Sure, I “should have been” home getting ready & finishing up everything on my To-Do-List before tomorrow’s Holiday Home Show. Instead, I decided to go to the Ceramics Showcase in Evanston to visit a few of My Talented Friends!!! How could I pass up the chance to see so many great pots in one place… made by some pretty terrific people!!! Friends like Cory McCrory, Roberta Polfus, Delores Fortuna, Amy Higgason, Nancy Gardner & Mary Dye… plus even more!

So, here’s the deal…
AFTER you come to my Holiday Home Show, you can go to this Ceramic Showcase.
But only AFTER you come to my place first…   got it?
Sure they all make beautiful pots as well… but come to my place first!…  deal?!

And of course I can’t leave empty-handed. So I had to snatch-up a new Christmas ornament by Cory McCrory…

As well as another cup to add to my already overflowing Mug Collection. This beauty was made by Nancy Gardner. I’ve been coveting from afar for a few years. This time I decided to dive in… choose from several sweet ones… to come out with this wonderfully whimsical, delightfully painted and perfectly pinched pot.

And then after all of THIS fun… then I had to go to the Holiday Opening Night Party at Lillstreet Art Center. Again… “should be” getting ready for my own Holiday Home Show. But duty calls…

Here’s a quick glance of my new bottles after the soda firing. I’m quite pleased with how they turned out. Still arranging & rearranging them into trios & groupings. Yet I’m sure people will re-arrange them and make their own sets to take home tomorrow. So this might be the last chance to see them all together in one place!!!

Assembled “in the nick of time”… two more collaboration pieces with My Talented Friend Cory McCrory. Over the summer we did an art show with a garden theme. We decided to do some collaboration pieces that were visual puns of popular garden plants. One of our “art fair friends” missed the weekend show by a day (what?… no calendar?) but wanted two of the collaboration pieces. So we decided to create two more just for Richard. Hopefully he’ll be able to stop by my Holiday Home Show to pick them up… and NOT show up a day late this time!!!

First up, Black-Eyed Susan…

And second… on the slightly naughty side… Butterfly Bush

So now you know why I needed all those green tiles, right?

Stopped in the studio VERY early this morning to unload one last kiln. This time it was a cone 6 glaze kiln with  lot of tiles and a few flat ikebana vases. Gotta get ’em home and start gluing things in place!

I’m pretty excited about these new little cuties. They’re pretty much my “first” foray into porcelain… thanks to Emily for giving me all of her reclaim scraps a few months back.

They looked pretty sweet in the kiln, and even sweeter as I’m prepping them for this weekend’s Holiday Home Show. Love the soda finish on porcelain, and the colorful orange slip variations

Kick-off your holiday shopping THIS weekend at my Holiday Home Show!
It’s my biggest selection of the year with pottery in every room of my condo – plus some pieces that don’t travel to art fairs!!! And great bargains to be snatched up in my “Tired Of Shlepping Sale” on the back porch. Both Saturday & Sunday from 10:00am-6:00pm. Let me know by e-mail or Comments if you need address details, and I’ll send you a personal message.

Next up on the to-do list?…
Adding wire hanging hoops to my latest batch of wheelthrown ornaments.

Why does it seem that my ‘project list’ is getting longer instead of shorter?!

First thing on tonight’s project list… prepping & pricing all of the pieces that came out of the soda kiln Monday night. Including “just a few” new mugs! My goal every year is to start the Holiday Home Show with over a hundred mugs. Pretty sure this batch puts me well over that. C’mon by and snatch up a new mug this weekend!!!

Yep, you just counted them, right?! Couldn’t stop yourself.

You know I love color, texture, repetition & whimsy.
Needless to say, I’m really diggin’ the latest show in the Lillstreet Gallery Annex.
Upstairs on the second floor, there is this wonderful installation piece that I need to pass through everyday to get to my studio. It’s a collage made of advertising photos and pins!!! No glue. Just pins stuck in the wall. The artist, Stacia Yeapanis, is here at least twice a week through the rest of November to continue her installation. The show ends with a Closing Reeception on December 5th where everyone can help pull the pins!

From the Lillstreet promo flyers…
In her ongoing series of collage installations, Stacia Yeapanis creates large-scale abstractions by pinning repetitive images cut from magazines directly to the gallery wall. The images in advertisements and lifestyle articles are intended by their producers to create new desires and manipulate existing ones in consumers. By cutting, organizing and remixing the images, Yeapanis turns the act of consuming into one of creating.

I especially love how it “creeps” and grows throughout the weeks. What started as just a few snippets has “grown” into a beautiful work of art on the walls, in the corners and encroaching on every part of the gallery space.

At the end of the gallery show, Stacia will be pulling pins. The pieces will literally be “falling off the wall.” T-pins everywhere! And the wonderful shadows the T-pins created?… gone along with Stacia on December 5th!!!

Nine bottles to a crate. Couple crates. Ready for the trip home… then onto a shelf or two for this coming weekend’s Holiday Home Show!!!