Okay, just one more. I promise. Darn rabbit hole!!! Another musical diversion. Gotta love me some Adele… and some another fun Carpool Karaoke!!! Now I need to get back to work… really!!! I swear… no more diversions… eyes on the prize!

Here’s a great video tour of my friend & multi-talented friend Sarah Chapman in her metals studio in Minneapolis!

Click on this link for the Instagram video!

This past weekend should have been the big “One Of A Kind Show” here in Chicago, but with all of the craziness going on they’ve gone virtual too. Trying everything they can to help promote their artists. So take the tour of her beautiful space where she makes her beautiful work!

If you want to see more of her beautiful work, or to buy a special holiday gift, click here for her website!

Support your favorite artists this time of the year. Handmade gifts are more personal, unique and so much more fun to give… and to receive!!!

Special thanks to my friend & fellow artist Donna Sauers for making these holiday graphics so festive!!! She makes great glass-bead jewelry too! Click here to check out her Facebook page.

A little “cement graffiti” as seen this morning along the lakefront carved into one of the cement boulders of the retaining walls.

Last night in my wheel class, Katie one of my Advanced Beginners continued her exploration marbled clay. She started with standard colors like marbling ochre stoneware with lighter B-clay. She loved the finished results… and now has stepped up her game with stained porcelain!!! Looking great… even though there’s still a little bit of cleaning up to do!

As part of my time at Summer Camp, I find it important to teach the kids more than just how to make a projects or two. There are so many opportunities to share life lessons & more. So I find it a great chance & challenge to teach the kids about some famous artists & art history along the way… making it a “game” so they frequently don’t even realize it’s happening!!!

In fact, at the end of the week… we did a “socially-distant” game of MEMORY with the kids flipping over the cards to match up the artists… not the images… as most of the artists had two different artworks that they memorized. So they had to match the artist by name… with a lot of hand sanitizer in between turns flipping cards!!!! Good thing my flash cards are laminated!!!

So here’s a quick overview “POP QUIZ” of some of the artists & sculptors that my Summer Campers learned this summer.

HOW MANY OF THEM CAN YOU NAME??? First & last names please…

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So?… how many did YOU get right?!
Without the benefit of GOOGLE… or looking them up somewhere?
Not as easy as you would think, right?

But now many of my Summer Campers know a lot more artists than YOU!!!

So we started with a little “art introduction” of sculptor Robert Indiana and his works. We discussed his style, design & concept…. and they all got excited to build their first sculpture based on his work. So the challenge for each of them was to build a large version of this sculpture using their own names!!! A LOT of handbuilding… but I was confident they could do it!!!

The campers started by drawing out the letters for their names. I encouraged them to have some sort of style & design… like maybe adding serifs to the letters?! Then the kids started making their slabs and cutting out their large letters. To make them a 3-dimensional letter, they needed to cut-out two of every letter to make the front & back.

Some of them were so pleased with their letters… and even the canvas covered boards that they worked on. Making an overlapped letter outline masterpiece!!!

After a quick demo on how to assemble their letters, they all set off for a LOT of scoring & slipping! I kept telling them that I can “pretty much guarantee” that of they don’t score & slip… their piece will fall apart! So they were all very diligent with their assembly!

At the end of Day One, I made sure that my campers did a full cleaning of their workspaces. Each kid with their own dedicated space to be safely distant from the other campers. And as part of Rule #3… whatever mess they make, THEY will be cleaning up… and that includes the FLOOR!!!

After stacking & assembling their name letter sculptures, the kids started painting them with glaze. It’s a special glaze that we use for some of our Summer Camp projects. They can paint it on “raw” terra cotta for a single firing. The colors will be darker & shiny when they come out of the kiln!

FAST FORWARD TO FRIDAY : The Last Day of Sculpture Camp
And also the day that the kid’s sculptures came out of the kiln. Always exciting when there are no “explosions” or severe breakage during the firings. Sure, we may have lost a couple feet off the bottoms… but everything still stood up well. And maybe next time they’ll remember to score & slip a little better?!

NEXT UP : My Summer Campers had to shift gears to start another sculpture for the rest of their week. This time, much larger and made with plaster gauze!!!

One of the highlights of ART IN THE GARDEN is that the artists get to play together & collaborate on some cool projects. One of collaborations this year was this batch of porcelain soda-fired jars that I made and other artists added their own “artist-styled” knobs to the tops

Well, a couple weeks have gone by since ART IN THE GARDEN, and I’ve been sitting here with a few of the collaboration jars waiting to be photographed & posted here online for sale. I’ve been playing hooky a bit too much lately while it’s been so nice outside… but the clouds have come over Chicago so I finally got my act together today! Here are a few “teaser” photos of the nine collaboration jars that will go up for sale only on my Fire When Ready Pottery Facebook page at 6:00pm CST. It will be first come, first served when the “official” Photo Album is posted. So set an alarm reminder to check them out at 6:00pm tonight!

Click here to go to my Fire When Ready Pottery Facebook page!

Just sharing a little TEXTURE TUESDAY flashback… back to last week when Pam posted this for her Texture Tuesday post! And flashing back even further to wonderful memories of her amazing Northwoods cabin, the beautiful lake, the tranquility, serenity and the fun of leaving behind a handmade ceramic leaf for her to find!!!

For class tonight I did a couple demos of throwing plates & platters. For this dinner plate I channeled my inner Steven Showalter… trying out some of his amazing textural slip work! Thanks Steven for being such a great teacher & sharing so much online. Love your work, your techniques & your willingness to share! I just payed it forward!!

Be sure to follow Steven on Instagram – @stevenshowalterpottery