Squiggle Casserole & Company

Some favorite pieces from the last firing:

I am especially delighted with the vermiculations ("worm-shapes") on the top casserole. Though somewhat labor intensive, it's very restful, hypnotic work; and they nave a nice, intriguing texture. I have used these once or twice before, and I like them especially well when they get a good blast of soda, causing the worms to soften or even flow down the side of the pot in a cascade of glaze and soda.

I took these photos myself (yes, as if anyone needed to be told), accounting for their blurriness. (Jay York I am not.) I'm told that I could avoid the blur by using a remote shutter for the camera, which we have, somewhere around here, becuase it is the slight motion of the camera as I press the button that causes the problem.
Anyblah, good firing! Most of the pieces are already spoken for, so I need to get making again.

How Did You Spend Your Snow Day?

I spent mine making ceramic chocolates, something I've sort of wanted to do for a while. It was pretty spontaneous, so I just used what I had around for the slips. These are still green; we'll wait and see how the surfaces turn out after firing.

Annual Crisis of Confidence

This will consume more than one post, and truthfully, it happens more than once a year. It goes kinda like this: until 2000, before my divorce and move to Maine, I was a full-time potter. I did wholesale and retail artfairs and taught a few classes a week. Since the move, I've been a part-time potter with a part-time job. It's not the worst job in the world, and in this economy God knows I am grateful to have it. Without it I wouldn't have been able to buy my home. Nevertheless, the idea when I got the job was that it would be temporary, until I could get my studio business going full steam again...and eight years later, that hasn't really happened. Lots of good things have happened: Bought a house and a gas kiln (such as it is), got married, my work has improved. But though I have a nice life, I am really no closer to being a full time potter than I was in 2000. < So I can't help but wonder if I am going about this wrongly. Right now I get my pottery income from private sales, a number of consignment outlets, and a couple of small wholesale account. Consignment is a fairly limited model, as I have found consigning outside of my immediate area to be unworkable. You either have to pay for shipping or (depending on where it is) take a day to deliver the work. If it isn't somewhere that you can visit periodically, they might not even have your work on the sales floor. And then you have to pay to have it shipped back if it doesn't sell. The checks are unpredictable, and you have to have thousands of dollars in inventory out in the world while you are waiting to get paid for it. 

Add to that, I also have a body of sculptural work that I really never do anything with. I'd like to display it but I can't seem to get enough cash together to get it professionally photographed, and amass enough of the pieces to make a good show; or, really, scrape together the guts to approach a venue. I don't even know how. So, maybe that's a place to start: a specific goal: show this work.
More later.