Creatures from the Sock Drawer!

 

Crazy....yes, I have been consumed lately to create these sock creatures.....and one thing always leads to another. Cutting socks to make parts for one, leaves parts left over for another....and so it goes.

I've been crazed! Oh well, as long as they make me laugh!

This is a family portrait....could be your family....no?

The smallest ones are pins, the second row are from junior socks....and the others from women's socks.

Quite the family, I'd say!

The summer of 2012

It has been months since I posted. The summer was not spent in my studio, but at Potterville, our escape from the world. It is only 10 minutes from home but there is no phone service or internet available...and so, it is a peaceful place to relax. It wasn't until just a few days before school began, that I returned to my studio to work. Now there are many projects going on and teaching at the same time. This is the first and last pieces from the summer of 2012. Looking forward to Christmas break to make many more. The firing was pretty successful and has inspired me to push onward!

  This piece was heated, pulled and then sprayed with Ferric. The different temperatures give the variation of colors.

 Three views of this fish vessel....the copper reduced and the body of the pot was glazed and then scrubbed to clean the surface, leaving the cracks full of the glaze.

 This piece was glazed, pulled when it reached temperature and then sprayed with ferric.

 This was glazed on the fish parts that wound around the pot.

 The toad and the grasshopper.....and age old story.

Trigger Fish

This Trigger Fish is from my last firing, done a while back. With the end of school, there is little time for my work....but there will be!  There are a few fish more to fire....oh, only a few....I had better get started on my summer school.....of fish that is!

 

The summer Arts Academy offers a week long series of workshops to area high school students from Honesdale High School, Wallenpaupack, Western Wayne and Forest City Schools. Each day they attend, they work with a different artist from 9-3 working in that artist's medium. What a great way to expose yourself to so many different materials! The silent auction's mission is to raise money so we can offer this Academy at a very affordable cost to the students!

 Linda Cobb's Fish

 Linda Halverson's Fish

 David Hamill's Fish

 Ellen Silberlicht's Fish

 Alan Wood's Fish

 Joe Kluck's Fish

 Judith Present's Fish

 Nancy Wells' Fish

 Ginny Kannengiesser's Fish

 Hana Gorman's Fish

 Jeff George's Fish

 Jerry DeCrotie's Fish

 Linda Gunderson's Fish

The School of Fish!

The lamp base

I found the photo of the lamp base. It's now sitting in the kiln, slowly drying, waiting for the next step.

It's a fishy kind of day!

I have been firing using my electric kiln this winter and have been surprised to like the results. I have also been doing fish, so they may like the glossy glaze. I plan on playing with glazes on some and rakuing the others to see the variations.

Now they are set to dry....which will take some time. 

I also threw some large vessels that will be a lamp and another one will be a base for a bird bath.

This is meant to be a trigger fish, so I plan on playing with glaze and raku....in my head it works!

...and a few more to add

 These pieces are from my last batch of brown clay. It has been interesting to experiment with the electric firing and see the results. I love raku, but since I can't fire in the winter, I needed to find another way to satisfy my disease, which is the need to create. The brown clay gives it the feeling of a reduced cone 9 firing. I like the warm color of the natural clay. And I also discovered the fluidity that fish have, and believe I have translated that in my pots. Now I must push myself further....and see what else I can discover!

 Below you will notice a stream of fish, all waiting to be decorated for the silent auction fundraiser for the Summer Arts Academy. This fundraiser allows us to offer a series of workshops to high school students from our area. The fundraiser offsets the cost of materials and other expenses so all students can afford to attend.

So, who is behind the Summer Arts Academy?

Lori Gearhart, Kathy Carachilo, Lisa Peet from Wallenpaupack High School

Ellen Silberlicht from Honesdale High School

Kelly Phillips from Forest City School District

Jeff George

Lindsay Barrett George

and David Hamill

It is our vision to make art more available to those students who just don't get enough in their school year. Anyway....how in the world can you go through the entire summer and not be creative? This Academy gives students the opportunity to experience and experiment with something new and different that their class structures can't offer. It is a week long experience of exchanging joy, meeting other creative students from other schools, and having new adventures in self expression.

I don't think it could get much better!

 

Stay tuned to updates about the auction and the Summer Arts