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A day of carving in clay 2 July 2020
My favorite part of working with pottery is surface design! It’s a good thing I love it, because it also takes the most time. Each piece takes at least an hour to carve.
Using a design from my sketchbook…penciled onto the pot and ready to carve All of today’s designs were hand carved, using a technique, called sgraffito.
Carving the design Since we are in the middle of the summer season, I have been inspired by one of my favorite summer flowers: the sunflower!
it’s sunflower season in Kentucky! I have started carving a new porcelain clay, and it feels a little bit different from other clays. I found myself carving it a little bit different too. Because porcelain needs a little bet of extra care, I dry these REALLY slow. They might be ready to fire in a week or two. Stay tuned to see how they turn out!
Today’s work Pottery intensive June – recap
At the beginning of June, I decided to make June a ‘pottery intensive’ month in the studio. Looking back at the month, it was a lot of fun, and I made some really nice pots. I fired the kiln twice. After each firing, i put the pots on the porch, where they sold out in a matter of days.
Pottery Intensive June was a success! You can see a gallery of each kiln load by clicking the thumbnails below:
June 9, 2020 
june 20,2020 July is going to be a little bit different. I am going to keep making pottery. But i’ll also take brakes to do some more printmaking and painting too. The big thing for July is that I am participating in the facebook boycot #stopHateForProfit by not logging into facebook or instagram for the month of July.
I am a frequent facebook user, so this is going to be a challenging month for me. One of the bright sides of this boycott is that I plan to give my personal website and email newsletter some TLC, so stay tuned for more art and updates!
30 June 2020 – printing ink and playing in mud
I spent the last day of June split between the clay studio and the printshop.
The finished block. Ready for ink! I have been working on a special print for one of my US Route 62 neighbors who lives all the way over in Eureka Springs, Arkansas.
The finished print. Hanging to dry Today I got to put first ink on the block and then print an edition at the log cabin print shop.
Pots in progress After printing, I had some time to put some handles on mugs, put some glaze on bowls, and then throw a few cream pitchers and bowls
Bowls and creamers just thrown from the wheel. The Potter – by Tania Horne
You never know where it will take you when you put your creativity out there:
Late friday night, i made a live stream while throwing pots…no words, or instruction, just an hour of making pots.
I don’t know who all watched, but poet, Tania Anderson Horne , saw it, and it inspired a poem! I liked the poem so much, we made this short video together. Thank you Tania! I’m honored!!!Tania is participating in Lexington Poetry Month. A project, where every June, poets are challenged to write a poem every day. You can learn more at https://lexpomo.com
#lexpomoWedding Invitations – a woodcut project
I recently completed an exciting printmaking project; wedding invitations!!!!! The original idea was to have the bride and groom help print them at the cabin, but we’ve had to change our plans to stay safe….still, what a cool invitation, a hand printed, limited editon woodcut?! I’m so honored to have been asked to do this! Thank you and Congratulations! Jessica and Jonathan!
Carving the Woodblock 
Finished Carving and ready to print! 
the first proof 
All invitations were signed and numbered as a limited edition 
The invitations were delivered in a box, decorated with proofs from the invitation, and can be used as a keepsake. Plein Air Painting – Ripley, Ohio 16 June 2020
It’s been awhile since I have been Plein air painting. All my recenty projects have been in the studio. When an artist friend invited me to meet up somewhere to paint outside, I said ‘sure! Where do you want to go? ‘ It didn’t matter to her, so I got to pick.
I picked the Rankin House in Ripley, Ohio. It’s a historic site that was once the home of John Rankin, an abolitionist who helped many people escape slavery. Perched on a hill, overlooking the village and ohio river, the rankins were able to give signals from their home to Kentucky.
Not only is the rankin house an important part of the underground railroad, it offers artists a magnificant view!
I wasn’t fully prepared to capture the view. I *should* have brought a panoramic canvas to capture everything. To improvise, I used 2 8×10″ wood panels, and set them beside each other to make a dyptich.
I have been experimenting with live videos and I tried live streaming the entire painting. It put a little bit of pressure on me…having a live live audience brought out some of the best of my talent, and I am happy with the finished painting!
