Holy Frostbite Batman!

We've hit record snowfall here in Boise...we must have nearly one foot at our house...and it's sticking! It's supposed to snow through 'till Monday, weather cold enough to keep it all next week (brrrrr!), then more snow predicted next weekend. It's crazy time! The roads are treacherous, but it's very beautiful, I must admit. Big, fluffy fat snowflakes falling all day long inspire the want for hot cocoa, a thick fuzzy blanket, a Muppet movie, and a warm rattie snuggled close...well, at least for me! Poor Hubby, though -- he has to shovel the driveway and walkway every day, but well, I guess it works off the hedonistic feasting we've been doing lately!

Here are a couple of shots over the last two days:

My first Beef Wellington was a smash hit! My favorite part, however, were the big crusty, doughy ends filled with wild mushroom puree -- yum! :While I got lots of fabulous gifts, Hubby got me toe socks! I love toe socks. Now I can wear my beloved flip-flops throughout the house and ceramic studio even in these cold months! The poor man ventured all over town trying to find a good assortment, and boy did he achieve his goal! These are my current favorites (I'm wearing them right now!):Here's the view of Christmas evening from my parent's back patio, with the winter sun setting:

And for those who are curious -- here's the product of that mold I made (below). In keeping with the Rune Horse series, this is my first "Runedeer" ornament, with stars on the top part, and snowflakes on the bottom part (cuz he's flying). I'm going to redesign the original clay plaque for the tile press method (these initial ones were slipcast), which means I'll have to modify the delicate lines of the snowflakes, and perhaps the stars as well. I plan to come out with a new Runedeer every Christmas, and perhaps expand into a whole series of "Runic" Christmas animals. Fun! I'm thinking of offering two of these slipcast Runedeer at auction as 100% benefits for some charities I support, so stay tuned.

Anyhoo -- that's Duncan Celedon Crackle glaze on the piece, with directional spray of a brown underglaze underneath -- a really lovely combination! Celedon Crackle is my favorite glaze by far because I love glassy glazes best, and the crackle effect and cool greenish tinge, that pool so beautifully in the recesses, win me over every time. I'd like to develop a purply crackle, a bluish crackle and perhaps a goldish crackle by mixing various glazes together with clear crackle -- wish me luck! And I just had to share with you the gift Laurie Jo Jensen sent me for Christmas. Needless to say -- I went BANANAS. Truly. Ape. Crazy. BANANAS.

I hope your Christmas (and these 12 days of Christmas!) are blissful and wonderful, too -- though perhaps not so chilly and buried in snow!

"Flying is learning how to throw yourself at the ground and miss." ~Douglas Adams

Holy Frostbite Batman!

Mayhem Mojo

These are my guard frogs. Other people have guard dogs. Or noble lions. Perhaps even a bear. Not me!---I'm all about buggy eyes and funny feet. I'm crazy about frogs and about this time of year they start to appear, singing their strange songs of love into the night. The irrigation pond at my parent's house typically rings with a cacophony of little froggy voices and if you're lucky, you can see them chillin' on the rocks along the rim. They have the right idea---hanging with buddies by the pool!

Speaking of chillin' with buddies, albiet not around a pool, but around a pool-sized kiln...Mayhem 2008 was a blast! This annual mudfest is a shameless drench in all things ceramic, splashed with lots laughter and food. Lots and lots of food. We revert to our own inner Emile, dang straight! It's food for the soul, too. Truly, when Joanie, Lesli and Lynn are together, I hear happy cosmic harmonics that rattle my neurons in pleasant ways. Yet like every year, it all came and went in a blink of a buggy eye, and the house is left so quiet and still. There's a tangible feeling my house seems to have after each Mayhem that speaks, "What the heck was that?!"

Same with my brain! Wow...my mind is still spinning from everything I've learned. There's no substitute for hands-on doings and picking the brains of experts to really jump-start the learning curve and the inspiration to tackle it. Also casting from an unprecedented nineteen piece plaster mold (Stormwatch) does a lot to whittle away any sense of timidity! I think I've finally conquered my trepidation with underglaze, too, since the two pieces I worked on came out so much nicer than I expected, and pretty much what I'd aimed to create, which is new. I suspect because I underglazed them boldly, with total abandon, with no sense of worry or anxiety that typified my earlier attempts. I had nothing to lose. It's alarming how a sense of caution can impede a creative attempt, and there's rarely a less forgiving media than ceramics, which only heightens a deep sense of artistic existential agony! Yet if you're gonna learn to swim in the glaze, you just gotta jump in! There's something to be said about uninhibited chaos in the studio. So my big breakthrough this Mayhem was experiencing the difference between freedom and fretting when working with ceramics, which was the key I needed to unlock my resistance. As anyone who knows me will tell you---I'm impulsive. I'm not a "plan ahead" kinda gal. I thrive in an "eraser situation." Yet ceramics demand a very regimented way of thinking because you have to see each step in perfect clarity, all the way to the shiny end. This is very hard for me to do, which had brilliantly impaired my ability, and desire, to even venture forth. Things are very different now. The ability not to care has unshackled my ceramic mind! So, thank you Mayhem for...well...the new creative mayhem in my mind!

Which brings me to new mayhem with cold-painting. Besides going bonkers with ceramic techniques, I'm also playing with a new cold-painting method for my dapple greys, using charcoal pencils, in white and black. I've been searching for that method that duplicates the graininess of a dapple grey accurately, while also providing absolute control so those dapples look right...and I think I finally found it....after 20+ years! I'm applying this technique in earnest on a wonderful Fraley Bram'll Blue Boy and I'm pleased as punch with how he's turning out! Here's the "before":

Then using a tortillion, I smudge strategic parts and areas to soften it:

Then I spray with Testors Dullcote, and start again, building up layers and effects. Shown here is only the first layer, so you can see I have a ways to go. I also plan to use an airbrush and hand painting to accentuate certain things. The great thing about this approach, what actually sold me on it from the get-go, is that the graininess remains in scale. I'm a big stickler for painting effects to be fastidiously in scale, which becomes increasingly important the smaller the sculpture. Honestly, there are few things more effective to erasing the "believeability" of a paintjob than having its key aspects out of scale to the pattern or the sculpture. So me thinks an article on this method for The Boat is in order!

I'm a believer in sharing information. I like a jumbled sticky sweet mess of fresh ideas heaped in a big communal bowl, tantalizing our artistic senses. Some may think this is confusing, perhaps intimidating, or even foolish, but I think it's enlightening! Exciting! To my mind, the whole point of discovering new artistic methods and concepts isn't to horde them and let them stagnate, but to douse the world with them and watch them grow. The more brains that puzzle on a technique, the more possibilities are revealed! This is why those minds that show a predilection for creative exploration and those spirits that show a fondness for sharing the lessons learned tend to garner my deepest admiration. It creates such good juju. Dessert for the mind and soul. So thank you, Joan, Lesli and Lynn for another year's serving of enriching soul food!

"Anyone who isn't confused here doesn't really understand what's going on." -- Anonymous.

Mayhem Mojo