'Tis the Season...

To all of Pine Ridge Studio's friends, customers and neighbours, I would like to say:

I hope you have a wonderful Christmas!  Talk soon!

Stars

Well now, how's that for an ambiguous title? But I can't think of a better one... maybe after you read this you will have think of something better and if you do, please let me know!

Some weeks it doesn't seem like I get much done. Things started, things worked on, but things 'done' done, no. About the only achievement this week (and that was started last week) was to get the wooden house shapes I wanted to hang pottery stars on painted and 'done'.

It's hard to see in this small picture, but I tried to give the idea of house lights seen through the snow... next time I'm painting more snow but this is it for now. I like the middle one with the fence. Not too sure why there is a fence beside a door, but it sort of works for me. The whole idea of a gateway, an entry, maybe into an unknown space...

Now if I could just think of a better title for this post...

Making Teapots

Finally got back to making some teapots. It's been a summer of mugs, mugs, mugs and more mugs. Much as I like making mugs, I also want to make teapots sometimes! Something to put in all those mugs!

Teapots are a major pottery challenge. They have to look good, fit with the other pieces in your design, work well... and not cost too much. There are plenty of really amazing teapots out there, but I don't think the really sculptural or 'art' teapots we see are meant to be used to make tea. Mine are. I want my teapots to be used, daily, comfortably, and dependably.

Here are a few in the clay I use for my Red Fox pattern, waiting to go into the kiln for the bisque firing:

It was fun making them. I also made a lot of other pieces in that design, including some sugar bowls with lids, none of which fit. Not quite as much fun!

Here is a finished teapot:

Lots of Christmas stuff going on as well. Painting pine cones... cutting out stars...  searching the entire Studio for the red ribbon I was sure I had...

Speaking of red ribbon, have you noticed that, for us creative types, invention is often the mother of necessity? You invent the pottery Christmas mitt, and now you need red ribbon...

Never mind. Time for a well-deserved cup of tea.

It Begins!

The Christmas plotting, that is!

Christmas is my absolute, total, no question about it, favourite holiday. I love making Christmas ornaments and pottery with a Christmas-y feel and plotting various Christmas enjoyments!

One of my enjoyments is designing my booth at the annual Carp Farmers' Market Christmas Market.

I'm planning a Woodland Christmas theme for this year - lots of natural things like pine and spruce garlands, bowls of pine cones and leaves, even birchbark curls. I already have a lovely big grapevine wreath, with lots of wild vine-y bits to it for the blank wall in the booth. All it needs is a bit of greenery, maybe pine, and a floppy red bow and it will look most fine. Then some strings of tiny red felt hearts... or should they be stars, or bunnies... red pillows on the chairs... now how can I add some trees...

 How I got the grapevine wreath is sort of interesting. The beavers cut down a small tree along the driveway, which I was sorry to see, but beavers will be beavers and I am determined to try to see them as nature's pruning service. Then they couldn't drag it away because it was all tied up by a huge multi-stemmed wild grape vine. The next day I saw that they had very cleverly cut the tree into quite small pieces, and the day after that they dragged most of them into the marsh near their lodge. This left a lot of grapevine sprawled across the driveway. I started rolling it up and realized it would make great wreaths and sure enough, I now have 5 nice wreaths and one large rather wild-looking one. I'm not worried about the vine, it will re-grow, probably bigger and better and it can climb up a nearby pine.

 I've made a list of Christmas stuff to make... too ambitious, of course, but exciting anyway. One of the first things is to make a lot of terracotta mitts which are always popular. Luckily, my (former) Super Helper is coming on Saturdays in November to help and between us we should be able to get a lot done. Mitts will be the first thing. You've seen them here before but just for fun here is one again.

I'm also participating in the West Carleton Arts Society's new "$100 & Under" sale which will be the same weekend as the Christmas Market, so I am plotting ideas for that as well.

For some reason, my plotting seems to involve a Fox - a red Fox, running along... I guess a Woodland needs a Fox, right?

Sunnies and Leaves

Here are some of the finished Sunflower design pieces:

You remember, last time I was bitching about how long it takes me to paint my pots. I guess it's worth it, at least I hope it is!

