Sunday, February 13, 2011

Second Saturday State Of Your Studio - February...

Welcome into my studio…
I am finding myself and my inspiration from all over the place recently.
Above is a Focus!!! Tile that I have been working on seriously.
I have grand delusions of a really funny interactive art project with these tiles…
More to come on that. Think BIG right?
They will all be glazed with this type of finish. Dark. Crusty. Beautiful...
I don't know why I like these pieces so much…
I just can't help myself!
There are a ton of little pieces that will be showing up with this finish…
I just know it!
I need to investigate why these test tiles with wording came out looking like crap.
Nothing like what I had planned.
I think I watered it down too much (you think?!)

So as I was not in my clay studio since last fall (Oct/Nov)…
I decided that I needed to scour my office area and studio in the last month and figure out where the heck I left off before the holidays hit...
I found some old test cones caps for necklaces…
Maybe I'll revisit them sometime.
A slide of some of work I did back in 2000 (check out that date of slide printing - almost 11 years ago exact - weird!) I have the mold for this piece still. Turn it upside down and put a plant in it I say...
The studio has not been this clean & wiped down for a few years!
Ugh, the lingering tower of kitty litter buckets - filled with dry clay scraps.
And bins on shelves above them, filled with:
These are from when I was selling a ton of work through online shops and bead shows.
Not so much anymore…
So what did I do with all those pieces that I paid for already (by this stage, each plastic shoebox full of pieces sanded, sponged & holes drilled - could be $500 to $1000 paid to people helping me out).
They were all dumped into a bucket. This Bucket holds at least 7 shoe boxes full of pieces.
That now look like this:
Do you know how much better I feel about that?
Can I even tell you that there was so much emotion tied up into those shoe boxes full of clay?
Frustration for having paid for work that did not meet up to my standards.
Yes, I'm that much of a control freak. The edges were over sponged and the shapes lost form.
Holes were not centered… Frustrating.
Then there is that lingering feeling of "well, they are paid for, why not try to fix them?".
So I just decided. It has been years. No orders for them. They should be put to better use and recycled into something much more than what they are now.
I feel so much more free right now because of it!
And upon my end of the day clean up…
After finding this cool dried glaze to put in the dry Cone 6 glaze bucket - 
At the point of getting ready to head upstairs - I found this…
Talk about some curse words flying…
A gallon of distilled water I guess had a leak and since I had not been in the clay part of the studio for really 4 months… I had no idea this was going on.
I put on gloves, got the paper towels, garbage bag and antibacterial wipes and went to town. I flipped the wood over and let it dry out (see the heater at the very bottom of the photo).
All better… Pshew.


I have so much more to share with what is going on in my studio.
But that will have to wait until the next Beads-of-Clay Open Studio to be held on March 6, 2011 from 1-4pm EST. I will be having a few giveaways and running a special in my Etsy shop for the weekend.

I hope you will stop back again!

5 comments:

  1. Great post. I am so impressed with how you handled getting out of the past. It is hard to do but so liberating. We did some of that yesterday cleaning out our attic. Those bead caps are great and I love the FOCUS tiles. I am planning to do a post to link to the BOC post. Thanks for sharing all these parts of your studio.

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  2. the most productive days are the most rewarding - i feel better for you knowing that your lightened the load you carry around in your head... you made really positive decisions... i really love those tiles - they are awesome...

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  3. i can so relate to the weight of history and emotion in things and the tremendous and unexpected release you feel in letting them go. happy for you

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  4. Wow. That is a lot of work. But I am sure it feels good to have a light at the end of the tunnel. Okay. You know that focus is my word for 2011. And I have this intention of getting or making art that has the word for the year. Will a focus tile be for sale? I would love one! And wait! Are those little pendants with three triangles on them? If so, I will take two please! That is the name of my sorority, and I have a sorority sister friend that I would share one with.
    Enjoy the day, Marsha!
    Erin

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  5. Thank you for adding my blog and I saw you are ending your specials blog and consolidating.
    I don't know how you managed to find things to write on all of them although I find myself having to censure what I write and wishing I had an alter ego blog. Ya know that my mom didn't read Lol!
    I too had a bottle of water leak out into the drawer we keep all the baking stuff. Like the sugar, oatmeal and flour. It was a mess and moldy because well, I just don't bake enough.
    I cannot believe that bucket! OMG I die!
    I love that focusing piece it looks great even without glaze.
    Off to bed for me...
    Shannon

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