Fire and Smoke

Sumi von D. loading pots into the pit, nestling each into sawdust...

Workshop participants loading kindling into the pit..

Fire in the hole!
This burned for several hours yesterday and cooled overnight.

Unloading the pots from the pit this morning.

Smoke and fire was the painter on our pots.

Lady Godiva After the Ride

after she was painted by the fire and the smoke in the pit...

And now here in the mountains, as I tap these keys, we are having an actual snow squal!

and I wonder how this will affect the visitors to the town today, and to my studio...?

A Visit from the Travel Channel Crew

The Travel Channel was in town shooting for an October show called 'Destination Breckenridge'.
They shot a bit of footage in my studio while I worked on the new Bottomless Vessel to Hold Big Change. Kirsten Gum, The Treasure Hunter, was an energetic, enthusiastic interviewer. Again I am amazed at the answers that come to my mind for hours AFTER the interview is over...

The questions of the interviewers and the visitors have encouraged me to think more about my inspirations, more about my environment, and even more about the cyclic/spiral nature of my artistic development. I feel buoyed up by the enthusiasm of the visitors to my studio. I look forward to this weekend's visitors. But first, this morning, we will have a pit firing. The weather is sunny and skies are blue. So let's see what this glorious new day will bring...

Barrel Firing Workshop

I love what can happen when there is a balance between teaching and having my own time in the studio. The energies seem to flow... And my muse seems to sing and dance...

Showing the ceramics students from Colorado Mountain College how to wrap bisqued pots with crepe paper streamers, corn husks, and string... in the Arts District's new Ceramic Studio space.

Student wraps his pot...


Loading the barrels with the pots and newspaper and wood chips.


Fire in the can...

Unloading the 'smoked' pots.

GOT FLOW !

The sun is shining this morning, The sky is a brilliant cerulean blue. And for now my muse is alive and well and the studio work flows.

Perhaps teaching the workshops this week helped to get my own creativity flowing. I of course had to 'test' whatever techniques I planned to show students. I always want to give myself the chance to revisit the challenges and the excitement before I do a demo....

I miss teaching ceramics on a regular basis. If only I had known that my move to the UK was not going to be permanent; perhaps I'd still be teaching at City University in Brooklyn, and at the WestSide Y in Manhattan. Ah but how can one ever predict the whims of the fates? Maybe I can do more freelance workshops. Maybe I can add this 'Hand-made Barrel-fired Tile Intro' to the 'Black-figure Faux Greek Pots' workshop offered this winter at the Fuller Craft Museum and find teaching venues.

But for now my focus is on 'mudpies'...

'Goddess of New Beginnings'

'Guardian of the Dawn'

Beginning to Unfold

It was a grey chilly, drizzly weekend, but it was still lovely to walk around town where tourists and locals smiled in friendly greeting, where there seemed to be more air and sky than in New York City.

The old buildings in the historic section of town capture my fantasies, and I feel like I have stepped into a time warp.

I am drawn to the layering of textures on the old buildings. Perhaps this will be inspiration for work in the studio?

It seems that, like the leaves on the trees around town, my work here is just beginning to unfold.

The local newspaper ran a story about my residency. Workshops are scheduled for this week: 'Barrel-Firing'; Handbuilding vessels for the upcoming Pit Fire Event; and tile-making....

The pinch pots are finished and drying.They will be fired and ready for me to use to show workshop students some ways to alter the outcomes of the barrel-firing scheduled for Wednesday.

Getting Started

A visitor to the studio looks at 3 of the vessels that I made last year here at the Tin Shop. The two large 'Bottomless Vessels to Hold Big Change' await some experimentation for color or perhaps encaustic transfers. It is both exciting and daunting to not yet know how I will finish them.

The idea of getting started this year seemed quite daunting. The clay was piled up. I had to start something.. But what?

I think that it may have been Paulus Beherenson who once said that pinch pots were a good place to start...?

Indeed, it was comforting and centering to make the few pinch pots now on the window sill. I look forward to scraping and burnishing them later today in preparation for either the barrel firing or the pit firing.

Using a familiar process of wrapping clay around a cardboard tube, this lady emerged after the pinch pots. She will be completely unglazed. So I will refine her details later today.

So although I felt a bit of anxiety about getting started, yesterday was a great day in the studio. And I am looking forward to today's studio time. I hope to discover who this woman is and what story she might be about to reveal...

The Journey

After a brief trip to Boston for the opeing of the SMALL TREASURES exhibit at Vessels Gallery, which included my 'Black Figure Little Pots of Gold',

I went back to South Station to return to NYC to finish sorting through my favorite tools and whatever else I wanted to bring to Colorado.

I went to the Watershed fundraiser in NYC and then finished packing..

After going to the wrong airport, racing in a cab over to Laguardia Airport, flying into windshears, I landed in Denver. The assistant to the Arts District co-ordinator met me there and we began the final leg of the journey.

I had forgotten how beautiful it is here. Such counterpoint to life in NYC.

The ride from the airport was 'muse food'.

The sky was more beautiful than my little camera could capture. The images are stored now for later use in the studio.

How amazing to be returning to a place where I already know that the people here are warm, welcoming, encouraging, and creative. Where I already know that the air will try to dry my clay too fast if my joints are not well protected. Where I already know that my muse will be inspired. Where I already know that I CAN work while people mill throughduring Open Studios.

I am very grateful to have this opportunity to be here as artist-in-residence at the Tin Shop. I embrace this time-out from the regukar stuff of my daily life in NYC.

I am soothed by the stillness of the mountains. The work of getting here is behind me now.

After a supply run yesterday, I am ready to begin the clay work.