What’s black & white… and red all over?
Thanks George for sharing your fresh tomatoes in one of our porcelain sgraffito collaboration pieces from ART IN THE GARDEN! The colorful tomatoes totally “pop” on the black & white dish!

A sincere THANK YOU to everyone who came out to ART IN THE GARDEN last weekend. It was our ninth year of doing that grassroots art fair… and our ninth year of doing collaboration projects with the other artists. But this year, I think my pal Cory Mccrory really blew it out of the water with these amazing birdhouses. I made the textured terra cotta houses… and then Cory collaborated & added her usual sense of whimsy & color on top of them! We only made TEN… and they went fast! Quite the collector’s item for those ten lucky customers!

And now we need to start thinking about how we’re going to top ourselves next year for the Tenth Anniversary of collaborations with Cory! Any suggestions???

This colorful collaboration came home with me from ART IN THE GARDEN. A perky flower made by Cory Mccrory surrounded by beautiful mosaics by Kristin Dann Conneely. I especially loved how the beauty of the day was reflected in the broken mirrors… blue skies, green leaves… beautiful day!!!

Well, we’re open for Day Two of ART IN THE GARDEN.. and we still have a few collaboration pieces for those Sunday shoppers! We’re open until 5:00pm and the weather looks fantastic again today! C’mon by… we’d love to see you!

Well, after all of the process posts… it’s finally time to show off our birdhouse collaborations for ART IN THE GARDEN. And I will say, I think this might be my favorite “Cory Collaboration” of all time!!! We’ve generally done separate parts & pieces that then go together or assemble later. This is the first time that we’ve actually “worked” on the exact same pieces passing them off part way through the process. I built all of the textured birdhouse.. and then Cory added on her pieces of whimsy!!! And I think that this “tighter” collaboration has really paid off. I can’t wait for people to see them this weekend at ART IN THE GARDEN. There are only ten of them… first come, first served… and sorry, no dibs ahead of time!

For more info – https://www.grassrootsartfair.com/

We’re almost ready… the show is tomorrow & Sunday!!!
Hope you can join us in Glenview!!!

Checkout the website for full details… https://www.grassrootsartfair.com/

Come see this wonderful collaboration project between myself & mosaic artist Kristin Conneely tomorrow at ART IN THE GARDEN. There will be lots of fun collaboration projects all over the yard… we’ve been working hard & playing creatively with each other for the past few months. This weekend we finally get to show it all off!!!

For more details… https://www.grassrootsartfair.com/

We’re SO close to the end of these collaboration birdhouses!!! Cory has added some clear glaze… yes, green now turns clear in the kiln. The roofs are glazed for weather protection… as well as some of the whimsical add-ons just to make them even more fun!!! Beautifully done Cory.

Oh great… now I want mint chocolate chip ice cream!!!

What a difference the underglaze wash makes, right?! The way Cory leaves it in all of the recesses just makes all of the textures & colors really POP!!! These birdhouses are getting SO close to being done. Which is good… they need to be done by Saturday morning when the show starts at 10:00am. So who knows?… they might still be warm from the kiln???

After painting all of the colored underglazes & bisque firing them, Cory then adds a layer of a black underglaze wash over the entire piece. The plan is to wipe it off again… leaving it only in the cracks, crevasses & indentations. It’s a long, time-consuming process… but it makes a HUGE difference in the final look… so THANK YOU Cory for putting in the extra effort to make the collaboration really cool !!!