With my soda kiln firing scheduled for next weekend, I’m in the final throws of studio production. Making enough to fill the kiln… and replenishing my inventory for the upcoming art fair season! Just another batch of wall pocket vases stamped, slipped & drying!

Time to mark your calendars… we’re just nine weeks away from the NORTHERN ILLINOIS POTTERY TOUR! I will be playing with my pottery friend Cory McCrory at her studio location in Sandwich, Illinois… along with fellow ceramicists Linda Kiepke, Nancy Gardner, Kenyon Hansen & Lindsay Heiden. Put us on your calendar for a fun weekend road trip for some pottery fun!!!

The colors are popping… Spring is finally here! Sure, still a bit on the chilly side, but at least the Spring flowers are starting to work their colorful magic!

And a little “after-theater” yummy… a quick stop off at Jeni’s Splendid Ice Cream for a little sweet treat. A trio of flavors… Blackout Chocolate, Goat Cheese & Cherry and their newest special flavor… THE EVERYTHING BAGEL. A savory ice cream that tastes just like an Everything Bagel… cream cheese with a bit of garlic & onion! Yummy… glad I tried it… not sure I would need to do it again…

More beautiful architecture at The CIBC Theater… formerly The Shubert Theater… in downtown Chicago. Not quite as over-the-top as some of the other theaters in town, but still beautiful with its ceiling treatments, corbels & crystal chandeliers.

Divorced. Beheaded, Died.
Divorced. Beheaded. Survived.

Another night of musical theater last night… or in this case, more like a “pop concert” loosely wrapped around a bit of history. The six wives of Henry VIII sing about their tragic lives… with plenty of beautiful voices, but not much of a story! It’s like a mini-history lesson with The Go-Go’s!!!

With a little extra time last night, we got to see the beautiful “Four Seasons” mosaic by Marc Chagall down in the Chase Tower Plaza in Chicago. Beautiful mosaic murals portraying life in Chicago through thousands of little tiles.

According to the Chicago Cultural Affairs website… “Composed of thousands of inlaid chips in over 250 colors, Marc Chagall’s mosaic artwork The Four Seasons portrays six scenes of Chicago. It features a vocabulary of images informed by the artist’s Russian-Jewish heritage and found in his Surrealist paintings such as birds, fish, flowers, suns and pairs of lovers. Chagall maintained, “the seasons represent human life, both physical and spiritual, at its different ages.” The design for this mosaic was created in Chagall’s studio in France, transferred onto full-scale panels and installed in Chicago with the help of a skilled mosaicist.

Chagall continued to modify his design after its arrival in Chicago, bringing up-to-date the areas containing the city’s skyline (last seen by the artist 30 years before installation) and adding pieces of native Chicago brick.”

And sometimes the bird seed just becomes a BUFFET?!!!

Sometimes even the birds need some fun pottery to eat out of…
stamped, soda-fired & seeded…

Celebrating another TEXTURE TUESDAY with a large stamped platter… fired with a nice cone six green glaze that pools, puddles & works its magic on the repetitive stamped textures!