On a bright sunny day, it’s fun to find colorful rainbows bouncing around on my pottery! Still on display for my ongoing HOLIDAY HOME SHOW… with sun beautifully refracting with small prism snowflakes on the holiday garlands! ‘Tis the season for small surprises…

TOO FUNNY! I love this illustration… and will honestly admit that I might possibly still be at the very bottom starting point of the hierarchy! Don’t get me wrong, I do love a good pun, a good practical joke & a good slapstick shtick!!! But I’ve been told MANY times by my Summer Campers that I have too many “Dad jokes”… and I’m totally okay with that!!!

While not quite sugar plums, but it’s never too early to have visions of Christmas yummies dancing in my head, right?

While we seem to have been spared of the prediction of the Election Day Asteroid… a week later, it is good to know that there were certain precautions put in place!!! Whew… crisis averted!

So during the Covid shutdown, I started my “quarantine collection” of beach glass. While the Lakefront Bike Trail was closed, I was “forced” to bike & explore some of the beaches north of me. Found some beach glass… and started a small collection. I came home with a pretty good stash this morning… including one really cool piece of cobalt blue glass!!!

Celebrating a little “Snail Mail Monday” with my newest postcards from THE POSTCARD CLUB. Another grouping of beautiful photo cards to send out the old-school way! If you like getting & sending actual mail & saying “Hi” to good friends… check ’em out.

Click here for THE POSTCARD CLUB!

With all of the turmoil over the past few days of what became ELECTION WEEK… how did you survive the stress?!

How did YOU look at the situation???

When Rosene sent me this picture of her grocery produce “harvest” on some of my pottery… it looked a little too much like she was setting up a still life to do a painting!!!

So I went ahead and made it for her!!!

So, after several month of pandemic, quarantines & sheltering-in-place… many of my students from last Winter’s LILLSTREET THROWDOWN have returned to Lillstreet to finish up the projects they were making during my challenges & contest class. One of the best challenges in class was for the students to build a set of Matryoshka Dolls… with a minimum of five pieces that all nestled in on each other. Most of them got their pieces made… but no one had a chance to glaze them as COVID-19 set-in just at the end of class. No time to finish. No time to glaze. Our final THROWDOWN class happened just days before the lockdown!

But now we’re back at Lillstreet… and students have returned to pick-up where they left off. There’s been a lot of glazing going on. Including Christine who won the Matryoshka Challenge… as well as the overall trophy!

Here’s a look at her Matryoshka set that recently came out of the glaze kiln!

Her set was based on the LILLSTREET THROWDOWN class itself, and some of the bigger challenges along the way! BRILLIANT!!!

Her largest jar was an homage to… well, err… little embarrassing… ME!!!
It’s not everyday you get memorialized in underglaze!!! Complete with my tie-dyed t-shirt & black gym shorts!!

The other exterior sides of the largest jar hosted shelves of pots and the names of everyone in class! Again, honoring the class, the fun , and everyone who took part in Season Three of THE GREAT LILLSTREET THROWDOWN!

Oh… but then it opens up…

And then the second layer was based on the challenge when they all had to make Flower Bricks. Self-enclosed vases with a bunch of holes on the top for the flower stems to go through!

Inside the Flower Brick was a set of Matching Mugs… another one of our weekly class challenges. They were told to incorporate four different patterns & designs on the mugs… stripes, polka dots, paisley and plaid!

Inside the matching mugs, is a set of matching bowls. Another one of our class challenges! Smaller than the actual bowls made for the challenge… but they had to fit inside, right?!

And oh, but wait there’s more…
Inside the stacked bowls was a miniature ceramic OREO cookie!!!

YES!!!… Christine actually made a clay OREO cookie!!!
Okay, so “maybe” I have a bit of an OREO addiction going on.
Perhaps we ate far too many of them during class?!
But good to see that they’re getting honored in Christine’s set!!!

And there it is!!! Well worth the wait!!!
Even though the pandemic is still carrying on… it does feel great to be back at Lillstreet teaching & working. So good to see students back in classes, and campers back at Summer Camp. Happy that we are all making the best of the situation… with more than enough social-distancing, sanitizing, procedures and structural changes within Lillstreet.

Happy to see Christine’s finished set of Matryoshka nesting dolls!
A BRILLIANT concept!!! Thank you Christine for sharing your talents!

So it took me a little while to figure out what kind of “ghoul” I wanted to make this year to add to “The Ghouls Collection.” Running out of ideas, and a bit of inspiration as ART IN THE BARN has been cancelled for months now… it was tough to dive in. But when I realized I should make them for ART IN THE GARDEN… I was ALL IN!!!

So I did a bit of brainstorming… even employing my summer camp kids for ideas… and finally made a “Ghoul-ish” decision… and a small test piece!!!