Now I'm working on my Leaves design. It is a bit easier because I use stencils for many of the leaves, but it is oddly difficult to keep the designs random. There is a real tendency to start to arrange things in patterns... or to do things all the same. So I have to force them to be different, and then sometimes I get into design trouble! Never mind, the finished pieces are nice:

One thing that doesn't please me much is hearing people say they are buying them because of the red maple leaves, so Canadian, blah de blah. Grrrr. Makes me feel I'm caving in to touristy selling. Maybe I am. Except that I do like leaves.

Hopefully the pieces in the kiln will all be good, so I can take them to the Carp Market tomorrow. The woods all around us are gorgeous right now, bright with yellow, orange and red leaves, so my booth will fit right in! And please don't tell me you are buying my mug because of the red maple leaf, I might snarl!

Speed, if any

One thing I really wonder about. I see pictures of potters posed with their work - masses of work, whole battalions of work. Hundreds of mugs drying, tables full of bowls waiting to be trimmed, all lined up so neatly.

I must be doing something wrong.

Today I worked for almost 3 hours to paint sunflowers on 6, count 'em, 6, mugs. The rest of the day disappeared on decorating 8 more mugs. That's 14 mugs, and all I did was paint the designs on them.The designs were not new, so I didn't have to do much thinking, the stains were ready to go, the mugs were glazed. All I did was push the brush for 7 hours to paint 14 mugs.

Here are the Sunflowers before firing:

The others were a mixed bag of special orders (2 mugs are not in the picture, they ran too fast):

Maybe I could advertise myself as the world's slowest potter?

Ah well, they're in the kiln now. I'll post a picture of the finished mugs in a few days, assuming they fire up OK.

Tomorrow I get to throw yarn bowls and chili bowls. Whoo hoo, speed!

Personal Victories

What a week! I'm just racking up the Personal Victories here, right, left and centre!

First, my garbage got picked up yesterday! Don't laugh, these days getting rid of your garbage is not that easy. We only get garbage garbage picked up every second week... the alternate week they pick up paper re-cycling and compost. Cans and bottles go the same week as garbage. Since I don't have much garbage, I tend to only put it out every 4 to 6 weeks, and of course I get totally confused. When I got to the road Sunday night I noticed my neighbour had his compost bin out. So I turned around and drove home (my driveway is l-o-o-o-n-g) and checked my calender. Still looked like garbage week to me so I put my 3 bags out. It worked! Garbage is gone! Yahoo!

Garbage is so complicated these days my husband threw up his hands and quit. He hasn't thrown anything out since 1976.

Then today I managed to cancel the insurance on the car we haven't had for more than a month! I thought it would be simple, but it took a number of phone calls, waiting for the right person, discussion, negotiation, deliberation, looking up of rates etc etc until I really felt I should just forget about it and let them insure it in perpetuity. But we got 'er done, folks! And with all the nifty deals and discounts my agent was able to get for me, it will cost hardly any more to insure my truck now than it used to cost to insure both it and its late stablemate.

 I never did understand economics, but I used to understand insurance. Not anymore.

I'm delighted to report that I did not leave the portable phone outside in the rain yesterday! Alright, so maybe I did, but it was under an old pail and didn't get wet. That counts, right?

My phone handsets have a rough history. I take them along with me while I'm gardening and stuff happens. I'm pretty sure at least one got planted, and one got carried away by an enemy critter. I found it years later in the woods in a place where I have never gardened, so I don't think I should be blamed. They should sell replacement handsets, really.

And the laundry is almost done... ha, take that, underwear! No doubt you, Dear Reader, do yours on a reasonable schedule, but I operate on the 'wait until you have absolutely nothing left to wear' system. Then I do several loads in a big hurry and forget all about laundry until next time... today I did some work in the Studio, dashed into the house to move the wet into the dryer and re-load the washer, did some work in the Herb Garden, dashed into the house to move the laundry on one step, went out on an errand, came back and dashed into the house... you get the idea. In between I searched for the phone and had an earnest discussion with my insurance agent... maybe the laundry basket should 'ping' like my oven does.

If I won a lottery, I'd buy enough clothes to last a year, and would throw them out as I went along; wait, would that work? Are t-shirts and jeans garbage, re-cycling or compost? And I wonder if I could get insurance on my phones, then I could put one in the garbage bag and phone the road and if the ravens answer maybe they could sort out the whole compost/re-cycling/insurance thing for me... After all, they are garbage experts.

And it's only Tuesday.