Testing Etsy

I spent most of the weekend photographing, fussing, and posting on Etsy. My shop is called Cloud Machine, and you can look at it here http://www.etsy.com/shop.php?user_id=5534021.

Necklaces now and other things to come.

Needless to say, this is rather time consuming and takes away from other life things. I have sat on my sweet ass all weekend in front of a screen, obsessing about how many views my things are getting. It has kept me from my New Year's promises to exercise more.

On that note, I have been moving more this week, went to belly dance class and sweated a bunch, then to the Y to watch ER on the elliptical, and then I taught yoga this morning. You'd think I'd be thin and fantastic, but I feel sort of blobby and uncoordinated. I've never had a model's figure, but as I get older and grayer (fuck, yes, grayer, and I am ferociously dyeing my hair) I feel less than frais.

Maybe I need a new tattoo!

Back to it

This is Liesl in my negative space dress made of recycled tee-shirts. She's lovely and shapely.

This semester was really tough. I'm glad it's over, even though I made a lot of great stuff.

My video projection "Hesitation". Gauze, video, shoe polish. Installed in vacant apartment as part of "Expansion" in April 2007.

Speaking of this semester, I have worked my ass off... I was in four shows- one wearable art, two conceptual art, one vessels. I also achieved straight A's, even though I found it nearly impossible to go to class with the babies. One of the hardest things about going back to school at age 38 is that everyone in class with me is 18. I'm old enough to be their mother, but BELIEVE ME, if I were their mother, I'd beat them with a coat hanger. What the hell is going on with kids these days? My son is 14 and far more interesting to talk to (if you discount the subject "video games") than most of my "peers" at WSU.

The kids in my foundations classes are watchers, not doers. They draw anime cartoons and think that being an artist is about doing whatever. Most of them are completely talent-free.

To go to class for 8 hours a day with them is torture. Like listening to piano music or watching Evan play shooter games.

I, on the other hand, am brilliant and talented. More evidence on the way.

Long absence

Back to this again. I finished a crazy semester (more on that later) and Christmas holidays exhausted and wrung out. I was going through some pictures of the Farmer's Market today and they totally cheered me up. I tend to get a little seasonal depression, usually nothing that a few glasses of wine can't cure, but this year seems a little worse than usual.

Looking at these great pictures reminds me of all the great things about summer- without any of the heat that goes with it!

Glaze day, water permitting

Today I'm going into the studio to glaze my pots, that is, if the water main has been fixed and we have running H2O. It is hard to glaze without water to wipe up the mistakes (and there are always many).

The last batch of babies came out of the fire looking kind of sad. The pots were cute enough when they went in, but some of the glazes were contaminated, and some were too thick, some were just not quite what I was expecting. That's shared glaze for you- I'll call it the Goldilocks Effect- some too hot, some too cold, some too big- but occasionally one is just right.

The moral of the story is " Make your own, honey". Then hide them.

I have a nice white white, and a very lavender lavender, a green salt and a water blue for the ones I do today. I'm going to mix up a blue celadon and this time spray them all on.

The thing about clay is that you can't get too attached to the objects you make. It's the perfect medium for those who have to learn to let go- the material is unpredictable, it has it's own personality and issues, it has to be handled with care and then after it looks like the worst is over, you put it in a windowless kiln and light a 2300 degree fire. Then you wait for a few days to see what what happens.

Sometimes it's bad:

Sometimes it's good:

I will sacrifice a soy green tea latte to the glaze goddess today. Perhaps it will please her.