I’ve donated this bowl to Anderson Ranch Art Center for their 30^th Annual Art Auction to held on Saturday August 14.  More than 200 works of art will be auctioned live and silently.  My bowl is one of the silent ones.  I thrilled to be in the same show as Cindy Sherman, Damien Hirst, and Adam Fuss.  (Can I say that?  Even those these guys are in the live auction and I’m in the silent auction, that I’m in a show with them?)  You can preview the works starting August 3, in the galleries there at AR.  ….Soooo, if you are in Snowmass, Colorado stop in and see some amazing artwork.   

The money raised goes toward the educational programs at the Ranch.  If you haven’t been to Anderson Ranch is well worth your time and money.  I love it there.  I’ve taken many workshops and taught a few kids workshops there.  The Ranch has been so generous to me, and given me many scholarships, and I’ve learned so much there.  I’m so pleased that I can give back to them. 

I have also donated a small bowl to The Nicolaysen Art Museum and Discovery Center to their fund raising event, Sensational Small Stuff Invitational, April 15-April 23.   The Nic’s show all works have to be approximately 5” x 7”.  It’s a fun show and always great to see what gets donated.  Auction night is April 23, make your way over to Casper, Wyoming and buy some Sensational Small Stuff. 

While I was in Philadelphia having a wonderful time at NCECA, I received another email from the DIA folks, asking me to do another huge commission.  This one is even bigger than the last one, 43 pots, four vessels and 39 bowls.  Here is my start on the commission; the bigger vessel is going to Mayor Hickenlooper of Denver.  The three smaller ones are going to the President & CEO of the Denver Metro Chamber of Commerce, the President & CEO of Visit Denver and the Denver City Council members!!!  I’m thrilled to be part of their gift giving.

I’m home from NCECA Philadelphia. There was so much beautiful work, I was extremely inspired. I can’t wait to get back in my studio and get my hands on some clay. Here are some pictures of NCECA 2010 a hodgepodge of gorgeous work.  I took so many pictures this is just a small percentage of what’s on my camera.

I’m leaving for Philadelphia to  go to NCECA on Tuesday!  I’m very exciting about going.  Not only do I get to visit with a ton of friends, see great ceramics, hear amazing lectures and workshops,  I’m also going to meet with Lisa Merida-Paytes the galley director of Funke Fired Arts, and we are going to talk a bit about the upcoming show I’m are having there with two other Wyoming artists, Matt Flint and Michael Olson, September 2011.  And she agreed to do an interview on the blog as well!  I will also see Jonathan Kaplan the owner of Plinth Gallery, he has been so supportive of my blog  and me.  Funny, he lives an hour and half from me, and I have to go 1,700 miles to see him.  I truly need to get out more. 

This NCECA I get to be a befuddled tour guide, I am going with my friend Gwen, a NCECA neophyte.  We’ve been told to bring umbrellas, but since we are both westerners, we really are kind of foggy as to what one is.  It seems every other NCECA I go to I get drenched while bus hopping to the galleries.  But this is one of  many adventures we will have, and I can’t wait for all of them.   

This Todd my husband went white water rafting, so I have been a single Mom.  I had grand expectations of getting the rest of my bisque glazed so I could throw it into the kiln right before I leave.  Needless to say I didn’t get much done.  They will be waiting for me when I get back.    

The double walled bowl and the bottles are new forms for me.  So what do you think?

Here are some of my bowls that came out of the last firings for my DIA commission.  I filled the rest of the kiln with some bisque I had lying around.  I was ecstatic to the DIA project but, it’s really nice to get back to doing purely what I want to do.  I work in terra cotta and white earthenware.  When I glaze my terra cotta I fire the work at cone 05 and when I glaze fire the white earthenware I fire to cone 04.  I have fewer glaze combinations that I like with the terra cotta, I so I tend to work in white clay a little more.  But here are a few from the last firing. 

The text on the bowls; in order: “Take a Road Trip”, What Would You Do If You Could Not Fail”, “I Hate Liars, Yet I Lie.”

I just found out the four vessels I made for DIA are going to Mr. Mamoru Tsuchino, Mayor of Takayama, Mr.  Kenichi Kaba, President, Takayama City Council and to Mr. Tadao Shimohata, President, Takayama-Denver Friendship Association and Mr. Barry Hirschfeld who is the chairman of DIA’s Tokyo based Ascent to Asia committee.  Laura from DIA said she would send pictures when they get back from Japan.  I can’t wait to see them. 

The DIA bowls finally completed!  It feels great to be done.  Here are 16 of the 25 that I made for DIA.  They are on their way to Japan, the DIA folks are going to give them officials in Japan, during the negotiations for a Japan – Denver nonstop flight.

Yesterday was the premier of Art, Design and Dine, in Cheyenne.  My friend Architect Glen Garrett, (a huge art supporter), became a sponsor of the new event.   Glen has made his architect studio-office into a gallery for local artists.  But he didn’t realize Art, Design and Dine was a gallery walk until the two days before the event.  He emailed Wednesday me asking if I could bring 11 to 12 pieces to the gallery on Thursday, for the gallery walk on Friday.  I ran down dropped off a bunch of artwork.  Glen works really fast here called Sign Pro had them throw up vinyl lettering and set up the show.  I wondered how things were going to look because he didn’t have enough pedestals.  He made great hangers for the bowls hung them on the wall.  For such a quick show it really looked nice.  Here are some pictures.  Thanks Glen for all your hard work!! 

Yesterday I received an email from a potter Emily who lives in Japan and teaches on an Air Force Base, asking for some advice.  She is a “student turned teacher” and wanted some

Colleen and I getting ready for Tea Ceremony

resources to learn more about ceramics.  As I was thinking where I could direct her for information, I started remembering when I went to Japan to study ceramics.  It was 1987, and I was accepted to the International Workshop of Ceramic Art in Tokoname (IWCAT). 

I googled IWCAT to see what came up.  What a blast from the past, they have pictures posted from 1987, and I suddenly saw my young, naive face with a bad haircut staring back at me!!!  What a shock, I wasn’t expecting that at all.  I keep thinking about my time studying ceramics in Japan.  If anyone reading this has ever had the dream of going to Japan to study cramics IWCAT is the program for you.  It is one of the finest memories I have, I loved Tokoname, the people I met, the potters, and

Yep, this is me: Raku Japanese style

best of all learning about Japan and its culture.  I run down stairs and start looking for pictures.  I can’t find many pictures; I start to panic, what happened to all those rolls of film, I’m frantically looking through old pictures.  Then it dawns on me, how much technology has changed, and the way we take and show pictures, back in the day, the way to share pictures with friends was with slides.  Most of the pictures I have from Japan are slides.  I don’t have a way to transfer my slides to digital images, but I found a few pics to scan. 

My time in Tokoname was so action packed,  we did raku, fired a nobrigama, anagama, participated in a traditional tea ceremony, visited archeologist excavating an ancient kiln, had Japanese children teach us calligraphy, we did so much, it was such an amazing time.  I could go on and on.  Emily, thank you so much for your question, it sent me down memory lane. 

The National Treasure

The National Treasure's hand.

In his studio.