Play is its own reward: Art Harvest Tour mass Production

The Art Harvest Studio Tour was the first two weekends, including Fridays in October.  The week between we had student tours come to the studios.  From the first Friday our attendance was down from previous years.  I had time in the studio.  What to do?  Make masks.

Mantel Masks

When folks did come in, since I was working anyway it was easy to give them a quick demonstration and make another mask.  One of the first sales on the first Friday was one of the two remaining Mantel Masks.  I was down to one mantel.  I decided to make mantel masks during the Tour and as demos for the students.

Bisque, thinking about glaze

It kind of got away from me.
This year I was on a mission to do clearance.  I priced to clear.  It worked.  I got rid of a lot of work.

I sabotaged my clearance agenda.  One of the students asked what was my favorite thing in working with clay.  My answer.  When the clay is malleable, ready to remember my touch and be shaped into whatever I suggest.  When the clay is alive.

Thus I make and make and make.  I will be always having clearance sales to have room for more.

Play is its own reward.  How often have I heard that?

Arts Alive appearance talking about Pottery

On October 18th we went down to the McMinnville Community Media studio to appear on Arts Alive the local arts and culture show.  Liz talked with host Lynda Phillippi first.  I posted the video of her.  I forgot to post my interview.

We talked about clay and pottery and the Art Harvest Studio Tour, of course.  The Tour was last weekend and the second weekend is coming up.

We had students on the Student/Education Studio Tour today.  They all seemed to come at once.  It was kind of frantic for awhile.  Still fun.

Firing Tiles and Masks

Lug Marl Tri

Cone 06 firing tonight masks and tiles.  The tiles are tests for our Cederwood house bathroom around the shower.  Green, blue and gold are almost the same colors as the bird masks. 

Glazing is one of my least favorite pottery chores.  I mixed glazes together in a random manner without keeping records.  My goal and I achieve it completely is to not be able to reproduce a glaze.  Each thing fired, even in the electric kiln is unique, not to be repeated.  Sometimes I wish I could recapture a look.  The price of "one of a kind".

I watched some of videos at Wordpress TV about setting up a blog in Wordpress.   One of the videos talked about SEO and mentioned blogs being "scraped" and content being re-purposed (used) by other bloggers or whomever.  There is a plug-in which attaches back link code to the content.  When someone copies it will bring the link code back to the scrapper, thus and easy back link. 

The free Wordpress dot com blog does not allow plug ins.  The technical "geeky" stuff to learn is daunting.  Well, there was a time 20 some years ago when I knew nothing about clay.  And still learning about it, too.

Display art in the Community Living room

Cornerstone Coffee House

Last November I had a mask show at the  Cornerstone Coffee House in McMinnville.  A long brick wall with my faces.  Selecting pieces to show were folks sip coffee and work away on their laptops is like deciding what to wear to a party where you do not know anyone.  You are sure to be judged by the few who my look, but it is not worth fussing over it. 

Re Garlini

I like having shows in public places like coffee houses.  It is where people spend time.  They are community living rooms and what better place to have your work than where folks live. 

Sider Ryley

Owl

I sat in Cornerstone and watched a college student look up from her sleek laptop.  She looked at Re Garlini for maybe a minute.  Just gazed.  Maybe she was day dreaming, or composing a reply to an email from her friend who needed advice about what to eat for lunch.  She got up slowly walked over to Re and touched him on the nose. She returned to her table, sipped her coffee and hunched over her computer.  Her fingers skipping lightly over the keyboard. 

I like to think that she was telling her friend about the encounter she just had.  There was something about Re Garlini which resonated.  She did get up and touched his nose.  What did he say to her?