Oxiding and Garden Break

Friday I spent much of the day glazing and oxiding a load for the kiln. I love the finished effect of oxiding my work but I don't enjoy the elbow work in getting the look I want. It is pretty simple in technique, simply brush on the iron oxide mix, let it dry, then rub, rub, rub with a damp rag taking off as much of the oxide as desired. It's a messy job and my wrist gets tired so I take lots of breaks.

 The tiles on the right have been rubbed. The ones on the left and below are awaiting the rag rubbing. Then all will be loaded into the kiln to be fired with the glaze load.

Because it was so beautiful outside I kept popping out to the yard to water the garden, dead-head the daisies, pull some weeks, etc. This is our wild-flower garden right now ..... We've added an extension so we'll be doing some more planting soon.You need to click on the garden photo to see the wild flowers.

More Shibori Projects

I'm still having fun using some of my dyed fabrics from Linda Dawson's Shibori workshop. I've been making covers for my stack of yellow note pads.  I like how the naked white buttons look with the indigo fabrics.

This one is a softer cover, using a regular batting rather than the heavy weight Fast2Fuse. I raw edge finished and crocheted two funky yarns together for the edging and ties. It's a furry little creature.

Inside I used two other dyed fabrics. The over-dyed piece is from Linda H. who was in Linda D's class. She over dyed a white on white print and wasn't happy with it, was going to toss it. I said it was great so she gave it to me. Thank you Linda!

I love these little breaks but now it's back to taxes..... have a great weekend, hope you don't still have your taxes to work on!

Inchie Meets Rattle

Back in January time didn't seem to be flying like it is now. I thought I was going to have time for all the online challenges including the inchies. But time isn't abundant so this rattle that I made last year sat waiting for the the finishing fiber touch. I finally made a quilted inchie and the two seemed to be a perfect fit!

I ordered some little stands for my little clay plaques so finally listed a couple in my etsy shop. A few other newbies to the shop .....

Now back to the games ..... the sketchbook is getting some use today. Happy creating all!

NCECA continues.... and so does the inspiration....

For those local to South Florida and who didn't get to NCECA or just need a little more ceramics there are two shows in Tequesta that you can still catch through April 6th that the Lighthouse ArtCenter, "Atmosphere" invitional and "On Fire". I didn't get up to either but plan to be up there early on take down day hoping to see as much of the works as possible. I was fortunate to have a trio of my stitched vessels juried into "On Fire".

 Although I didn't get to NCECA this year one of my clay and fiber purses did. It was at the show "Some Like It HOT", the FAU show juried by Mary Roehm and Bryan Hively. I've been searching the net for photos of NCECA and found coverage of some excellent shows at Art Taco.

NCECA is a wonderful experience for anyone who either works in clay or has an appreciation of the medium. There are so many exhibitions of every type of claywork imaginable. My most memorable moment at my first NCECA (2003, I think!) was walking into a gallery, a quick last stop on the way to airport, and seeing the works of Margie Hughto. Her work was like a quilt of clay in colors I had never used in ceramics. I loved it! I was so inspired I came home searched for her work online and finally found a book of her work. This photo above, "Blame It On The Sun", 1988, is from that book, Margie Hughto, Ceramics 1980-1990.

I quickly got to work in my studio and from her inspiration created one of my first clay quilt pieces, above. My first was done with clay and stitching, then I started to experiment with fabric for my quilt but framed with clay. The following year I was inspired by an article in Quilting Arts magazine on the use of Solvron. That is when my 'fiber studies' began. If you just clicked on that link you'll see that you ended up at my intro post discussing how I got to my starting point of fiber studies, posted at Tangled Textiles, a new group of nine ladies invited by Diane of Twelve by 12, to form a challenge art quilt group. We are all very excited to begin our journey of exploration into theme inspired art quilts! And here you see I started my post with clay but clay and fiber just go together for me!

Hope you're having a great week and happy, inspired creating!