Life Elbow Deep in Mud

I've Moved....

2010-10-24T17:13:00.000-07:00

I don't have internet access at home. Crazy, huh. I'm a struggling artist and I'm trying to keep my cost down. That was why my post were so infrequent. I realized that when I did get online, I had so much to do, I usually forgot to do a new post. My website has a blog format and since I can work offline, giving me time to write slowly, edit carefully and really work out my photos, I have been doing my blog there. I hope you will stop by:

Elbow Deep in Mud

Clay Shaper Gallery

Thank you...

Sally Anne

Inspiration From Muddy Hands

2010-04-28T19:16:00.000-07:00

What potter, or artist for that matter, does look about them at other potters and draw inspiration from their work? Here are a few potters that I really enjoy. Check them out...

Gay Smith:

Her pots just dance on their tippy toes begging you to pick them up and use them. She has such great movement to her pots. Something to strive for...

Gustavo Perez:

A precision and cleanness that I don’t think I could ever master. And such simple beauty. And the clay as clay. Much to love.

Ruthanne Tudball:

Talk about flow. It’s like a movement of water caught forever in time. Her work speaks of the moment on the wheel and the burst of the flame. Amazing.

Fred Olsen:

Simple, quiet and calm - but off center, like so much of life. And then, some of his work is so constructed and about the angles, but always about the fire. Inspiring.

One Thing...Every Day.

2010-04-22T13:21:00.000-07:00

I’ve come to realize that in the world of art, and maybe life in general, it’s never going to be one thing that makes you. Not the one shop that starts to sell your stuff or the famous person that buys your wares or the juried show you get into or your website, FB fan page or the events you put on by yourself or with friends. One thing will never make or break you. With that said, I have a new (?) theory. Ok, My friend Amelia told me she followed this theory: Do something, one thing, every day to further yourself closer to your dream/goal.

I’m trying to do this. You don’t have to do something huge, just something. This morning I got up and I posted a status update on the Covert Potters Association’s Facebook: Riddle me this, answer me that... I love handmade because___________. After I hit snooze a few times, I checked back with the FB page. Three people had already commented. Not bad for 20 minutes. It’s people being engaged by me about craft. It’s that connection that builds a following and makes people look for you, I hope. This past weekend, I made mugs for the upcoming sale. Monday I sent out the CPA’s first newsletter, Tuesday, check on the results. Always, checking on FB and Etsy, keeping track of my numbers. Tonight, I'm writing this article and tomorrow I will post this on my blog. Somedays I download photos, retouch and ready them for uploading.

One thing. I have information packets with me at all times and I will hand them out to people who are interested, have a shop, restaurant, or love for crafts. I talk with my fellow Covert Potters to get ideas, information, support, etc. It doesn’t have to be selling a pot or booking a huge event, just something. Make a call, check out a site, write...

I don’t know if all this will win the battle or the war. With the Monday-Friday job that sucks up all my time during the week. Being able to do something small helps me to keep my sanity. And with the fact that my job only has 16 days to go before I will be jobless, It keeps me focused and hopeful for the future.

Today I hope you will be able to do one thing...

Project Runway... Really.

2010-04-18T21:11:00.000-07:00

Ok, not the thing you may come to think I might write about, a Reality TV competition on fashion designers, but here it goes.I can get suck into almost ant TV show where talented creative people are asked to bring their best to a challenge. Top Chef, Design Star, Project Runway, etc. (OK, Not so much American Idol, but sing out sweet sister if you need to.) I like to see creativity at work. Yes, even under pressure in an hour format on TV. How many people can take a bolt of fabric, thread, zippers, buttons and make something amazing. How many people can excel while the producers, camera men and audience breath down their necks, expecting something they have not seem before to be created. And how many people are willing to put their fear in their back pockets and push full steam ahead at their dreams. Yes, reality TV have given us some of the worst faux celebrities, but they have also highlighted great creative talent. At the end of this season, of all who have struggled to survive and win, one will be left standing and have a chance of a lifetime. And the others will have proven themselves and have doors open to them like never before.

Days to go, and I’m very excited. This season’s Project Runway has been a personal high stakes game for me as m

y friend Mila Hermanovski has become one of the top three. It amazes me how well she has handled the pressure and how happy

following her dream has made her.

Gives me hope as I struggle to make my own dreams come true. My fingers are crossed, for the both of us...

You Rocked it with all your being. Congrats!

From the Ashes... Update.

