I'm Begging Shamelessly for Votes!

The EMT Teapot Challenge is on! I was crushed in the Beer Butt Chicken cook off this summer and still can't look at my Barbecue without a tear in my eye. So I need your help! Check out all of the fabulous teapots on Votigo and then vote for me of course...tee hee. No seriously, I am floored with the quality and variety of teapots that are entered. A lot of them are for sale in the artists Etsy shops too. Here is one of my favorites by Earth Elements to get you excited. OK, go and exercise your right to vote!!! Oh, if you leave a comment you will be entered to win some fabulous ceramic prizes too!

Mix n Match

If you have been following along with my random streams of thought, you probably know by now that I love putting personality in my pottery. I guess its not really me putting it there, it just kind of happens. The pots grow into their persona through each stage of the creation process. I recently threw a bunch of similarly shaped jumbo tumblers and felt that they needed a little more personality. So, I decided to create a mix n match grouping that paired and alternated the glaze on the body with the colors of the rims. Each rim was dipped in the color of the previous mug and ta da! A mix n match set with personality!

A Taste of Things to Come

A perfect bowl

I love bowls and I have cupboards overflowing with them. Yet I find another favorite in every kiln load. Here is my latest favorite. I love the ridges left loose during the throwing process. This time the glaze turned out perfect with a bit of the natural earthen color showing through from beneath the white glaze. Alas, (I love the word alas - it is not used nearly enough)...alas, My cupboards are full so this one will be listed for sale in my Etsy shop. I hope it find a loving home and gets used regularly. It always saddens me to think that a beautiful bowl could gather dust on a shelf somewhere. I rotate mine so that they get all get used every once in a while. I don't want to offend any little bowl who gets forgotten at the back of a shelf...

I love Sundays

What a great day! I spent a little lime in my garden trimming my wanna be Bonsai trees. (They are actually really trimmed junipers) Then my hubby made me blueberry pancakes. I have been anxiously waiting for my kiln to cool down enough to check out my new teapots for the EMT teapot challenge. I haven't really made teapots before (except for that terrible one I made for a clay class...) so this was a bit of a challenge. Then I found out that I have been featured on the Etsy Mud Team Blog! If you check out all of the great interviews there you will find an assortment of very talented potters and I am quite honored to be a part of it! I'm off to go for a coffee downtown and plan to get one of those decadent carmelly ones! Cheers!

Goodbye to my Planter

I have heard that this is a bit of a phenomenon among those of us who sell our creations. Artists get attached to their work and feel separation anxiety once they know it is going to a new home. So it is with my planter. I have become quite attached to it and am a bit sad to see it go. I know that it will enjoy its new home where it can serve its function and have some new admirers but I still can't get over that little twinge of sadness. I am about to wrap it carefully with bubble wrap and peanuts and will say a little goodbye (inside my head of course). I can't imagine what a mother seeing her children go off into the world on their own must feel like! Maybe a little bowl of ice cream will get me through. And I will use a little ceramic bowl that I kept just for me!

EMT Mug Swap - New Details

Calling all Etsy Mud Team Mudders. I am organizing a Mug swap.

You can swap a mug with one or more mudders. Each person pays for shipping their own mug(s) out and then they get a fabulous new mug back in the mail. Just add a comment to this post or send me a convo on Etsy to let me know if you want to swap a mug with one or more potters. We are thinking that we could have until Nov to get those mugs in the post. This should give potters time if they want to make something new. I am open to suggestions or changes to these plans and will update dates and details as we figure them out on our Etsy forum thread.

Cheers!

Tagged! The Random 8 Meme

I came across this little 'Tag' in the comments of my latest post. It kinda feels like a chain letter but it is way easier to cut and paste on a computer than it was to hand write them when I was in elementary school! It was from lapellaart and I had been tagged to participate in the Random 8 Meme.

Here are the rules:

1. Link to your tagger and post these rules.
2. List eight (8) random facts about yourself.
3. Tag eight people at the end of your post and list their names (linking to them).
4. Let them know they’ve been tagged by leaving them a comment on their blogs.

8 Random Lurearts Facts:

1. I love making ceramics, especially on my pottery wheel.
2. I have seen the movie 'Ghost' but it didn't factor into my choice to become a potter.
3. I think Patrick Swayze's best role was as a new age guru in DONNIE DARKO.
4. I watch mostly kid's animation movies at the theatre because my hubby works in the industry.
5. I teach high school.
6. I love gardening and wish I had a bigger back yard
7. I kill lot of house plants for some reason...
8. I am at a standoff with a black squirrel who thinks he owns my house. He even throws nuts at me!

The people I am tagging are: averly, Emily Murphy, JD Wolfe Pottery, Jessica Sharrah, nkp designs, stilettoheights, ariaimages, Tara Robertson Pottery

New Glazes!

There is not much that can compare to the joy of opening a new batch of glaze tests and having everything turn out beautifully! I retested a few new glazes on actual pieces instead of just the regular test tiles. I find that the test tiles give a basic view of the glaze color but do not capture the nuances of brushstrokes and the pooling in textures that makes each glaze unique and valuable in my mind. After contemplating this new batch, I found a new favorite that I hadn't considered since its very first test tile. The vase at the back of the photo with the narrow mouth caught my attention immediately. It is a greyish, blue/green that has a lot of depth and variation. I may call it Stormy Sea. I love naming new glazes! I have another load bisque firing at the moment and can't wait to try out Stormy Sea on a mug. Oh, I also have a little sake set in the photo. What do you think?

Its a Keeper

I'm having a great long weekend! The sun is shining, my hubby took me for a fancy coffee downtown this afternoon, and I am anxiously waiting to open a new glaze firing. So, as I was cleaning up my studio in preparation for the new wares I will be taking out of the kiln, I realized that I have a studio full of pottery but I haven't really kept any of my new designs. My kitchen is full of my old wonky bowls but I don't really think of those as beautiful. So, I skipped down to my local florist and picked out a cute plant for my kitchen. I grabbed a new vase off of my 'for sale' shelf and took it outside to pot my little tree. Check it out, I now have a beautiful vase sitting on my windowsill that I can enjoy every day (as long as I don't kill the plant...)!