One week from today is my annual Holiday Home Show.
So I’m at the studio today firing another soda kiln full of new pieces.
Here’s a glimpse of the stacked kiln – before the door was bricked closed
and the firing began! This kiln will cool all day Sunday
and be unloaded Monday night… just in time for my big holiday show!

“My Home For The Holidays” Home Show 2008
Saturday, November 22nd & Sunday, November 23rd
10:00am-6:00pm

It’s the widest selection of work from Fire When Ready Pottery
that you’ll see all year – with pottery in every room of my condo
and my annual “Tired Of Shlepping Sale” at clearance prices!
It’s the perfect chance to start your holiday shopping.

Please contact me for address, directions & more details…

With less than four weeks until my annual Holiday Home Show,
I’ve been trying to stay productive in the studio. Keeping pieces at different stages
in the process… some freshly thrown, while stamping slightly dried pieces,
then trimming the leather hard work. The it’s off for firing…

“My Home For The Holidays” Home Show
Saturday, November 22nd & Sunday, November 23rd
10:00am-6:00pm  -  always the weekend before Thanksgiving!

More updates to come… please e-mail me for complete information.

After saving some post-job “retired” orchids from the dumpster at my special events job…
I brought them to the studio and gave them a new home in one of my vases!
A ruby red mix of Mokara & Jamestorie orchids in a stamped & soda-fired vase.

A nice blend of textures… and a glimpse of how the greenware oval vases
might someday fulfill their destiny!!!

This weekend was the kick-off of Chicago Artist’s Month in Chicago – with the Ravenswood Art Walk yesterday & today. Studios up & down the Ravenswood Corridor were open for the weekend so people could meet the artists, see some art and check-out the studio spaces. We had a pretty steady crowd flowing through Lillstreet. But for those of you who couldn’t make it this weekend… I thought I would give you a quick tour of my studio! Feel free to stop by…

It was a wonderful, fall weekend in Barrington. And a great time to sell art in the Barn!!

This past weekend was “Art In The Barn” Art Fair in Barrington, Illinois. It was fun selling art & seeing a lot of familiar faces… including a few former co-workers from my previous corporate life! I also had the honor of having a double-booth this time – my “prize” for being on of the Top 10 Selling Artists last year! It was another successful weekend – with lots of sales. It was by far my best outdoor art fair ever! Who knows?… if I’m lucky, I might just get a free double-booth again next year?

The double-booth gave me more room to spread out, show some extra work & room to chat with customers without feeling too crowded in the booth.

To make the weekend even better, I also had two great artist “neighbors.” My jeweler friend Molly Bitters was on one side, and a new photographer, Brad Pogatetz, was on the other. Both of them are very talented in their craft. And I came home with some new jewelry from Molly… after a little art fair “trading”!

It was a nice way to kick-off the fall season, complete with pumpkins, gourds, mums & hay bales… and a little art thrown in here & there. And a special thank you to everyone who came out to play this weekend… to shop… to chat… to hang out in the Barn.

Just two weeks from today…
The gallery opening of “Collective Conversations In Clay” at Lillstreet Art Center.
A collaborative show where five sets of ceramic artists create their own piece for the show – as well as finishing a piece of their collaborative partner. Emily Murphy and I are right on schedule with two weeks to go. My pieces are stamped. My collaboration/traded pieces are stamped… just waiting to be glazed, fired and installed in the gallery.
Here’s a sneak peek…

Collective Conversations In Clay
Opening Reception – Saturday, October 4th, 2008 – 4:00-7:00pm
Lillstreet Art Center Gallery – 4401 North Ravenswood, Chicago

For more information:   beingtobeing.com

Hope to see you there…

It was a wonderful three-day weekend in Chicago.
Not only was the weather incredible – sunny & warm with a nice cool breeze off the lake.
Possibly the nicest weather weekend all summer in Chicago?!

It was a great chance to relax, bike a lot of miles, play along the lakefront and spend some quality production time in the studio. So I thought it might be a good chance to show you a bit of my studio. A lot of tools and a lot of pots. With a little stamping along the way…

They’re cute. They’re adorable. They’re precious.
Those tiny little pots. The miniatures that look like their full-sized counterparts.
One or two are cute… and the more the merrier. But what to do with your collection of mini’s?

Well, you know that top of your stove where there’s really not enough room for much of anything – except grease & dust? I decided to use that space to build a shelf display for my collection of miniatures – complete with kiln posts for the risers between shelves! It’s a great way to use that narrow space to display your very own collection of mini pots.

It’s been fun having images of my work published in books. And then to see the books for sale in the bookstore and online… pretty cool. But for those of you who may have missed them…

Lark Books creates a great line of books full of artistic creativity. Each book focuses on a certain form or project. They then solicit artists from around the world to submit images to be chosen for the five hundred cherished spots in each book. I have had the honor of being chosen for three of their publications. This series of books is a great visual reference on how diverse the same “shape” can be when interpreted by different artists around the world.

“500 Cups” – page 265
“500 Pitchers” – page 357
“500 Tiles” – pages 219 & 240

Over the years, I have made hundreds of stamps.
Each of them making a different impression.

I make my stamps out of a little piece of clay, rolled into a coil, then carved with a design on both ends. The stamps are then bisque fired before using. With hundreds of stamps in my studio, it always surprises me how a handful of them have become the favorites that I always reach for.

To make the textured surface of my pots, I typically take one of the stamps and press it into the leather-hard clay to make the impression one… by one… by one. Sometimes well over a hundred impressions on a single vase! Each one pressed in by hand. It is this repetition, and the textural pattern it creates, that intrigues me.