I’ve been eating my staging props

In order to show the size of my pottery, I've been using food as staging props. I scour the produce and bakery sections for food that looks good. I've gotten quite anal about it, actually.

I know I’m starting to sound eccentric in the grocery, but when I saw these great looking radishes, I picked through every bunch to get the perfect color. It sort of annoyed another woman, but hey! I need my radishes to be bright RED, ya know?!

I’m glad that Valentine’s Day has passed. Because my diet has gotten healthier. How would you like to have this on your counter staring at you after you’ve used it for staging?

home business on steroids

What you see here is one day’s sales from OneClayBead and MarciG on Etsy! It’s freaking awesome and out of control! This is where we eat dinner generally. You can see the menorah and the flowers left from Thanksgiving, which are lost in the jumble. I print orders as things sell, and put them, with the correct piece, on my long table. There is typically lots of room for the 3 of us to eat, but it’s getting harder to sit down to a quiet meal. We have to push the sales down in order to set the table.

My friend Natalie has been coming over in the evenings to help with the packing. Here she is with my husband, Ken, as they make PayPal labels. Today the packages wouldn’t all fit in the car and we have to make 2 runs to the post office. This is my computer room but it now looks like UPS has set up an annex with board games, books, and a drum circle.
I’ve lost my zen a few times just living in this much activity every day. What brings me back is the feedback and notes from my buyers :
Beautiful! Gorgeous! Even better in real life! I am so happy with this and will be back to buy more! Oh and insanely fast shipping too... OneClayBead is awesome!
This is truly one of the cutest things. Thanks so much! I can't wait to give this to my friend for Christmas!
These are such beautiful ornaments. My infant daughter died two weeks after Christmas nearly 4 years ago, and each Christmas her brothers and I pick out a special ornament for her. Your doves are perfect.
The emotional connections made through buying and selling my handmade pottery are truly moving. It makes the chaos of my home a worthy price to pay.
Wishing you some joyful chaos today!

First Snow

  

The first cold flakes fell silently in the early dawn, blanketing the leaves we’ve not yet raked into piles.
Each white glistening orb seems like an answer falling from heaven. My world is transformed from autumn’s landscape of loss into a confection made with spun sugar and pearls.
It is beautiful as we walk outside, but we scurry inside soon as do all our woodland friends. Time to share our stories and dream our dreams by the fire.
Here is my new glaze, Blue Ice Crystal. The first piece sold right away but I'll be using it more in weeks to come. Wishing you beauty, and the light of love that shines from the eyes of those who gather with you by candles and fireplaces, as we burrow inside.

The Unbearable Lightness of Being

In the studio yesterday, Marci told me that she was turning her cell phone off more often. She was weary of the drama. She was happy glazing; excited about a new design. This, above all, I have wanted to impart to my teen daughter.

After some early success in the fine art world in my 20’s , I began making pottery. Fine art is so gravely serious. Works of light and joy were, at the time, viewed as useless fluff, and perhaps they still are. I was drawn to the silent thoughtless world of clay where you can be moved to an almost holy place just by how beautiful something is.

Today I ran across this quote. It is from the novel, The Unbearable Lightness of Being.

“she knew that she had become a burden to him: she took things too seriously, turning everything into a tragedy, and failed to grasp the lightness and amusing insignificance of physical love. how she wished she could learn lightness!”

I suddenly wanted to see lightness everywhere, to go outside and capture with my camera the light shining through leaves. To feel that lightness of being is to be transparent, thin of  negativity and judgment, and allow the light of Creation to shine through.

I’m going to do this more often. it feels good.

River Journey Series

My two favorite things in clay are textures, especially lace textures, and glazes that flow. The River Journey series has the colors from my whitewater rafting trips on the French Broad River, and this one captured that essence perfectly.

I may not go rafting for another month as I am still fragile, recovering from surgery. These colors still call to me, perhaps even more urgently as memories than as experiences in real time.  I think of that exhilarating moment going over rapids, scenery blurring, control suspended, and what it is to be no more than a leaf taken by a strong current. Isn’t it ironic that most of our lives are spent trying to get or maintain control, while the nanoseconds of exquisite joy occur during abandon and surrender. Perhaps this is why I layer 7-10 glazes and stack them in the kiln, never knowing what the heck will happen.

Like this one.

MarciG’s flowers

 

                                              

Marci G

at work

I love Marci’s new flower bowls. They have evolved from a bowl that looks somewhat like a flower to flowers that contain the idea of a bowl.

I started in clay as sculpture and transitioned to functional work. Marci’s path is the reverse.

Charisma

I named the necklace that I blogged about last week . Charisma. I had great titles suggested to me, and had almost chosen one when I wore it to a meeting last weekend and every single person there complimented me immediately! No kidding- people I was meeting for the first time said 'hello, I love your necklace.' The picture you see above is my daughter, not me- trust me, I don't generate automatic compliments like she does! Oh, to be 15 again. Without the hormones... anyway, back to my anecdote...

I proposed something that created a 2 hour discussion, and I had a feeling the whole time that I knew exactly what to say. In the end, everyone voted for my proposal- including those who had been fairly skeptical initially. Only later did I think about this necklace, and how the turquoise + copper + picture jasper + clay have properties that should allow you to speak convincingly; wisely.

So it is called charisma- A rare personal quality attributed to leaders who arouse fervent enthusiasm. Personal magnetism or charm.

Isn't it interesting that we don't really know how or why charisma works, where it comes from. I'm not sure how gemstones attract or hold certain properties either.

It just is that way.

Charisma is now in my Etsy store if you'd like to look.