studio open house, students' work exhibition

Sunday, April 29 we will be opening the studio for visits to see the new renovations and to check out the recent students work. We finished a series of classes this week with 2 firings, one at high fire and one barrel fire. Everyone did great work and was happy with the outcome. Gita and Lana have been doing really interesting work this winter and have lots of pots to show. As well, Gita will have her terrific, organic skin products for sale and  Leslie will be doing Tarot card readings. We look forward to seeing you 11-4.

renovated studio

Well, renovations are over, at least for the moment. It seems I am always looking at what we need to fix or tweak or add on. But for the time being, and I hope for quite a while things will stay as is. I am very happy with the increased space. We have room to move around easier and there is space for 2 more students. The kiln sheds are the same, work space is enlarged, Liam worked miracles by finding tricks to use every nook and cranny. We can now work without being on top of each other. Thank you to Liam, my patient family and everyone in the studio who put up with the disruption.

spring renovations

Well the season has abruptly changed from the interior quiet of winter to an explosively warm week to coincide with breaking down of an interior wall to expand the studio. Fortunately the weather was warm enough to leave windows and doors open while Liam , the genius builder, rearranged spaces, made doorways become walls, and walls disappear. The studio has doubled work space and we will lost the cramped feeling. The chaos of renovations is disruptive but exciting too. The next post will show the results.

ice curtain

Today, we snowshoed up the mountain to a rock formation called "le Bleue". Along the top of the cliff runs a trickle of water that slowly drips off the edge. In the winter this freezes and forms an ice curtain. You can even go behind the curtain into a cave of rock and ice. The ice varies in colour from blue to creamy yellow. The rock face is granite and I imagine the pale blue is from minerals migrating to the water, glaze made from granite dust makes this colour apparently, I've not been able to get the dust fine enough. The yellow is from iron in the earth on the rock. The ice is luminous, at least 6" thick. I will try to make a glaze like this, maybe nepheline syenite with ash. I get the creamy yellow with black slip covered with thick ash. The sun is strong and the ice is melting drip, drip drip, icicles down to the ground [snow].

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.