winter

It is March and still snowing. We spend lots of time in the forest, walking, snowshoeing, and skiing. The landscapes are intimate, austere, I find them revealing of the bones of the forest. One aspect of perpetual interest is tree bark, each tree is different, each tree's experience is individual and the bark reflects this life. I striate my pots surfaces in much the same fashion. Here are some barks that caught my eye today.

time to get to work

Well, it is about time to get to work for real in the studio, I've been teaching a great group of student's to throw, and next week will start a group of handbuilders, but, I also want to start making pots. There are a few ideas floating around in my head, but it is always a leap to actually start working. Baskets are on my mind, as well as herons, rabbits and summer tea bowls. I want to explore of the local muds, we'll see what comes up.

last winter's class firing

We always finish a workshop series with a firing. Here is the unstacking of last winter's group firing. We had a lot of fun as you can see in the smiley faces. this was a great group of creative students.

winter courses

Well, it's time to start up the studio with some courses, for the first time in many years I am offering a throwing class. It is already full. There was just the time to think about it and it was full. So, if you are interested, sign up for the next one and reserve a spot. Hand building will start February 21 and will go for 10 weeks. This session we will look at sculptural aspects, appendages, figurines. We'll see what comes out, I can't wait. Sign up quickly, there are only 2 spots left.

winter in Val David

Today we have a crisp, COLD morning of -30, everything is still. Here is my vegetable garden covered in snow. It is hard to imagine it being any other way, but of course, in about 3 months I'll be planting seeds. How do I know this, because seed catalogues have arrived in the mail. I haven't started working yet, but I am readying the studio for classes. February will see handbuilding and throwing classes. Open studio will start next week. It will be nice to see everyone. In the meantime, stay warm.

Lezarts lizard

Another project that took me in completely different direction was the local performing arts rehearsal space, Lezarts Loco, was having a fund raiser and asked local artists to interpret their name in whatever medium they chose. I, of course said sure, and promptly forgot all about it. The week before the auction, the director bumped into me at a concert and said how much he was looking forward to seeing the entries. WHOOPS! I came home and that night stayed up looking at images of lizards, thinking of a design. By the next afternoon, my little sculpture was roughly done and the rest was fiddling& polishing. It rained all week so it had to be put it in the kitchen oven to dry. I got it out of the pit fire, gave it a polish and entered the auction just as the tags were being put on. To my astonishment it fetched the highest bid, and won the juries prize. The project was all fun, that's what it must be about. Anyway, that's inspiring me right now, being turned on . We'll see what comes up next.

pit fired leaf tiles

This autumn saw a few different projects, one of which was creating tiles for the surface of a thermal mass wood stove. I wanted to make a connection with the trees and the flame, shapes that could fit together and a look of warmth, softness. What I came up with was red clay, polished and pit fired. The colours are orangey to black with lots of soft inbetweens. I fired them on their ends to maximize shadows. The tiles were waxed to protect them before installation and also after to give a dull sheen. When I walk by the house in the evening I can see the glow of the orangey tiles through the window, very pretty with falling snow.