Female Sculptures

I made a series of female figure sculptures. Originally there were five, but one lost her head in a salt firing. Alas, her head landed in the cone pack. The rest are glazed a fired in electric kilns. With each one, I tried to make the faces more realistic. The last doll I made was the one with the extruded arms. When I painted her eyes and lips, I was amazed at how much personality the sculpture had.

The shortest sculpture is the one with the really angry face. I think that sculpture, more than any of my other work, shows what I was feeling at the time I made it.

Female Sculptures

Glazed Extrusions

This is Jim's sculpture after glazing. Sometimes the sculpture likes to be mysterious and wears a hoodie. Jim made an extruder out of a caulking gun and a piece of PVC pipe. All of the extrusions were colored with underglazes. The sculpture needed a base, so Jim took a platter that had been over fired and warped and glued it under the sculpture.

Exhibit A

I had a motion hearing yesterday, and this piece of fabric was Defense Exhibit A. The issue for the hearing was did the police officer have reasonable suspicion to stop my client. My client was stopped because he was wearing a "flannel" jacket and it was warm out.

I handed Exhibit A to the officer and asked if he knew what kind of fabric it was. He didn't. I asked if it was flannel. He didn't know. In my argument, I told the judge I am a fiber artist and I've been sewing for 44 years. I know my fabrics and Exhibit A - which was entered into evidence - is flannel.

I lost, but there will be an appeal and Exhibit A will go up to the appeals court.

Exhibit A is a leftover from some flannel I used to make a blouse for myself. I made Jim's long sleeved shirt out of the companion to this fabric. Same orange background, but Jim's shirt has hot dogs, buns, mustard and picnic things on it.

Just for me

I often make art to sell but this time, I made earrings just for me. Can't wait to wear them.

Falling in love with crystals

I've started stringing beads and crystals on wire and making earrings. I've never used sworavski crystals before - they are far more beautiful in real life than in photo. I'm having great fun doing this. If you check my etsy store, you can see which earrings I've got for sale.

The Clay Monster's Sculpture

I finally convinced Jim to take a clay class and he's turned into a clay monster. The class assignment was to make a sculpture 36" in any direction. After Jim's first sculpture fell apart in the kiln, he made this one. It hasn't been bisque fired yet. It's low-fire clay with assorted underglazes on the extrusions. After reading about extruders and seeing extruded work, Jim made an extruder from a caulking gun.

My New Earings

Being a state employee, I had today off. I spent the day in the sewing room working on a dress. Then, I got out the earring parts and the beads. I forgot about dinner. I forgot the mug of tea I had made for myself. I forgot about everything else and just played with beads. Here's the results.

Digital Recorder Case

I've got a digital recorder and I love it. It's so tiny, light and easy to use. It's also easy to lose. So, I made it a case. The case is about twice as wide as the recorder, but I have to be able to find this gadget! I used two scraps of cloth, some batting, a leftover button from a blouse I made, and played with the fancy thread and fancy stitches.

I've no idea what this is, but I like it.

I started exploring coil building this semester. Here's one of the coil built pots. I couldn't decide how I wanted to glaze it, so I put one glaze on one side and another on the other side. Then I dunked the top in green class glaze and I do like the way it ran and blended.

My Cocoa Mug

I finally made my serious cocoa mug. The mug is huge and useful for those times when only chocolate will help. I did this one with coils. Then I experimented with using several coats of underglaze and sanding through the underglaze to reveal the colors. Then I grabbed a carving tool and carved a bit. I know the handle looks like it's way too wide - it's not. It fits my hand well.

Duality Boxes

This is from a class assignment where we were supposed to make two boxes expressing duality. I thought about the duality between Orthodox and Reform Judaism. While there is a lot that differs, there's a lot that's the same. I made a structured box and an organic, unstructured box that sort of shaped itself. The lids do open, but the opening is fairly small and the boxes are not practical for storage of anything other than ideas.

Duality Boxes

Rattles

These are low fire spirit rattles. The green on the top of the larger rattle is a class glaze. I thought it would run a bit more. Typical. The glaze you don't want to run, runs all over the piece, the kiln shelf, and other pieces in the kiln. The glaze you want to run stays put.

3-D Tiles

I've started working with 3-d tiles using 3 or 4 layers of tile, cutting away what I don't need and leaving the rest. I used slip for most of the decoration on these, and I'm not completely satisfied with the slip. The tiles I'm working on now, I've put several layers of slip and sanded through the layers to show more than one color.

I've made suits that didn't take as much time and effort to make.

I wanted a low price, good quality shopping bag to compliment the Serious Shopping Bags on my Etsy store (shown below). These are smaller bags with shorter handles - but they hold about as much as a paper grocery bag.

I thought these would be easy and quick to make. The Serious Shopping Bags have a quilted panel on the front. These are "plain." Hah! I've made suits that didn't take as much time and effort as these bags. It was the handles that did me in. Finally, after I'd had more than enough turning upholstery fabric tubes right side out, I grabbed the black web for the final two of the six bags.

They aren't for sale - mostly because I'd lose money if I sold them at a price people are willing to pay. Instead, they will be going with me to the grocery store, the fabric store, any any other store I visit.