This week was chock full, with a clay class up in the mountains last Friday – the kids loved making pinch pots – and an art sale at the museum over the weekend. I brought a few small items with me to display for the art sale and was able to snag some stones from the gardens, a few planks of wood from the wood kiln stock pile and a table cloth from a fellow vendor to make up my table. I was unsure how it would go and unfortunately it didn’t go well for me, I had my labels translated for patrons to read and most people speak a little English, but most were too shy to try to use it and talk with me, so it was a little hard to connect and hence make sales. Plus my prices were based on what I sell my work for in the states, so a little pricy for this market, but it was an interesting learning experience for sure. After a busy weekend, the rest of this past week was spent with long days in studio. I got some pieces into the kiln for the first time with some good, some not so good results… again more learning experiences.
With the help of the studio staff, we tested embedding one of my flat Bone Series shaped pieces into resin. This is something I’ve been thinking and sketching ideas about for over a year and its exciting to get into the first stages of trying it out. Once I pull more pieces from the kiln, I’m going to attempt to go larger with this idea and I ~hope~ that this will launch me into a whole new avenue with this series. Stay tuned on this one!
Other experiments this week included trying chicken heart and butt (yes. butt.) for the first time along with some plain ol’ fried chicken – and honestly, it was all pretty good. The last photo above is a few of my favorite sculptures that are in the Ceramic Park at the museum, feel lucky that I get to walk past these each day to and from the studio.
Tomorrow, I head up into the mountains again to work with the kids and I’ve got plans to stay there through the weekend which I’m very excited about. Hot springs, mountain hikes and waterfalls await this weekend!