Clay Catch Up

I just did my second bisque firing yesterday, but before I can post pictures of my new stuff I need to play a little catch up. I'll start with a little history on how I got involved with this wonderfully muddy medium and, hopefully before putting myself or anyone else to sleep, I will conclude with the results from my first firing. Here we go!

My relationship with clay began over ten years ago when I was still in highschool. (Some of you will remember Mr. Snakeman...)

I still have his head...

Clay and I got to know each other even better during my time as an art major at UW Stout. Jack Daniels and I got to know each other pretty well too, but I digress. While at Stout, I had a fair share of pottery/sculpture classes and got pretty good at both. Before I knew it, I had fallen head over heels in love with clay in general and couldn't keep my my hands off of it. It's been several long years since then and I have missed it dearly. I explored other, cheaper, creative outlets like watercolors and my career as a designer, but nothing else has quite compared to the three dimensional, glorious, endless opportunities that can be found in a block of clay.

Upon buying our house back in April, I found myself with a few extra Benjamins left over after withdrawing our downpayment from my 401K and I immediately began searching craigslist for used kilns and potters wheels. Clay is cheap as hell, the stuff you need to do anything with it - not so much. Thanks to an old friend - who's sister had a wheel she was looking to get rid of on the cheap, and thanks to my husband and his cousin - who did the heavy lifting, I acquired the first half of my new hobby pretty quickly. Not long after that I found a good deal on a used craigslist kiln and thanks to some friends with a truck, I had the two things I needed to start out.

I started sculpting before I even had a kiln. My first two sculptures turned out awesome... until I went to bisque fire them. Two things I learned:
• Make shit that actually fits inside my kiln
• Score better when adhering butt cheeks to human form sculptures as not to embed air bubbles and have a ceramic butt explosion

Here are pictures of them before said lessons so rudely presented themselves 

 

I have since sculpted two smaller suns that I fired yesterday, many people have asked me about them after seeing the above picture, so hopefully they will be a big seller when they make it to the store.

Which brings me to another fun fact, I am lucky enough to have amazing friends that own a gallery/artist co-op in Eau Claire called Tangled up in Hue. These lovely ladies have invited me to display my work at their store. Because of this, my frivolous spending has not only been in support of a hobby, but it's also an investment that might make me a little extra coin every month. I also had the opportunity to work with them and bring stuff from my first firing to a music festival at Harmony Park that they were vending at back in June. Maybe I will get another opportunity to do that again soon! And this is me shamelessly hoping they read this and ask me. (COUGHShangriLaAHEM!) Oh, excuse me ;)

Here are pictures from that weekend:

Part of the extensive Tangled Up In Hue vendors booth

Some of the pendants I made, on hemp twine

My little display area. I only had jewelry and a few bowls from the first firing, but I sold some of both!

After the festival they took everything that didn't sell back to the store with them. I have since been making flower pots, small cork topped jars, magnets, more pendants, beads, more suns, glasses and bigger bowls. I have ideas for shadow lanterns, coasters, Christmas ornaments, wedding cake toppers, cork topped flasks, flower vases, mugs... the opportunities are endless.

I bought a website, muddymissy.com - and made a logo:

but I haven't done anything with either yet, just trying to get a bunch of stuff made up for TUIH and then I will start building my own personal selling outlets. My goal is to have it up and running in time for Christmas but I may just resort to etsy.

So there you have it! I'll be glazing all week and will hopefully do another firing by next weekend. Will update pictures when I do.