Road to Hell...

is paved with good intentions. Has it really been this long an hiatus since I've shared process and techniques, and so it has fellow travelers. Some times it just seemed a bit silly and over reacting to get on with blogging about the work. Decided to just roll with things and not over think and get precious. Watch words for 2016 are positivity and gratitude. Coming up to 74 in a few days so this fact tends to concentrate one's thinking on the remaining allotted score or so. 

This past year ushered in a rather exciting  -- and deeply satisfying on several fronts --  series of guinomi, or sippers. The making involves throwing off the hump which is a good skill to develop if you're keen to produce a series of cups or bowls in a decent length of time without the endless faffing about knocking up individual balls of clay usually quite small for guinomi. Take time to set up 12# - 15# of clay on your wheel, slap center roughly to a cone shape -- and use no water at this point. Then address the top of the cone in usual manner coning and compressing and forming your shape. A shippiki is essential to have nearby. Good all in one tool. Easily made. Check it out online. Apart from the forming and decorating of these guinomi which provide me endless opportunities, they are small and easily shipped. Lucky enough to get a pair accepted into Strictly Functional Annual juried by Matt Long this year. It's always pleasant to get a nod from a potter one respects. Additionally, as a knock on from this show, I've just received an invitation to participate in another show in Pennsylvania next month. And guinomi, chawan and small format paintings have been at Karla Matzke Fine Art Gallery and Sculpture Park on Camano Island, WA. So pleased to be taken on by Karla. Incredible venue.

Guinomi with Dragonflies, 2"h multiple firing^6

Various guinomi  1.75"h to 2.5"h multiple firings^6

Now onto the other studio with a few images of work painted in 2015.

Habaneros, 12"x12", oil on birch panel

I'm so fortunate to have the wherewithal to paint and pot. The work and ideas are always running through my head.

Radishes, 12"x12", oil on birch panel

Jalapenos in Glass Bowl, 12"x 12", oil on birch panel

Daphne

Changing Lanes

This is difficult to admit, but I can't figure out how to embed a widget into my WordPress blog. Shaming. Utterly. I read all the instructions from DailyPaintWorks and copied/pasted etc. It was like reading Kant, or Kierkegaard. I went all fuzzy and had peanut butter for brains.  It's crazy stupid of me. I know. Nothing in WP seemed to have the answers. All in knowing what questions to ask. I know. I know. Then, I had this bright idea to check DPW Galleries and see who is actually blogging via WordPress and has installed the DPW widget and I'll suck up to them, admire their paintings and pounce: how did you do that? I found one artist out of a huge bunch, and that one did not have the widget installed! Furthermore, in all honesty, I couldn't have admired their work if you held my right hand to the fire. As Dog is my witness, I gave up.Everybody is using Blogger and has the DPW widget embedded.

So, I guess Changing Lanes is all about choices...and new beginnings. And utterly plumps down on the side of a Journey. The artist's life is a journey and change is endemic.Just completed Nick Nearly Forty this week. And my pieces submitted to International Ceramics Festival, Mino, Japan -- a triennial which I proudly attended in 2011 -- were juried out. Got that letter this week.  Gutted. Well, if truth will out, a bit stung, but who wouldn't be as the process of compiling materials for a submission takes days! Glad not to have to potentially shell out $500 to have piece(s) professionally packed and mailed. And at the end of the day donate piece to a business. To save return fees.  No, not too upset. Anymore.

Hamlet's Notes seen below. Some of you who are up on Japanese symbolism and traditions may spot what I've done here. If not, well, the little white shapes are inspired by folded paper poems. Samurai tradition, I believe. The text which I mish-mashed up reads: As t'were to hold a mirror up to nature. Notes, to you who tread the boards is a term directors/actors use to follow-up on a run-through or performance in order to help the actor realize the director's concept of the role more clearly. (You Lovies remember this next time the director tears a strip off you for missing your cue.) And, as Hamlet is managing this Play Within a Play in order to out -- spoiler alert -- Claudius, I tried to get clever. Well, it is. If you really think about it and not click onto the next cat meme.

 The other pieces are on http://www.facebook.com/DinahSnipesSteveni. Today I finally developed a FB Page for Pots and Painting. I did mention changes, didn't I? And I invited everybody. Why not? You too.Join the party!

Hamlet's Notes, ^6, 18" x 3.5"

Nick Nearly Forty, 12" x 12", oil