Long break coming to an end

Where on earth have I been? I had hoped to be posting more regularly, but life took over. Since my last post (in October!) we had some renovations done to our kitchen. This took over our home from right before Thanksgiving until mid-December. Living out of boxes, walking past piles of our belongings and trying to keep the dust out of our living space while gearing up for the holiday season was a bit hectic to say the least, but completely worth it in the end.
Now we have a much more spacious and efficient kitchen that is easy to maintain with extra cupboards and pretty to look at. Now as I wake up each morning to our cozy new room, I enjoy spending time sitting at our table drinking tea.This makes my chef fiance very happy and has been inspiring him to cook some fancy and elaborate meals. Just today he started a batch of homemade kim chi. This was from our perfectly quiet New Year's dinner.
All the renovations at home made the holidays sort of just slip past. Days just vanished as I was busy with my shop, day job, renovations and the usual Xmas hustle and bustle. In the studio I am back to glazing a new round of work. The holidays cleared me out, giving me room to work on some more new ideas and focus on some old familiar items too. Glaze firings are always exciting since you never really know how the glazes will come out. This firing will feature 3 new glaze colors: bright avocado green, apple red, and tangerine orange. I can hardly wait!

Back to it

I have been a bad blogger, its true. And for most of the summer I was a bad potter. The trade off was much needed time to enjoy the summer and relax on weekends and evenings instead of pushing myself. But, now I'm back to the studio and back to work.
Instead of potting, much of my newly discovered free time was spent in our garden or processing our veggies. After all of our hard work and trying season of cool weather and tons of rain, we couldn't stand to part with any of our homegrown produce. All summer our fridge was packed to the gills with kale, chard, chili peppers and squash. As the end of August rolled around we (for the first time ever) canned our food. It was labor intensive, but after 3 or 4 days of prepping, washing jars and cooking up batches, we ended up with quite a collection of yummy garden treats to get us through the cold months.
To name a few: curried zukes, bread and butter pickles, pickled garlic, three kinds of hot sauce, and a few chutneys. Mmmm.Now that our garden is pretty much finished (except for that hardy kale!) and its too cold to spend time by the creek, I'm getting back to it. Working on some new ideas and restocking my shop....just in time for the cool weather. Chili anyone?

Summer days

Shortly after my last update, I decided to participate in a small craft show in my backyard during the Rosendale Street Festival in the Belltower Market.
It was the first time I had shown my stoneware work and I realized as I was setting up my table that the last time I participated in a show of any kind was five years ago.
I ran into many old friends and made some new ones. In particular, I found my fiber counterpart in Alison Tauber's silkscreened clothing. We noticed our work has a similar design sense and color scheme. I came home with this excellent t-shirt printed on organic cotton.

It was good to get out and show my new body work which has only been seen and sold on etsy. I heard lots of good feedback and met a few local shop owners. Most importantly, it gave me the inspiration I was looking for to get me back in the studio.

Vacation mode and front page

Happy summer! Hard to believe it's been exactly a month since my last post. I have been on a bit of a sabbatical from working in my studio. Aside from a major cleaning and purging, I have been reading up on marketing art both on and off the internet. There are so many resources that I've found with a little digging around the internet and library. Most importantly, I'm rediscovering how good it feels to unplug from the computer and relax by the creek we live near. I think this desire to reconnect with nature is even stronger after cool and rainy June.
I have lots of work to photograph still and post. My shop is pretty full at the moment, but as of today, I decided to go into semi-vacation mode in my shop. I am excited to get back to making new work and want to focus my energies on making for the next few weeks. So, I'm going to post less often and renew here and there. I'll post pictures of my progress, both in my studio and garden real soon. Hopefully there will be lots of growth in both areas!

This month, I was included in two absolutely beautiful treasuries, both of which made it to the front page of etsy. It would be really swell if etsy had some way of notifying sellers that they were on the front page, other than the rush of convos and hearts you get during that brief time. Either way, I was especially flattered by this one assembled by windowseatbooks. It included two of my items and other potters I admire. Plus a few new sellers I've never heard of before.
For whatever reason, the one assembled by owlonthesill just may be my all time favorite. Thanks to both sellers!

Out of space

Before I start a new body of work, I need to start with a fresh and organized space. Yesterday as I was cleaning the shelves where I store finished work and work in progress, I could see I was completely out of space. I have two entire shelves of work that are waiting to find homes. So, I am marking down items that have been around for a while. Check out my OUT OF SPACE SALE.
I'll be adding new items until I can see the back of my deep shelves. That means lots of items at super affordable prices.

Interview and a garden update

I've been interviewed on Artsy Beat's blog. Click here to see it. If you're not familiar with Artsy Beat, you should definitely check it out. Lots of interviews with artists in all mediums and some helpful articles too. A great way to get some inspiration and learn about other artists on etsy and around the world.Not much new to report from my studio at the moment. I've been working on filling up my etsy shop a bit. But almost all of my free time has been spent working on our 20 x 30' garden plot at a community garden. And the weather up until this week has been ideal for prepping the beds and planting. Last year we grew so much food we had to freeze and pickle a bunch. The site is ideal, tons of sun and insanely fertile soil. You'd never know if from this pic below, taken in mid-May.
After tilling and plotting out beds, it was starting to show some signs of a decent veggie garden.
Even more promising with lots of seedlings. Now all we have to do is keep up with watering and weeding. I've lost count of the number of wheelbarrows we filled with weeds so far just this year.