Gotta love a good spiral… whether it’s monochromatic or ombre’! Just some more time last night playing with colored slips in my demo bowls! Spinning spirals… always FUN!!!

Last night in my Beginning Wheelthrowing class, we tackled making “bowls on purpose”… instead of cylinders gone bad! After making a few demo bowls, we regrouped (socially-distanced of course) for more demo time where I showed them some quick tricks & techniques on how to make their basic round bowls not so “basic” any more! Ten quick bowls & ten different decorative techniques!

Bowl #1 – Eight fluted edges around the rim.

Bowl #2 – A narrow flared-out flange.

Bowl #3 – A wider flared out flange.

Bowl #4 – Split-rimmed and then pinched back together in eight places!

Bowl #5 – Split-rimmed with four indented sides to make a kind of quadrefoil effect.

Bowl #6 – Split-rimmed and then pinched in & pinched out making like a squared-off lotus shape.

Bowl #7 – White slip with a tight spiral dragged through.

Bowl #8 – A thick layer of white slip with a fingertip squiggle dragged through.

Bowl #9 – White slip chattered with a rubber rib as the bowl was spinning on the wheel.

Bowl #10 – White & black slip ombre’ blended and then a spiral dragged through.

And for now they’re under wraps in my studio drying slowly… as many of them “might just” get some stamping, texturing & detailing?!

Tonight my Beginning Wheelthrowing students tackled trimming, handles, mugs & stamp-making! It was a busy class… and they’ve now completed their first mugs!!! And it’s only Week #2!!! They’re off to a good start.

Last week was our first week back at Summer Camp!!! Lillstreet Art Center is finally re-opened for classes & camps… and it was so fun & exciting to have “people” back in the building. The energy. The creativity. The smiling faces… or well, at least I assume they were smiling behind their masks?! Anyway… summer camp was AMAZING as always. I had a wonderful time with a wonderful group of kids!!!!

One of the best parts of “kiln firing day” is I can also get a lot of “busy-work” done around the studio. Like spraying these baby building blocks with a layer of clear glaze. If you remember, these were leftover from the end of our Winter session and my Lillstreet Throwdown class. We made them as a surprise gift for Molly & Jacob who are expecting their first child. We finished building them at the end of class, and they were bisqued soon after that. And there they sat on the shelf as the pandemic took hold.

Sure, I was working in the studio. Sure, I could have glazed these any time over the past three and a half months… but of course I kept putting it off. Well, they’re FINALLY glazed… and ready to be fired again! The “Team Lavender Baby” is due in six weeks… so I had plenty of time. Could have easily procrastinated a few more weeks!!!

So I taught my new Intermediate Wheelthrowing class yesterday in the new wheelthrowing room at Lillstreet Art Center. I was stupified by the amount of natural light coming in through the windows!!! My studio has no window access so it was all new to me. It was kind of amazing… huge windows along the wall above the wheels… then I realized that I typically teach night classes… and that might be part of it too?!

Tonight kicks-off my return to teaching at Lillstreet Art Center!!!
They’ve re-opened and I’m so excited to see people back at the wheel, getting messy & sloppy, having fun in the clay!!! It’s been far too long… and it’s going to be great to have the Lillstreet Community coming back together again… even if it is with new rules, guidelines and a LOT of social-distancing. Yep, that’s going to be a new challenge for all of us!

Looks like the new Wheelthrowing Classroom is all ready to go… which is great because Lillstreet Art Center officially re-opens tomorrow with a lot of improvements & remodeling done for better social distancing to keep all of the students & teachers safe… and we’re all VERY eager to get back to making muddy messes on the wheels!!!

Well, not quite as much fun as teaching face-to-face, but it did feel good to “teach” again as I just finished teaching my first “official” ceramics workshop on ZOOM for Lillstreet Art Center! It was a one-hour workshop on making clay stamps… from my studio. A little jittery at times as I tilted by laptop screen up & down for demos… but I’m sure these ZOOM classes will get smoother if we need to keep doing them for much longer!

Little bit of good news though… if anyone is interested to find out how I make my own clay stamps, I will be teaching a one-hour “Making Clay Stamps” workshop a week from tomorrow as Lillstreet Art Center will be going “virtual” for some workshops & classes. So if you want to make some stamps with me, or learn a whole new “craft” while under quarantine, check-out the online classes being offered at Lillstreet!

Click here for the link to my “Making Clay Stamps” Workshop.