Passing Time

February is zipping past me, leaving me standing in knee deep snow and still thinking about making new work. Its interesting that as this winter drags and drags, this month seems to be passing so fast. A lot of this has to do with my new position as the Ceramic Studio Coordinator at the Pittsburgh Center for the Arts. I have immersed myself in the studio there...teaching, making glazes, firing kilns. And honestly, it is very satisfying right now to see the progress, albeit only small steps. But I see the openness and I feel very positive about these directions. So instead of me blathering on about stuff, how about a pictorial update of the last few weeks or so?! Buckle UP!

At the beginning of February I moved my personal studio space from Stray Cat Studio back to my own corner of the world... the basement in my house. I was finding it difficult to get down to the studio there...although its all of five minutes from my house. My new position with PCA combined with the 50 minute commute didn't leave me much energy to again truck back down to another space to make work. I needed a little less community and immediate access(like rolling out of bed and throwing before I brush my teeth). The studio at PCA is a great community and I now have a fully functioning and long time established ceramic studio at my fingertips. I continue to wish Stray Cat all the best!

Making my way from the studio to the kiln house at PCA. The high pitched kiln house is home to a soda kiln and a fiber based car kiln.

I fired the car kiln for the first time at PCA with the assistance of my buddy Dan Kuhn. BTW, Dan is having a grand opening for his new ceramic studio, teaching space and gallery...
TON POTTERY...this weekend 22/23...it is over 3000 square feet of really great space and if you are in the Pittsburgh area, you should check it out!

The ceramic studio here at PCA also had a big "throw down" for a major Empty Bowls event at the Rodef Shalom Congregation here in Pittsburgh. This is probably the biggest Empty Bowls night in the city and we are a big contributor for the event. Standard Ceramics generously donated 250 lbs of high fire stoneware and we also used quite a bit of our own pugged reclaim to make several hundred soup bowls! The public was invited on a Friday night and we had an invitational on Sunday afternoon! Thanks to all who came out to lend a hand making, trimming, and assisting others(and bringing cookies!)...great to be a part of this!

I also completed another branding commission for an upcoming wedding. 25 high-jacked Ikea feldspar porcelain mugs all freshly adorned with my decals. The wedding is nature/tree themed so I was able to use many of my own digital images of trees, leaves, plants and flowers combined with vector art and vintage images...each has the bride and groom and date in that fancy frame but all 25 are unique and variations on the theme.

Meanwhile, the snow continues to pile up. The above image is actually my back yard and semi shoveled sidewalk from my garage. This was from a few days ago...last night we got another 3-4 inches and my daughter got another day off school...at least somebody's happy about this.

NEW WORK coming soon...I SWEAR!...thanks for catching up with me.