2010-04-16T21:07:00.000-07:00

I’ve been working on my ceramic pieces for the Art from the Ashes exhibition in June 2010. It’s going to be a fabulous event to help raise money for the Duekmejian Wilderness Park in Glendale Ca. This park was sacrificed during the Station Fire to save the homes near the foothills. I have gone to the area to find burnt treasures to create from. I’m drawing on the idea of renewal with this box. I’ve taken paper clay and created a large form for a small shadow box. OK, The paper clay got amazingly moldy while I was letting it get leather hard.

I craved a leaf pattern into the clay. I usually get real leaves and use them as a guide. I went big with this box to get the feel of standing beneath a tree.And let dry for days, really weeks. It’s very important that the clay dries slowly and evenly. It’s so easy for the clay to crack while it’s shrinking in the drying process. (I’ve lost two boxes in a different clay body. One in the drying, the other in the bisque firing.)

This leaf box has survived the making, drying, bisque firing and glaze firing to be a thing of beauty. I glazed it with a traditional Celadon glaze. I have to admit that the glaze turned rusty brown where thin. Much like a tree at the beginning of the fall.

One of the treasure I found in the park is a branch that survived the fire, but the tree it was from did not. I’ve cut the wood so that the inside and the chard out side are visible and added then to the small box.

The permeant leaf box around the chard wood, speaking of both what was and what will be again, cause the land is fertile and the will of the seed is strong.

I've got one more shadow box done and one more drying. Cross your fingers...

Let’s Start at the Very Beginning...

2010-04-09T23:29:00.000-07:00

... It's a very good place to start.

This is the first pot I have ever made. Look at this beauty. I based it on... A brick! Can you believe that? One look says yes. In my first clay class I learned coil, pinch and slab techniques. I was off and running. This was slab built. As you can see right from the start, I was going to change the world and reinvent the teapot. Notice the stylized handle... that is the worst thing to pour hot liquid from. Check out the lid. It echos the handle and has no real way to stay one the pot when you pour. And lastly, I hope you are enjoying the extra droopy spout. The beauty is that if you try to fill the teapot up to the top, the tea comes spilling out before you get there. Good times.

I was so proud when I made this pot and used it for months. But I didn’t just stop using it one day, I made a new teapot. I took all that I learned while enjoying this pot and reinvented the teapot again. And when the time was right, I did that again and again. And I try to do it with every pot I make today. But I keep this teapot around to remind me to make, to use, to enjoy and to reinvent, when ever I can.

Make something pretty.

Art from the Ashes

2010-03-12T21:02:00.000-08:00

About ten years ago my ex and I spent a fabulous November "Black Friday" night doing writing exercises with a few hopeful writers. I remember that night held lots of laughs. Afterwards we went home, I dropped off my purse in my apartment and headed over to my friends apartment in the next complex over. He was out of town, we were watching his cats and he had cable and ice cream in the freezer. A lovely way to end the evening. Less than an hour after settling in on the couch, we heard sirens. And they stopped close. So, my ex and I went out to see what was going on...

At first we thought it was the car dealership next door to our house. Then we realized, it was our house. We lived in a in a double craftsmen house. Our neighbors in the other half of the house woke up to the smell of the smoke and called 911. The fire engine was 3 blocks away on a minor call and was breaking in our door in less than 3 minutes. That was a surreal moment for me. Watching everything and unable to do anything.

Our cat sat in the back bedroom window, patiently waiting for us to come get him. The good news. The bird, was to close to the fire and died. The bad news. The firemen put out the fire, that started in the corner of the living room by the gas heater and dragged out of the house anything that might spark a flame later. Like I said, it was a corner of a room, by the book shelf. I lost 90% of my books, a computer, nick-nacks, my ex's amp and guitar, and may things that I have forgotten about. I remember that I kept sating "sorry" to everyone. And I felt helpless for days after as we tried to clean up what we could and make the best of living in a hotel around the corner. And the reality was that it was just a corner of room...

When I hear sirens, I always say: "God bless somebody." Something my mom taught me to do as a child. I also give money to the American Red cross, they paid for the hotel, cleaning supplies and food. Two weeks later we had moved into the other half of the bungalow, but most of my books were never replaced nor was the bird. And I realize just how quickly life can change and not for the best.

When the Station fire was raging in the Los Angeles Nation forest last fall and I lived with the pyrocumulus clouds growing, shifting and changing for two weeks, I though "God bless many somebodies." I knew that helpless feeling that many people we feeling. So when my friend Joy, founder of the Art from the Ashes foundation, put out the call to artist to come collect burnt treasures from one of the areas that was burned in that fire, I was eager to help. Please watch this space to see what I create!

Here are a few photo from my first day hunting for what will inspire me.

