Creatures of the Night!

 

What music they make!

Breathtaking painting of our Prince Vlad by Joanna Vares of Vares Art.

Happy October, y'all!  

 

A New Yorker Halloween

 

It's a Supernatural Halloween!

 God, I miss this show! 

Click on the pic for a Supernatural Halloween suggestion...

Has America Lost the True Meaning of Halloween? A ShellHawk's Nest Tradition

Happy October, y'all! Click on the pic for an in-depth analysis of Halloween... 

One Day Closer

The Open House is on Sunday. The kiln is firing off the last SPN mugs to smooth out the roughness from a too-thin clear glaze application, but there are a bunch which turned out great! The above Pumpkin Person needs some clear glaze to get him finished off. The witches I'm sculpting will have to wait until after!

The last of the jacks I can reasonably finish before the Open House came out yesterday evening and got the clay dust wiped off of them so I can start glazing today. I plan to keep making Hallowe'en through the winter, as I have a couple of shows to apply for and want to show the folks who choose the work some new creations! Plus I have stock to rebuild. I plan to make time to create some fine art, too! I have had a series in mind for a number of years, and I'm finally ready to start.

It's the usual, crazy, before-show push, but I love it! It feels fantastic to get back to doing what I do best!

It's Here! Vintage Halloween!

It's here! And The Precious is beautiful!

And the beauty inside... So wonderful! I'm so happy I decided to get this for my Great Pumpkin Gift for myself, truly! I absolutely adore the history of Halloween and particularly love the Halloween of the 1920s and 1930s.

The liquidity of the little fantastical vegetable people, the ghosts, goblins and witches was so evocative of sweetness in a more innocent time.

I love the thought of the traditional games played in that era, the superstitions (how to discover who your husband will be was a favorite). This book documents it all it brilliant color.

I can visualize the homes, decorated with the latest from the famous Dennison's Bogie Book, dangling from the ceiling or decorating the tables.

If you can possibly get your hands on a copy - and I know that's hard these days - I would highly recommend it! It's gorgeous eye candy and such an inspiration!

 

More WIPs

The weather continues to be strange around here, with an aborted attempt at rain (a tiny sprinkle for five minutes or so) and blistering heat. Since my Artist Open House is next Sunday, already, I'm taking advantage of the heat to get a few more jacks done before then. The heat will get them dry enough to fire and then get glazed and fired again for the event!

So much work, so little time!

Filling the Glaze Kiln 2021

I got the glaze kiln loaded over at the local ceramics center. I hope they're going to start the firing on Thursday so I can get everything tagged in time for my open house!

I'm hoping the Supernatural cups I made turn out a little better than they did in my kiln, but honestly, even if they don't, I have a new clay body to make more, recommended to me by the nice folks over at Amaco. They're the folks who made the underglazes I used for the cups. 

By this weekend, if all goes well, I should be unloading the kiln and not crying my eyes out!

Lemax Love

I haven't bought a load of Hallowe'en decorations or fun stuff for years. Pretty much since since I moved away from Folsom. Well, that phase is OVAH! 

I had to run to DoIt Center (in this household, that's pronounced DOYT, even though it's supposed to be Do It) to grab a couple of things I needed. The Hallowe'en stuff was out already, moaning and groaning, singing spooky songs. And did it scare the kids? Yup. But they were still daring each other to run up and touch the scary guys or start their antics by stomping on the trigger mat. So I guess Samhain is on the way, huh?

Anyhow, I ambled through the aisles and ran across the Lemax display.

And I sort of brought a few home with me...

They make me laugh! I swear, those guys in the brewery just crack me up!

WIPs

It's funny how things come to be, particularly these funny little Hallowe'en characters. Much of the time, I don't have their figures set in stone in my head, nor their gestures or facial expressions. The longer I do this, the more alright with that I am, because it gives them the opportunity to tell me who and what they are as my hands shape and carve the clay.

It's interesting to see them come into being, one little piece at a time. 

There's a potter whom I admire whose name is Gerit Grimm. (No relation to the more famous brothers Grimm). She teaches ceramics now over at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, but she continues to create her own body of work with a love for the craft I find inspiring. (Maybe one day I'll go out and see her.) It was from her I saw you could throw sculptural components and then alter them and attach them to make figurative sculpture. It seems like the easiest thing in the world when she does it, but then she's had years and years of practice, plus access to the kilns that only a University or college can afford to purchase, run, and keep running.

My goal is to one day to be practiced enough at these techniques to be able to make a larger variety of expressive critters, as well as larger critters, but meanwhile, I'm fairly content with my progress.

I remember a couple of guys I used to know who were sculptors here in L.A. for the studios. They told me that hands were the hardest things to pull off, but I'm not finding them terribly difficult. I don't have to make them anatomically perfect, true, but still, I'm not finding them to be the bane of my existence they seemed to have.

I'm changing things up a little this year by adding a witch or two to the mix. I don't know why I never make them, other than I love my jack-o'-lantern obsession and the fun of having fire inside their carved heads.

I haven't done a human face in a very long time, but I think this one is starting out well... 

I can't wait to see what kind of gossip this old gal has to tell me!