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Bradbury Mountain Arts

I was invited to join the Bradbury Mountain Arts Holiday Show in Pownal, Maine, as a guest artist this past December. I felt very honored to be part of such a talented group of artists and I look forward to returning next year. If you are in the area, please stop by!

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Mugs for a Maine Skier

My friend and Co-Founder of the UNECOM Spouses Ski Club, Phil, asked me to make him 2 mugs that can each fit 2 beers in them. We talked at length about design ideas. He wanted something with a skier theme and we bounced around the idea of trail-maps. Phil and I have skied together at 2 awesome Maine mountains--Sugarloaf and Sunday River. So, for Phil, these are the mugs that I made.

The design on the bottom symbolizes our passion for finding fresh powder, which often means skiing over tiny saplings on the edges of the trail. 

Cheers, Phil!

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Making Pots with People in Mind

After my last post about making mugs for my friend, Scott, I've had some requests for custom-orders. 

My dear friend, Ethan, contacted me about making some mugs for friends of his as wedding gifts. Because he is such a thoughtful person, he sent me detailed descriptions of his friends highlighting their interests and "style". 

Because Ethan was not extremely specific about the exact mugs that he wanted but more suggestive in terms of the ideas, I was able to take his suggestions and put my own spin on them. One of the couples he wrote about were outdoorsy types with a knack for organic gardening. Below are their mugs!

Another pair were Pacific North-Westerners with a love of beer. For them, I hand-painted beer steins with traditional Haida Native American design on each.

There were a few other orders in this set, and it was such a pleasure to do them. I even made a dog bowl, but I forgot to take a picture of it!

I have since made 2 large serving bowls for my friend, Sara,  (sorry, no pics of those!) and more beer-stein style mugs for another friend (pics to come!).

I enjoy these artistic challenges of creating something with a particular person in mind. It gives me new ideas and pushes me beyond my typical studio practices. 

For anyone interested in custom orders, please feel free to message me through tumblr or via my Etsy site! 

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For Scott

My dear friend Scott asked me to make him some mugs about 1 year ago and continued to remind me until I finally had the time to make them!

Scott gave me some general specs about handle size and volume but let me come up with shapes and the glazing. I decided to experiment with some black underglaze. Enjoy, Scott!

While glazing Scott's mugs, I also glazed some serving bowls (8" diameter) with the same glazes. Here is an example of one!

I have about 1 month until school starts again, so I'll be making more pots!

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Animal Drawings

During the last few weeks of school, I let my students choose what they wanted to do for a final project. I am trying to move toward a choice-based curriculum for 8th grade Art next year, so I thought I'd try to pilot it with the 7th graders at the end of the year.  My main requirements were that they had a goal in mind and that they had to work straight through the end of the semester. They were really into it and came up with some cool stuff! They were so engaged that I found that I had some time to draw along side them. I don't think the kids have really seen me make much of anything, so it was a fun experience for them to see their teacher make stuff! One boy even said "Woah, you could be an artist!"... I was like "thanks...?" Ha! 

I've posted these in the order that I drew them. I started doing a quick sketch of the pig to show a student what the chalk pastels were like. I threw a necktie on him just for fun. They liked it. I then took requests from the students of what to draw. If you're not sure what a "walama" is, this is what it is.... 

The students and I came up with the names together.

It was really fun to draw with the pastels!

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My favorite glaze combination on porcelain

In the late fall, I started throwing with porcelain again. These stacking bowls have quickly become our favorite go-to bowls in our kitchen. They make everything look delicious! At the moment, I do all of my work at Portland Pottery, so I am fortunate enough to use their glazes. These are fired to ^10, with an Malcom Davis Shino outside and a Celadon inside. 

I hope you enjoy looking at these as much as I do!

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Julia's Mug

Now that the school year is nearly over, I'm starting to take commissions again! YAHOO! (Let me know if you are in need of anything!)

My college roommate, Julia, contacted me requesting a mug for her new job. I had already thrown a mug that seemed to have Julia's personality all over it, so I glazed it with her in mind. 

If I remember Julia's work habits...she drinks coffee and stays up all night and gets things done--very well! Hopefully this mug will help get her through some busy days and nights!

Enjoy it, Julia. Congrats on your new job! Miss you.

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Here's another weird, tiny figurine. I feel like these little dudes express the feeling of being overwhelmed that I am experiencing these days. I'm looking forward to finishing up grad school, and this chapter of my life.

For now, making these little guys will have to help me get through it!

He's about 1 inch tall (or small!)

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An alumna from the school where I am student teaching comes by about once/week to do some clay work in the ceramics studio. She and I were chatting after school while she was working and I made these little guys. I told her they were watching over her to make sure she was doing good work (and she did!)

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It's been a very very long time since I have posted, but I promise, I have been making things! Here is a sneak-peek at a ceramics project I did last semester in graduate school. In this project I was exploring surface decoration using screen printing and water-slide decal techniques. I created a dinner set with traditional Arabic and Irish patterns, as well as images of my and my husband's families (a Lebanese-Irish marriage!). I learned so much, and love this new technique. I'll be adding more images from last semester, soon!

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I may have gotten a little overzealous on the size of these bad boys, but they were delicious!

Stuffed with ricotta, mozzarella, olives, spinach and red peppers!

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Fresh from the Kiln!

We didn't have cake on hand to test out the newest cake stand, but the freshly baked cookies that Sean made look pretty good! I'm delighted with the way this came out. 

I'm also equally delighted by these sweetheart mugs. Lori Watts at Fine Mess Pottery showed me how to make these, and I love them as much as the mugs love eachother.

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My soy sauce pourers came out very well! I like that they're kind of funny/fun looking.

I'm learning a lot about cone 10 firings: be flexible about the results! The 2 soy sauce dishes were supposed to be the same color (the red color). They are glazed with Cushing Matte Green in the center, with Celadon over. At first I was annoyed, but now I think I like it!

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The first 2 cake stands have come out of the bisque! I'm hoping they'll last through the high-fire.

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I like making anything with my hands, especially baked goods. These raspberry scones were especially delightful on this chilly spring morning!

The cream scone recipe from the Cooks Illustrated Best Recipes cookbook is really foolproof. You can mix and match any fruit/nut/spice you want, and they're always great. Try it!

As always, a scone tastes best on a handmade plate.

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I'm experimenting with something new: Cake Stands. These are pretty fun to make. Hopefully they'll turn out well!

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Reminiscing about Yarn

It's been a little while since I picked up my knitting needles, but I thought I'd share some poorly taken PhotoBooth pics of some hats, a scarf and a cowl that I've made in the last year. I love knitting when it's dark and cold and there isn't much else to do. I have a feeling I won't be knitting too much this summer!