Inside the “care-package” were shadowbox picture frames for our upcoming “4×4 : FOUR MAKERS” pop-up show in a little over a week! These beautiful frames were HANDMADE by one of our four artists… Meghann Sottile! Such beautiful design & craftsmanship… with some crazy-cool corner joinery going on! So now each of the four artists needs to put something equally cool inside… worthy of these beautiful frames… that goes along with our thematic collaboration project. “4×4″… four artists, four frames each… sixteen in the collaboration!

Coming soon to Space 900 Gallery in Evanston – 816 Dempster, Evanston, Illinois
Friday, February 28. Saturday, March 1. Sunday, March 2

Don’t you love when you get a care-package from a talented artist friend?… packed up with anticipation inside!!! Can’t wait to show you what was inside!!!

Hard to believe we’re just two weeks away from “4×4 : FOUR MAKERS”… the last Friday of February & two days into March! I’ve got a lot to finish, glaze & fire before then. Luckily it’s dry & warm in the studio today… good reason to stay inside to keep working!!!

So the new postcards are here… the dates are set… and now I gotta get my act together to make a bunch of new pieces for this special gallery show! Including another “collaboration” project with the other artists… each of the four of us making four pieces each to come together at the show!!!

4×4… make sense now?

My Christmas Tree is covered with handmade ornaments… and I’m always looking to add more! So I was excited to snag one of these limited-edition tiny dinosaur ornaments from Brett Kern’s online sale. He’s known for making larger dinosaur statues that look inflated. I haven’t started THAT collection yet… but I can see THIS collection starting already! Check out his “inflated” masterpieces – @brettkernart

Doin’ a little ZOOM’n with a couple of My Talented Friends… Sarah Chapman & Darlys Ewoldt… as we are already planning our “4×4 : FOUR MAKERS” show for next Spring! We’ll introduce a new “fourth” maker to the show soon… but until then, you can mark your calendar now!!! February 28th-March 2nd in Evanston!

Looks like Cory McCrory is in the final stages here… with some clear glaze in all the right places! Yes, that mint green color is actually a low-fire CLEAR glaze! So it will make all of Cory’s underglaze colors a lot more vibrant. And it will make the terra cotta areas darker & shinier than the “raw” terra cotta areas. Can’t believe ART IN THE GARDEN is this weekend already… but it is good to know that these are already in the final kiln firing. So I think Cory has timed it perfect… although they might just be “a little warm” when they come out of the kiln just in time for this weekend’s art fair!

After the underglaze is wiped away, everything shows up so much better. All of the grooves, stamps, textures & Cory’s whimsical additions! These are looking so fun… can’t wait to show-off these collaboration pieces at ART IN THE GARDEN this weekend!!! – “Cory, you’re killin’ it!!!”

To help highlight my stamped textures & her handbuilt details, Cory does a wash of dark underglaze. It fills all of the stamps & seams… and then gets gently wiped off leaving the underglaze only in the recesses. And it really helps make the colors POP!!!

The newest addition to our little grassroots art fair, Kate Hoyer makes these amazing paintings with such strong colors & whimsy! It’s amazing to me how using such unconventional color combinations still makes the pet portraits look so realistic?!!!! Love these SO MUCH!!! And they’re even better if you see them in person… so come on out to Glenview this weekend!!!