Day Two of my pottery workshop with the Fairbanks Potters Guild.
My fear was that when we returned to the studio all of their pots would be bone dry… or still soaking wet. I was hoping that they would be on the softer-side of leatherhard for good stamping… and they were!! YAY!!! We did a little heat-gunning to dry the stamps more before the potters arrived.

To get us started, I did a couple stamping demos using some bisqued stamps I brought with me. We also discussed how to use your texture tools to complement the design & shape of a pot… and maybe thinking the other way while throwing. Setting yourself up with a well-designed pot with good “canvas areas” for stamping later. So the stamps & textures are the focus, not an after-thought.

Throughout the day we stamped & textured everything. We also added some thick slip decorations to a few of the bowls… I love chattered slip!!! We trimmed our pots even though they were wetter than I would like. We even did a demo-on-demand for pulling handles… which I love! We also did some trimming & finishing of their hybrid mugs before adding handles. Again, we had a LOT of pots to work our way through… luckily we had all day!

This workshop was so much fun!!! They were a great group of people… so open, invested, encouraging & interactive. Everyone participated and I think had a great time making some newly-inspired pots. I was kind of wondering what I could offer a group of established potters… turns out there is always lot to share. I shared with them, and they shared with me! It will be interesting to see how they incorporate some of these new techniques into their pottery moving forward.

Huge thanks to all of the Fairbanks Potters Guild… you guys were the BEST!!! Thanks to my favorite Ida who was seemingly the all-knowing matriarch of the group… so much wisdom, so helpful, so nice!!! And thanks to Tammy for opening her studio & hosting the two-day event. Special thanks to Theresa for making this all happen. A simple email got me interested, and then Theresa worked out all of the details to make this workshop happen!!! Thanks to everyone for making this workshop a success & so much fun!!!

I love teaching. And I loved this workshop.
So if anyone else out there needs me to visit for a fun group workshop in your neck of the woods… just let me know! The more exotic the location the better!!! HA!!! I mean, it can’t hurt, right?!

Just another day at Summer Camp. Another day of encouraging the kids. Another day of spreading the word… “More is More!!! And several kids embraced my mantra & created their own masterpieces today!

Spent today playing hooky with my cousin Kim. We had a lot of great adventures & laughs along the way. We ended up at her place… where I saw her peach tree FULL of peaches. Too many peaches? Is there such a thing?… yes! They were EVERYWHERE!!! I can’t even imagine stepping out my back door to find hundreds of peaches at arms length. Crazy!!!

And yes… of course she sent me home with a bunch of homegrown peaches!!! So yummy!!!

Same stamp on a large platter! More surface to decorate means more impressions! A larger platter with one stamp… pressed in one by one by one… over & over & over again!!!

Just a little stamped design on a new dinner plate… aka Tuesday night’s class demo! I threw the plate in class, and then it sat under plastic until it was ready to stamp this morning!

A little early morning stamping… giddy-up!

It was a very productive evening in the studio. Lots of stamping, trimming & finishing. I had a lot of oval vases, class demo bowls & summer camp demos to attend to. Luckily, I got them all done… and now they’re drying!

Finishing up a batch of large oval vases. Just adding some accents of colored flashing slip in the stamped textures. The colors will show up better after soda-firing… this slip should turn orange!!!

It’s Day Two of the GLENVIEW SUMMER ART FAIR!!! We had a little drizzly rain pass through earlier this morning. So now we’re hoping it’s just dry & cloudy for the rest of the show. C’mon out to Glenview to say hello… I’m in Booth 31 until 5:00pm!

After a full day at the GLENVIEW SUMMER ART FAIR… with part of it during a downpour thunderstorm… I still made it into the studio tonight. I knew that I had some vases that were drying out & still needed to be stamped. So… no rest for the weary. The next batch of vases has now been stamped… and tomorrow more art fair fun!!! Hopefully a drier day???