The Holidays” Home Show
Saturday, November 23rd & Sunday, November 24th from 10:00am-6:00pm.
More details to come…

Another dark morning with lots of clouds. I was kind of hoping for some striking sunrise fun splashing across those clouds… but it never really happened?! Just clouds… and more clouds…

While my computer has been down, I’ve been getting a lot done in the studio. Coincidence?!… maybe I should “break” my computer more often?! Anyway, I’ve been working on some new pieces with a lot of textures & patterns. Here’s a couple sneak-peeks…

So here they are… I’ve been making some pieces that I hope will hang on the wall. My plan is to make them in a couple different sizes so people can put them together for a great wall hanging piece! We’ll see if my plan comes together…

It’s another month… and we’re rushing to the “end of the month deadline.”
Another month means another ornament. Metalsmith Sarah Chapman and I have been doing this monthly ornament challenge for ten months now – only two more to go! She’s been making metal ornaments, and I of course have been using clay.

Sarah’s October entry is a curved brass ornament etched with an Art Nouveau feather design. I don’t know a lot about metalsmithing, but I’m pretty sure there was a hydraulic press in there somewhere. Beautiful…

For my October ornament, I started by texturing some thin slabs and then cut out some holiday pieces & parts.

I assembled the pieces so the star “floats” over the rounded backside of the ornament.
Score, slip, attach, smooth. Repeat. Score, slip, attach, smooth. Repeat.

I slip painted the back side of the ornaments… a couple different clay bodies and a couple different flashing slips.

So now they’re drying and ready to go into the bisque kiln. My plan is to fill in the texture pattern with temoku glaze and fire them in the soda kiln so the flashing slips on the backside can do their magic. After firing, I think I’m going to paint the inside of the star with a shiny gold paint before I string them with ribbon. One more month “done”… two more to go!

If your Software Update alerts you to upgrade to OS X Mavericks… BEWARE!!!

I hit “upgrade & install” and now my Mac Laptop hard drive is all screwed up. I hit that RESTART button many, many times. But it just kept coming back to this same screen. Nothing else. No chance of escape. The Apple Store said they could repartition my hard drive, but that would erase everything on my computer! Everything!!! Not an option.

So instead my laptop is now with a specialist trying to do some “data recovery magic.” Expensive magic. So did the Mavericks upgrade break my computer?… who knows. The Apple Store Genius says no. The fact that it happened during the installation makes me think otherwise. So think twice before you upgrade to OS X Mavericks… and be sure to back-up everything on your computer now!!! I just learned a very valuable & expensive lesson.

Big picture needed to see all of the fun in the sky this morning. Big cloud coming in!