Unconditional Love

I can't help but feel a strong connection between clay and the human condition that we call life. It all started when I was attaching a spout on a teapot. It was surprising how it's personality changed each time I repositioned the spout. Then I accidentally nicked it, and immediately began to rub it to make it better. I imagine that love for pottery is very much like the unconditional love a parent might have for a child. When a woman gets pregnant, she may wish for a boy, but in turn get a girl. She might think her child will have blond hair with blue eyes, just to give birth to a green eyed red head due to some recessive gene no one knew she had from her great great grandmother. But the child is loved all the same. Each time a kiln is fired, I find something unexpected, even thought it is so different from what I was hoping for.
I have always wanted to sculpt a bust, but was always hesitant to take on such an endeavor. However, this semester I am taking a hand building class with Biliana Popova, and as part of the curriculum were asked to hand in one hand built piece of my choice for our final project. So I thought - Just Do it! - This is the piece I've been working on. Now anyone who knows anything about clay will tell you that it is still very early in it's stage to get excited. But I don't care! I have always enjoyed painting portraits, but this was so much more satisfying. To be able to run your fingers across the bridge of the nose or placing your palms on the shoulders is very different than staring at an image from a canvas - No matter how life like it looks. At the moment this piece has not been fired and is still its leatherhard stage. I wanted to photograph it just in case something bad happened during firing. I hope that the kiln Gods have mercy on this humble potter.

Attack of the Robins Egg

Spring is here, the birds are singing, the westeria has bloomed and I can't help but smile. My latest Robins Egg kiln load came out and the pieces are lovely! I feel like a proud mama of her babies and it feels good. We may not be certain of a lot of things, but one thing we can be certain of. Every year spring will come, the robin will return, and I will have speckled Robins eggs in my shop :) and I wouldn't have it any other way.

A Streak of Bad Luck

I am generally a very laid back person, and when throwing I get to zone out and create little pots and shapes without giving much thought of how many pieces an hour I can make or glaze, or what is my top seller. However, now that I rely on pottery for money, I've become a complete basket case. I've become Etsy obsessive, and to make matters worse, for the first time ever, my pieces started to come out of the kiln firing wrong! I've had to re-do a custom order a third time because my copper-red glaze came out white during the first two firings, and a custom vase cracked. I shouldn't say that I've never had a piece stick to the cookie, or come out a totally different color, but not when it mattered. I now understand completely about the frustrations experienced by full-time potters that have orders to fill and deadlines to meet. I am sure feelin ya now.

April Fool's 2009

Etsy Mud team comes through again with their good, clean, fun for everyone April Fools Joke.

They have infiltrated the Etsy Ceramic Showcase for the day, along with 225 listings containing TP.

All works are available for sale, minus the toilet paper of course.

Here are some of my favorites:

Maid of clay

Studio Elan

Judy B Freeman

Where does the time go?

Its been almost a month since I've broken free and became a potter. I had some family visit for the first week and a half, then we went on vacation for another week, and I find myself wondering where did the time go? I have certainly been engaged in more pottery so that's been simply awesome, and it is nice to be on your own time for a change, but that may be the problem. I no longer have to get up at 6:30am, so even if I go to bed at my usual 10:30pm, I still feel the need to sleep in until at least 8:30. Then I get up, feed Mopsy, pick out the mug to drink my coffee out of, and head into the garage. Several pottery pieces later, its 2 o'clock... and I didn't even eat lunch! Not working in an office has done wonders for my figure, so I am not really complaining. It's amazing how preoccupied with food you are when you're stilling still for eight hours. Days and weeks have been flying by, and I am so grateful to be swooped up in it.

Step two - getting organized.

I am Free

With spring comes rebirth, renewal, new beginnings to celebrate. Today I am celebrating something greater than any holiday, anniversary, or birthday. Today is the day I became a full-time potter.

I first visited California when I was 18 years old. A friend of mine was doing a co-op program here, and invited me to come visit him when he was working here. I stayed for two weeks, and while here sent out my headshots to a couple of agents. I got a really favorable response from one, who suggested that I stay here and pursue acting as a career. Oh I wanted to so badly, but I was 18, and when I called my mom to tell her, she was begging me to come home. So I did. What did I know, I was 18. I was bit by the acting bug for a while after that, but supporting yourself in New York and trying to be an actress is even less glamorous than it is in LA. So needless to say, rent and bills took priority over a dream and soon I had to accept reality. I somehow became a medical biller/collector. After a few years, I met my husband and endlessly talked about how I would love to move and live in Los Angeles. We were married on September 17, 2005. Two weeks after we returned from our honeymoon, he was offered a job in Los Angeles, CA. We packed up our clothes, threw out all the furniture, put our Weimaraner in the back seat of a 1997 Jeep Cherokee and headed west. I quickly found out that I was no longer the cute 18 year old with no responsibility, but a married 26 year old, and that is like being 45 in show biz years. I needed a job. So I went back to doing what I did best. Being a medical biller/collector. This job did not lend itself to a flexible schedule required to audition, and so yet again, my acting dream fell on the back burner. One of the women who worked with me had a daughter who took pottery classes at the Burbank Community Center. I’ve always wanted to try the wheel and enrolled in the next available class. I was hooked. Today is the day that has been ten years in the making. Everything in my life for the past ten years led me to this place, to this moment. When during casual conversation, people asked me “ and what do you do?” I always cringed at the moment when I had to reply “I do medical collections”. You certainly did not reply “an actress” because everyone is an “actress” in LA, and then you just sound stupid and shallow. Somehow what you “do” sums you up to the person asking the question and I was soooooo not a medical collector. I wanted to scream “No look at me, I am creative and I am so much more and…” Today I can proudly say “I am a potter”, and if the faith allows, I will have acting as a hobby :)

The Golden Cage

During a time in our country, where one is lucky to even have a job, I find myself trapped inside mine. I work at a retirement community for actors and do medical collections there. It is a job that is so un-stimulating, that to call it boring would be an understatement. In case you do not know what a medical collector does, let me tell you.I speak to disgruntled patients that don’t want to pay their medical bills, I peruse patients medical records searching for additional diagnosis and in turn read about STD exposures, their stool quality, the detailed descriptions of their genitalia on the daily basis. I also call insurance companies that come up with every possible excuse not to pay patients medical claims.

During my two 15 minute breaks, I daydream of teapots, vases and different type of flowers I will adorn my jars with this spring. I also get 30 minutes for lunch, during which I try to stuff and digest some sort of a sandwich. Having said that, the job is located 7 minutes away from my home, and while I am not a morning person, and have to be in by 7AM, I am home by 3:37 PM. This allows me to run my errands, swim in my pool in the summer, and take my pottery classes at Glendale Community College.

So while I whine and complain about this awful day job, it allows me the time to do all the things I love, but at what cost I ask you? I have been keeping an eye out for something else for the last two years, but I am still here. Still in this half cubicle, still staring at the computer screen in a micro-managed environment. The reason for this is that our economy is in the shitter, and I have not found another comparable option that is as convenient as this. So here I sit, while my mind wonders through Robins Egg valleys and Poppy jar meadows.

Even as I am writing this, I know I should be grateful, but I can’t help tearing at myself wanting to get out and do something creative. My husband who is one of those people who does not have a creative bone in his body. - I am not being mean, it’s a fact and he would tell you this himself, finds it difficult to understand that it is not something we, the creative people choose. It is in us, and if there is no outlet, we go crazy! I know I am not alone this. Back me up people!