Yes – I do struggle keeping this site updated but I have big plans! This summer I will be building a home studio and working on creating web sales!
This weekend is the Boulder Potters Guild Annual Spring Sale at the Boulder County Fairgrounds. I don’t have much work currently but I really wanted to participate – I am the President of the Guild after all! SO I have a little booth set up! Walking around the sale is so inspiring – I’m so proud of the work of my fellow guild members!
So we are relaxing with our friends Marios and Maria in Cyprus at their beautiful beach house. Since I have not had consistent WiFi until here I have not been able to post… so that means I eventually will have to go back in time and start from the beginning post by post. This should be fun because I will get to live it over again. But for now I’m here at Konnos Bay. The water is a magical color of blue that my phone will never be able to deliver. I haven’t taken many pictures yet but here is one taken around 2pm white on a walk to the market:
The Mediterranean Sea
Here is the view from our bedroom:
Last night we went to a a traditional Cypriot Taverna in Soltira called Ploumin. There we had a traditional mezedes dinner … or what Patrick calls “death by a thousand tiny dishes”. We started with some pickled items, bread, salad and quail eggs The dips are tzaziki and tahina:
Quail eggs!Mezedes
Anyway, as usual, we got so busy eating, talking and drinking Cypriot wine and I forgot to take any more pictures but there was 20 more dishes that came out – souvlaki, keftedes, grilled halloumi, eggplant, grilled chicken and many items that I cannot pronounce or figure out how to write.
Well we are off to do some snorkeling so I will write more later…
Well I just remembered that I can post from my phone… Only a week into my trip. I find that I don’t want to sit still a moment over here…i want to walk and drink in everything I can. And eat! I have one meal out a day and every one has been pasta.
Right now I am having lunch at Cucina Torcicoda…a rec from the NYT. It is fantastic. I am having the special… tagliatele with porcini. Housemade pasta of course. AMAZING!
I love the little leather basket for the bread.
This place is right up my alley because it has a tiny menu and serve red or white wine…one kind… the house. At least for lunch. They can make any cocktail and it is the same price. A glass of wine is 4euros…my pasta is 8. I’m having a glass of white and it is delicious.
Anyway… I spent the first half of the day at the Uffizi Gallery. I looked at every painting. It was wild seeing so many paintings that I studied in school.
I’m getting ready to head to Italy in a week and will be blogging from there. I am hoping to get re-acquainted with this blog especially since there have been so many updates and changes since I was last writing.
So I will be heading to Rome for a bit, then Florence for a bit, and then a week at La Meridiana in Tuscany where I will be taking a workshop with Peter Beard.
After the workshop I will be spending a week in Cyprus with friends before wrapping the trip up with a couple of nights in Paris.
So to get my self back into a writing practice and re-learning my way around this blog I plan to share my trip here! Stay tuned…
Ok – so I am done with school – that was a long haul. Am I a “real” artist now?
As much as I feel such relief finishing I am also feeling a tiny bit at loose ends. Funny – I went back to school because I wasn’t happy with my work and now that I’m done I’m not happy with my work. Really – I’m just feeling a little blocked. Today I am going into the studio to make some triaxial blends using mason stains. I have been using underglazes but not so happy with the flat look I get. I’m hoping that by adding a bit of titanium to my glazes and brushing on the layers I’ll get a little more sense of depth.boring…
Ya know – I’ve always wanted to make dishware with muted colors but for some reason I end up with bright colors. I’ve also always been interested in white. I think I might start investigating this soon.
Priscilla was so wonderful to take some images of the newest work I dropped off at the Boulder Arts and Crafts Gallery. This body of work is still in progress and I am experimenting with getting out of my comfort zone and playing with more color. I’m not 100% sure how I feel about it – I’ve always been a more neutral color kind of gal – preferring to dress in blacks and greys and keeping my work more towards the quiet side. Working with the color is scary for me but I feel it is time for me to take a few more risks. I have always felt that working with clay is “my practice”…along the lines of yoga and meditation. So here is some results of the latest to emerge.
So – I have made the switch to porcelain and have been working hard in the studio getting to know it better. I forgot about the importance of drying it slowly – my first round of bowls had quite a bit of cracking – ugh! I have the first round in the bisque kiln as I write…
So I’m slowly getting my act together after a pretty crazy summer. I now have my galleries stocked (mostly – the BACG needs more work!) but I need not only to be making new work PRONTO but I am trying to develop my online presence and get an Etsy shop open. At the same time, I am learning how to shoot images of my work using my Galaxy S5 to achieve somewhat professional results. I know I really need to hire someone to take images of my work (as soon as I have more work to shoot) for exhibition submissions and a postcard, but right now I want great photos to post on this site and my soon to be Etsy store. In any case, here are some of the first images I took with my phone this morning…
I really need to update this site but it’s hard to get myself to sit down at the computer and just do it. I have had a crazy busy last 6 months (more like 6 years) and no matter what, the days are never long enough. All I want to do is be in the studio making but there are the actual paycheck related jobs, family and friends and …well…you know how it goes.
I have extremely successful Boulder Potters Guild Sales last fall and this Spring – I am just so grateful for all the support!
I am also working with Trish Kurnik and her new gluten-free baking biz – New Beat Foods. We’ll be at the Boulder Farmers Market on Saturdays and you can also find our crackers at Cured on Pearl Street in Boulder.
Anyway, just a quick update. Pictures of my new work to follow…