Huge thanks to everyone who came out this weekend for the
HINSDALE FINE ARTS FESTIVAL. We had surprisingly great weather both days,
met quite a few fun people and a LOT of pots & mugs found their way off to new homes.
Thanks again!!!

Save

Always feels a little weird to take black slip & paint it on pristine white porcelain…
that is “cherished” as perfectly clean WHITE clay. Now with some black splattered on it.

So you saw all of the prepping, glazing, wadding & loading…
so it only seems fitting to show you the finished results too!

I unloaded my soda kiln Monday night… and it was my quickest & most efficient unload ever… TWO HOURS unloaded, packed, shelves scraped, kiln washed, floor swept, garbage out, all done!!! In. Out. Done… oh, yeah, and a few pictures along the way!

Front stack of the kiln…

Back stack of the kiln…

And a few of the pieces still on the kiln shelves…

After spending the night in Minneapolis at a friend’s house, I got up and headed over to the Minneapolis Convention Center for a full day of NCECA fun. Okay, let me just say from the get-go… for the record… I’m NOT a huge fan of NCECA. I just want to make pots. I just want to see pots. I just want to have fun, buy pots, buy tools,  and see a LOT of pottery friends!!! Not so much into the “educational-lecture” part of the show, which I totally get as it IS an educator’s conference! So I knew going up that one day of NCECA would be enough for me! Well, that plus a full day of touring NCECA Gallery Shows on Friday.

So the first thing I ran into after registering for the day was the Artstream Gallery… LOVE IT!!! I’ve seen it before, but you can never see it enough! Basically they took an old Airstream Trailer and converted it into a mobile pottery gallery! What a wonderful idea!!!

There were several galleries that had made little Pop-Up Shops with their ceramic wares.
Many of them focusing on a few featured artists… like one of the galleries was featuring
this oversized sculpture by George Rodriguez

So many mugs… so little time. Loved this contemporary twist on mug display & shelving… one mug per shelf.

Also fun to see so many potters that I’ve been introduced to through social media. Like this slip-cast, layered-colors and carved tumbler by Valeri Alexsandrov. Beautiful to watch on Instagram, but even better to touch, fondle, caress and admire in person!

So many things to see… so many pots everywhere… I WAS IN POTTERY HEAVEN!
And the first “souvenir” to come home with me was this Ted Neal mug. Loved the rustic, almost rusty quality of it… as well as the industrial-somewhat agricultural aspects to it.

And one of my favorite things at the Pop-Up Gallery areas were these pre-packaged shot glasses. What a wonderful idea – a comic satire on commerce & mass-production… with a handmade ceramic piece inside the retro-inspired retail packaging. So, so funny!!!

And then it was off to the Trade Show Expo area. Always fun to see all of the latest in pottery tools & supplies. Many of which I’m not in the market for… like kilns, commercial glazes or more pottery wheels. But even though I might not be looking to buy any of these… still fun to see everything.

Including these little mini-wheels… a tiny little wooden box that is actually a miniature potter’s wheel… perfect for making miniature pots!

And then I finally got down to the back corner to find my favorite… DiamondCore Tools!!! Great to finally meet Robert and his crew, as well as see all of their amazing products all in one place! And all ready to be played with on some clay. Carving. Scraping. Sgraffito-ing. Whatever. So much fun getting a chance to play with all of their tools… as well as seeing some great demos by some pretty great artists!

Save

Save

All set up and ready to go!
Swing by Naperville tonight or tomorrow for the PRAIRIE VIEW ARTS INVITATIONAL.
There are so many great artists here… so many of them are My Talented Friends!
Always fun to hang out with my art peeps!

C’mon by for some pottery, just to say HI… or to grab a yummy taco from the Taco Truck outside!!!

Save

Well we’re nearing the end of the Second Annual LILLSTREET THROWDOWN class.
So for this week’s in-class challenge, we re-visited a few of our previous challenges with a twist. We divided into two teams and had everyone decide which of six challenges each team player was going to tackle. Twist was… they didn’t know what challenge each was! After they all signed up for their challenge “number”… we rolled the dice to randomly assign project challenges to each number! So they all started working on their assigned challenge… so all six challenges were going on simultaneously.

But after 15 minutes… the timer went OFF!!!    Wait?… what?!!!!

After the first fifteen minutes they all found out that they had to ROTATE to continue working on someone else’s project. Yes, they were going to switch & rotate every 15 minutes for four rotations to finish each challenge. So they needed to work as a team, share information at every rotation, and keep everything on pace so as to finish ALL six challenge projects in the one hour time frame.

Everyone was so focused… and it was surprisingly quiet...
except for the crazy commotion & confusion during rotations!!!

And because one of our students was “out sick” for the night… I had to draft one of my Tuesday night students to fill in to keep the teams even. Thanks to Katie for stepping up and joining in our crazy fun!!!

At the end of the hour… and four complete rotations… we had a table full of projects!
Lots of “matching” challenges… some successful, some not so much…

So here they are side-by-side…  one team versus another!

FOUR MATCHING CYLINDERS

TWO MATCHING EXTRUDED MUGS

TWO MATCHING SERVING BOWLS

TWO MATCHING PLATTER

TWO MATCHING SPHERES

whoops… and the “other” side…

And the other team’s winning spheres…

TWO MATCHING 5-inch CUBES

Pretty hard to judge… especially when you see all four all lined up…

Save

Don’t you love it when you get something fun in the mail… instead of just bills & junk mail??? Like the poster invitation for this year’s ST. CROIX VALLEY POTTERY TOUR!! Always my favorite “pottery adventure” every Spring. Mark your calendar to head to Minneapolis for the weekend to see a HUGE collection of some of the best pottery around. I’ll be going again to do a little shopping & chatting with some of My Talented Friends!

Click here for more information about the St. Croix Valley Pottery Tour.

While I was in Germany, I missed my LILLSTREET THROWDOWN class.
I planned their projects & homework… and thanks to Lisa for stepping in to deliver the challenges! Looks like I missed a good time. Can’t wait to see the “results” from their homework assignment in class this week!!!

They started with throwing a new cylinder shape for a mug…

And then they switched quickly to handbuilding. While many of them have not done a lot of handbuilding, I thought it would be fun to throw them out of their comfort zone a bit. So they had to make the tallest cylinder out of two pounds of clay… a bit more challenging than you might expect…

After their foray into handbuilding, they went back to their wheels
to throw “the tallest vase”… “the widest bowl”… and “the widest platter.”

And just when they may have thought they were done… the homework assignment!!!
They need to make their mug, add it to the vase, bowl and platter collection
and then do some sort of surface decoration to make them look like a “set.” It will be great to see what they do… especially since I missed the last class so it will truly be a blind judging this week!!!

Someone is already “thinking green” during the cold whiteness of winter. My Peoria friends showing off more of their pottery collection… including some very “vintage” pottery I made way back before I “met” stamping… notice the layered slip decoration on the set of bowls in the bottom right corner! I remember being so proud of those bowls back in the day. Ha!!!

My pottery class ROCKED it tonight!!!
It was only the second night of our new session… and they’ve already tackled
making MUGS!!! Thrown, trimmed and handles attached…
and ready to move on to bigger & better things next week!

Save