Ins addition to my ‘virtual’ audience online, some friends (1 a fellow artist) came up the hill to watch me work.
Thanks again for a great day!
Here is the full length stream of the painting…originally live streamed on Facebook.
June 10 new pottery
I’m excited to share some of my latest pottery after last weeks firing. I’m as proud of the photography as the pottery. There has been a learning curve to photographing pottery, and I think I am finally getting a good representation of what the pots look like.
NOTE: I have already sold all the pots from this firing, but plan to have more soon.
Transferring woodcuts onto pottery – via screenprint
I work in a lot of different media, and am always looking for ways to cross the different mediums. One dream I have is printing woodcuts onto ceramic. After some research, I learned that the woodcut process does not work well with ceramic materials, but screenprinting does.
Using a technique that i learned while studying in Oaxaca, Mexico, I copied a few of my favorite woodcut designs onto a screen
then printed the designs onto rice paper using ceramic underglaze as the ‘ink’
then, i transferred the underglaze onto unfired clay…in a technique similar to old fashioned temporary tattoos
a plate, decorated with my woodcut designs! 
a mug, decorated and ready to fire! 
…and a pig on a mug…keep watching to see how they look ofter the firing! Pottery Intensive Update – 6.4.2020
My big, exciting event for this summer was going to be a week long pottery workshop at the Arrowmont School of arts and crafts. It was a gift from a friend, and was going to be a really special treat. To be safe during the coronavirus, the workshop was cancelled. I was really looking forward to visiting Arrowmont, and having a pottery intensive experience. My hope was to get better at throwing, and to learn a few new surface decoration techniques.
just because I can’t go to a famous arts and craft school, and learn from a popular potter, doesent mean I can’t still have a pottery intensive experience. I decided to give myself a summer of pottery making!!! So far, I’ve thrown about 20 mugs.
Most of them are being decorated in a style, called sgraffito.
If you haven’t already seen it, here is a short video explaining the process:
I learned a new technique to throw plates. Thanks @Dennis Allen ! So now I’ve been working on a few sgraffito plates.
This squirrel design is based on one of my linocuts.
Another plate…with BLUE underglaze.
These are works in progress…they still need to be glazed and fired, but I’m really excited about making plates…and hope to the have enough to fire the kiln soon.
Thinking about current events
I AM watching the news, and I don’t want you all to think that I have my head buried in the sand, and am just happily in my own little world, making art. I see what’s happening to us, and it hurts me deeply. I don’t know what I can do to make it better, so I share things that help me and others feel good, and encourage them to work on their own creative projects. Art is a great way to deal with feelings. For me, art is a therapy, and there are a lot of studies that show it really does cause positive things to happen in the brain. There are also studies that show that social media is causing psychological and social problems…
i don’t use social media for politics. In my perspective, it’s a terrible way to try and have dialogue about divisive issues. I’ve watched friendships end and families grow further apart because of the way social media brings out, and magnifies the worst in some people. (i guess it’s profitable, or the tech companies just like to destroy people’s lives) I have friends from a wide range of perspectives, who I know in real life, and I can tell you, we have more in common than social media would have us believe.
I believe that religion is personal, and I don’t talk about it on social media (for the same reasons). Since it’s Sunday, and I think it is important, I will share with you that I believe that we are ALL children of God, we are ALL brothers and sisters. EVERYONE deserves to be treated with respect, fairness and dignity. I believe (and I’m trying to be better at) following Christ’s teaching to love thy neighbor as thyself. I know this is a crazy time, and everyone is scared and angry a suffering loss and going through a million other feelings right now. I hope that all of these challenges we are going through has some kind of meaning, and, in the end, we use this experience to lift each other up, and become better neighbors.
I’m scared, and feel helpless and angry, but I also feel more connected, and a feeling of togetherness with you all (even if we have to stay 6 feet apart). You have gotten me through, what is possibly the biggest trial of my lifetime. Since social media isn’t going away, let’s use it to keep the good vibes going, and try to have a little more understanding and empathy toward each other…this is HARD, but we will get through this together.
