During my firing, I knew I had a lot of time to kill. You’re stuck there ALL day firing!
So, as typical for most firing days, I spent several hours cleaning & putting my studio
back together. The pace was a mess for the past couple days of frantic glazing & prepping.
When I finally had a clean studio… it was time to mess it up again!

With “Art In The Barn” just one week away… and Fall kicking in all around us…
I felt I needed to make some more of my terra cotta “monsters” that were a hit last year!
So I started throwing some terra cotta cylinders that will be transformed into their
alter-ego’s over the next couple days. And that’s all I’ve got… my next kiln is scheduled
for Wednesday night. Which means I need to get them all assembled & decorated in the
next few days, underglaze them, glaze them, load them & fire them… and hopefully get them
out of the kiln Friday evening… just in time for Saturday’s kick-off to “Art In The Barn.”

So they may not look like much now… but these will become pumpkins…

And these will be come skulls…

And these will become Frankenstein monsters!!!… if all goes as planned…

Still hoping to make a fourth “monster” too… but too sure I’ll have time?!
And I’m still looking for some “monster inspiration”? Any suggestions???

I’m in the middle of glazing for my upcoming kiln…
and I’m feeling more than a little overwhelmed and behind schedule!!!

Luckily, my friend Nancy was willing to come into the studio and lend a hand… or two!
She was concerned that she may not be “qualified” to help with my work. But I was quick
to tell her that “any help” would be better than none. Plus, I’m sure that she can handle
any task I would give her. So she was more than willing & able to inlay some glazes, wipe ’em,
stain some ornament tops and other tasks. Tasks which would have taken ME hours!!!…
but luckily, she was there to do them for me! Thank you so, so much Nancy!!!

You know… I could really get used to this. I may need to reconsider getting another one…

Okay, so my small little studio just seems to be getting smaller?!
The more I make, the smaller it all seems to get. How does that work?
Therefore, I needed to improvise… so thank you to my studio neighbors Karen Patinkin
& Lisa Harris who’s “studio weekend off” gave me a little extra space to dry my pieces!!!
Perfect for me – and they didn’t even know it… until now!

Only eight weeks until Halloween. Is it too soon for pumpkins?!
I hope not, because I made a whole lot of them tonight in the studio!!!

Well, tonight was the night to add handles to all of my stamped cylinders.
So I started by wedging my clay, and cutting it into smaller pieces and throwing them
down onto my table to create “carrot shaped” pieces.

I then pull traditional handles using water & friction. When the handles is like a good
clay strap width & thickness, the curve them over, stick ’em to themselves and stand
them up so they can dry up a bit. I like how the curved pieces already sets the curve
I will need when they’re attached to the cylinder. And you want to wait until they are
still flexible, but no longer wet or squishy.

Then the attaching begins. There’s a lot of scoring & slipping as I cut out the portion
of the handle that appropriately fits on the cylinder. Score, slip, attach… repeat… repeat…

And then, several hours later, and a LOT of scoring & slipping… the mugs are done!
Well, except for some colored slip accents, drying, firing, glazing, firing, etc…

So I recently saw the calendar… and realized that it’s later in the summer than I thought!
My summer camp “tour of duty” has come to an end and now I need to get my studio
production back into high gear if I want to be ready for the fall art fairs! So tonight it was
back to the wheel… with another batch of cylinders that will soon become mugs!!!

After camp this afternoon, I spent a few more hours in the studio trying to put
everything back together after my shelving disaster from a few weeks back.
As you know, I had an “incident” in my studio where the shelves literally pulled out
from the wall and came crashing down. I have since replaced the shelves with pegboard…
my favorite!!! So now I have a LOT of pegboard to play with. And I’ve been filling it in
pretty darn quickly. I love pegboard. And one of the best parts is that it can be changed
& modified as needed. Need a tool closer within reach?… just move the peg!!!

Now I just need to get back to work and make something… and dirty that table!!!

Okay, so some of my studio shelves came crashing down. Whatever…
Now I have a whole new wall of pegboard to play with…

Thousands of possibilities… 3,528 peg holes of possibilities!!!
Yes, I counted…

So there I am… surrounded by a room full of crazy Summer Camp kids.
Trying to keep them focused. Trying to keep them working. Trying to keep them from
tearing the place apart – slight exaggeration. When one of the other studio artists comes
downstairs and pulls me out of camp to tell me that there “has been an accident”
in my studio. What??? No one was even up there?!

So I excused myself from camp, left my assistant in charge, and went up to see what
happened. Apparently, someone closed the studio door a little too hard and this bank
of shelving fell off the wall. Literally pulling the screw anchors out of the wall…
and crashing down, spilling everything all over the place. Including my glass bead making
toolbox and all of the glass rods inside! And breaking some of the pieces that were drying
on my table. These shelves have been on that wall for YEARS!!! Why now? Why today?!

Maybe this is a good excuse, or should I say reason, for me to spend some quality time
in the studio cleaning, repairing, fixing it up and getting rid of all the garbage that I’ve
accumulated over the years… and still have really no good use for it all?!

So my plan is not to replace the shelving… since they can “jump off” whenever they want?!
You all know of my love for pegboard. So there will be more coming soon…

After a long stretch of beautiful Chicago weather… and me
possibly “playing” a little too much on my bike… is that possible?…
it felt great to be back at my wheel in the studio tonight.
Throwing. Centering. Playing in the mud.

And it didn’t really even matter what I was making…
I was making fun.