Digital Clay!

This is the ad for the new ceramics course being offered in the spring session at FAU in Boca Raton by Marty Fielding. Wow, 3d modeling and printing! Although I prefer my handmade to be literally hand-made, it is exciting to see ceramics merge with the digital world. I'm confident that there will still be a devoted group of younger clay artists who keep the traditional art and craft of wheel throwing and hand-building alive. I'd hate to think that clay will go the way of check-out counters where when the power goes out no work can be done!
 

Butterflies this Week

 Long-tailed Skipper (Urbanus Proteus) resting on some Cassia leaves.

 Giant Swallowtails! I was so excited to capture these; two in one photo!

Summer Work

...or should I say summer play? In between reading, cooking, baking, hiking, tennis and summer veg time I did some fiber work. The past few summers I had a Tangled Textiles challenge quilt to complete and I missed that so decided to make my own challenge and came up with three little wall quilts.

 I used some sun printed as well as procion dyed fabrics to create this one, inspired by the water and vegetation. I went for simple quilting lines and lots of it, using up lots of old spools of thread.

 Then I used a piece of my hand-painted fabrics below. I cut the fabric into strips and made tiny seams adding in the inlays. Again I used simple line quilting.

My third little quilt isn't as colorful but it has lots of meaning to me as I used mussel shells for a circle of life, blues for the ocean and sky, quilted abstract overhanging trees from the cliffs and round rock shapes for the shore, then added fringe to represent the seaweed I found along the shores. This one takes me back to summer vacations by the ocean. 

I made a couple little bags and this one is from some sun prints.....

And now it's back to the clay ..... I am still stocking my etsy shop but here's one of my new pieces, a fun one for Halloween.

And a couple other pieces that I happen to be photo-ready....

Garden news will come yet. And with back to clay time comes back to teaching. Classes begin next week but if you're thinking of joining but are a snow bird or for whatever reason can't be there at the start you can join anytime. Happy Autumn Everyone!