Check out the organization: Art from the Ashes

Support. Inspire. Create. Renew.

You've Got To Have Friends...

2010-02-05T21:49:00.000-08:00

I really hope I've put that god awful song in your head... Cause it's now in mine. And that's why I didn't change the title.

I've got friends. It's taken me a few years. You see, I've only been in the Los Angeles area for 3 years, 1 month and 6 days. That's not a lot of time to find a job, learn your way around and make friends. But I've come up with a fabulous handful. And a few of us have formed an association: The Covert Potters Association.

We are a group of potter that have banded together to weather the current economic climate by cheering each other on, staging events to get our pottery out there to the general public and well, just have fun.

Check us out: Covert Potter Association

We are also on Facebook: Covert Potter on Facebook

And our next Event: Soup's Up (In case you are in Altadena Area in March)

Bowls waiting to be filled.

Travel light, Travel Well.

2010-02-01T21:57:00.001-08:00

Sometimes you've just got to get away and enjoy an early morning hike with friends. And who says you can't take it with you?

Hike: Fish Creek Trail - Duarte, Ca.
Mug: Sally Anne, Tea Bowl: Chris
Hikers: Chris, Josh, Melanie and Me.

The Good. The Bad. The Glazed.

2010-01-28T20:46:00.000-08:00

Glazed and ready for the kiln
vs.
Glaze fired and ready to use

I love playing in clay. A big bag of clay. Water. The wheel. Lots of mud and mess. Let me throw out a slab. Cut it. slip it. Press it and make a mess. I'm all for it. Toss me in front of a wood kiln and let me feed the fire on very little sleep and then ask me to split some wood... Ok.

But how I dislike glazing. I think it goes back to my childhood. When I told my parents that I wanted to make pottery: I was enrolled in a ceramic painting class. Each week at the beginning of the class, we were given the choice between two pre-made bisqueware objects d' art. A or B, A or B, A or B. I would sit with the under glazes and paint them on, all the while, wondering why I couldn't make it pretty. I hand the eye/hand coordination of a monkey. Yes, I know, I was hard on myself at 12.

Now jump forward 30+ years. I still approach glazing with a slight bad taste in my mouth. You'd think I'd be excited to start the last step before a beautiful finished project. Not so much. It's like detention. I would sometime rather scrap kiln shelves than dip a pot into a glaze bucket. This just may be the reason I love to wood fire. Or I may just be lazy...

But it's also a great motivator. I've got to find creative ways to decorate my pots with the least amount of glazing craziness. Now that can be the fun part...

Time...

2010-01-19T20:37:00.000-08:00

I really wish I had more of it. My job encompasses my Monday through Friday life and potting takes up the weekend. Ok, I do get a bike ride or two in most weekends. Good for the soul and the creative mind. Some of my best ideas come to me while cruising through the streets of Griffith Park. For some reason, dodging traffic makes me think of cheese plates.
But, when can a Mud Monkey find time to make all I think of? Heaven forbid someone ask me to do a fabulously social activity on the week ends. As much as I want to say yes, I think, but I've got 12 yarn bowls to trim and cut... Could I be more dedicated? Could I be more of a loser? What a delicate balance. If I don't say yes once in awhile, my friends will forget me and I'll never go out. (Vacuums are great for carpets but bad to live in.) Hey, sometimes I can get my friends to do arty/pottery things and life is grand...
If only the week was eight days long or I never needed to sleep, then I wouldn't have this problem. As it is, I'm still at work using the computer, I should go home and exercise and get to sleep. Or I could see if the kiln is cooled and see if the cheese plates are done. Tough choices...

Can a girl find happiness with a life elbow deep in mud?

2010-01-15T23:33:00.000-08:00

By mud I mean clay...
And the above is a question I ask myself everyday. I do know that I am much happier on the weekends when I'm sitting at a potter's wheel with clay than I am at my day job during the week.
So, let's see what happens as I try to step away from the M-F/9-5 and try to be just a potter.

Things I need to do:

Sell more pots
Find new and exciting places to sell my pots
Make more pots
Think of any and all ways I can make money
Be more organized
Get more sleep
Have confidence in my talents and pots
Speak up more often about my talents and pots

Wish me luck, cause my job ends in the middle of May and I've got lots to do before then. And this is not the best of economic times, but I can't live life the victim of my fears.
And this little blogging endeavor is to keep me on track and get me going. So feel free to poke me in the eye if I start to lag behind.

Clay Shaper Gallery

Very Truly Yours,
Sally Anne A.K.A. Mud Monkey