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    wrapping up another weird year…

    Well, it was better but it was definitely still a weird year.

    Despite the weirdness, I was still able to have a pretty successful art year. I had work in five exhibits including one in Taiwan, participated in the Open Studios Art Tour for the first time in two years, installed a large scale site specific piece in Washington State, self-published my third art book, taught a workshop in Mexico in person, taught my first workshop virtually, and I got a new big kiln. Looking back, not too bad…

    Outside of my life in the studio, I was thrilled to get vaccinated and be able to see friends and family that I hadn’t seen in a long time, but we also lost some people this year who are dearly missed. And while this year was not nearly the amount of travel and adventure that we normally do, we did get to go back to some of our favorite camping places that had been damaged by last years fires, and spent a few weeks on our property in Mexico, which is my new happy place. And we got a new dog; Bowie, who has become the best studio buddy and hiking partner.

    Onward and Upward. Happy New Year everyone!

    A year of Artists Sharing Artists

    This past year, I’ve shared eleven artists with you through the Artists Sharing Artists project and I really hoped you enjoyed meeting them. There is so much talent and passion wrapped up in this one photo, and looking at them all together, just makes me so happy to know that all these amazing artists are doing their thing out there in the world.

    India Maya, Susun Gallery, JB Boyd, Nika Kovalenko
    Kristen O’Neill, Shannon Sullivan
    Ruth Li, Sally Walk, Wesley Wright, Susan Whitmore & Cynthia Siegel

    Big thanks to Nika Kovalenko, Kristen O’Neill, India Maya, Susun Gallery, Ruth Li, Sally Walk, JB Boyd, Cynthia Siegel, Shannon Sullivan, Wesley Wright & Sue Whitmore for taking the time to help me create these posts. If you missed any of them, click here to see all of the artists posts and videos. If you like their work, you can support the artists directly by buying their work and adding some amazing pieces to your collection.

    And let me know… should I do this again next year??

    wip: umbel series

    I’ve been working away in my freezing cold studio building large scale Umbel pieces that are bases on fennel flower structures and I’ve started to make some progress. These pieces will be exhibiting at the Harris Center for the Arts Gallery during the NCECA (National Council on Education in the Ceramic Arts) conference early next year. My plan is to have three of these in varying sizes installed and I’m about halfway through the second one. If you came by the studio during Open Studios this year, you saw the first finished piece (pictured below).

    The second one is larger, five feet across and I’ve been playing with modifying the glazes on this one too. So my days are filled with cutting hundreds of feet of kanthal wire into bits and making -literally- a thousand tiny flower heads that will be placed into each of the larger flowerhead forms. I’m also testing glazes and building the flower body forms which are thrown on the wheel and then trimmed to create a rounded top to the form. In addition, my husband has been welding up the steel structure that all of these parts will get attached to. His math skills have been put to the test getting all the curves and spacing balanced but I think he’s doing an amazing job!

    Book Bundles Are Here!

    Book Bundle | Shop | Jenni Ward ceramic sculpture

    On Sale Through The End Of The Year!

    All three of my art books in one package! Printed versions of ‘a relationship with earth’, ‘where art & nature meet’ and my latest book ‘inspiration through exploration’ are all included in this book bundle.  Each softcover book is 8″x 8″, with full color photos from cover to cover, chronicling my work from 2009 – 2021.

    All 3 Books for $60 (reg $70) ORDER HERE

    New prints are up in the shop!

    In the Field Photo: Relic Series | shop | Jenni Ward ceramic sculpture

    Just in time for the holidays!

    A small selection of prints from the In the Field ephemeral installations are available for sale. These are printed on aluminum and have a floating metal mount on the back for a clean and modern display. Perfect for the art + nature lover on your list! SHOP HERE

    things to be thankful for

    As a human, I’m grateful for all-the-things but as an artist, I’m really grateful for…

    1. my gigantic studio space filled with tools and materials that allow me to be creative all day, everyday
    2. my community of artist friends who support me, critique me honestly and share with me
    3. my opportunity to do what i love as my real job

    What are you grateful for?

    HAPPY TOFURKEY DAY EVERYONE!

    Artists Sharing Artists: Susan Whitmore

    My first introduction to Sue’s work was through her website while researching artists to bring on board to an upcoming exhibition. I was immediately intrigued by the variety of textures in her work. Some of her forms are solid, glossy probing shapes and those contrast starkly with the web-like fragile veils of layers that seem to ooze around the structures. Some seem animated as they might start crawling across the table and some seem to be the remains of a creature that once was. I still don’t know how she makes these pieces, but I’m really excited learn more about her work and find out.

    Susan is one of five artists in the exhibit that Cynthia Siegel and myself are co-curating as part of the 2022 NCECA conference entitled, This is the Anthropocene. The Anthropocene is defined as the current geological age during which human activity has been the dominant influence on the climate and the environment. The artists will be responding to this topic within the themes of Animal, Agriculture, Landscape, Water and/or Atmosphere in a diversity of styles and approaches. Susan will be featuring work based on forest fires as part of this exhibition.

    Susan at work in her studio

    About Susan Whitmore’s work: My current sculptural work is an exploration of studio based research: physicality and metaphor in concepts of torn, fatigued, erupted, collapsed, or disintegrated objects and images. I merge new technologies such as 3D modeling software with traditional hand skills such as drawing and ceramic construction. My goal is to create abstract pieces that explore the tensions between control and functionality, and the chaos found in natural forms.

    Learn more at Sue’s website or follow her on Instagram

    Artists Sharing Artists: is a series of posts where I share some of my favorite artists who are also inspired by nature and use their art to protect what they love. More artists coming soon…

    inspired by baja

    It was so wonderful to return to my happy place in the desert, work with creative and talented people while also getting some time to just watch the sun move across the sky. In these few weeks, my quartz rock collection grew, I saw more sunsets than I missed, and I watched the whales start to arrive at their southern destination. There is something about the quiet determination to thrive in the desert, that definitely inspires.

    My weekend workshop at Barro Sur was a fantastic event, the participants were eager to learn new ways of working with clay and to be inspired by the flora and fauna of the region. Students came from all over to participate in this class. We spent two days building, let the work dry on a very slow bisque firing and then had a glazing opportunity in the days that followed. The results were beautiful and I hope that it inspired everyone to reconnect with the nature that surrounds them. On a personal level, it was great to meet and connect with new members of this small town’s community.

    I hope to return again in a few months and get another dose of inspiration, in the meantime I’ll have to hang onto those sunsets in my mind.