Sale sneak peek, II

Botanical Mugs
Originally uploaded by Bridgman Pottery

botanical mugs and platters catching the morning light in my living room. Yesterday little boy proclaimed "our whole house is a pottery store!"

Several things, including one of my favorite small platters and half of the tiny vases, went last night. Thanks to everyone who turned out in the heat and humidity. I enjoyed meeting new people and seeing old friends. Come cool off with some lemonaid!

I got up really early this morning to get my eggs from the farmers market downtown and came away with quite a haul. My favorite farmers (I just signed up for their CSA for the fall last week!) told me that if I'll keep my chard cut, I may be able to squeeze another month out of them. YAY! Isn't this the prettiest?

sneak peek

I unloaded the kiln this morning- here's a peek at what I have to offer. This is the first time in more than 3 years that I've done my sale by myself. Usually my friend Katherine of Turtle Pottery joins with me, and at the pre-holiday sale I always have an artist of a different media join in. This summer, it's all me, so it will be less of a shindig than usual. I'll have light refreshments on Saturday and a bit of wine on Friday, so stop by if you're in the greater Memphis area.

If you're a long-distance blog reader, I'll have a big etsy update next week. If you've pre-ordered berry bowls from me, about ten are still upstairs and will be glazed next week. I'll be making them through the end of summer.

Summer sale

Annual summer sale! teapots, cake plates, mugs, teacups, platters, bowls, honeypots, berry bowls, bird houses, sea urchins, tiny bowls, ladybug ware, pitchers and creamers, sugar bowls, cannisters, herb markers, a very few super-on sale seconds. Lots and lots of pottery.

Friday, 6-8. Saturday, 11-4:30.Scroll down for a map!

icon-writing class

icon-writing class
Originally uploaded by Bridgman Pottery

Last night* was my first night of a three-session icon class. It is a Romanian Icon, which is reverse painting on glass. It was advertised as easy, as in, "if you can draw a crooked line, you can do this." Ahem. I beg to disagree. My table, which held me, a person fairly comfortable with painting fine details (all those ferns and ladybugs?), a fireman (my boy was so jealous!), a gallery manager, and a retiree, well, we all struggled. Everyone there struggled. I quit at this point- after two hours of work. The first step was to trace your design's outline ( I brought my paper copy of the Martyrs of Memphis) on glass with a sharpie. No problem. 15 minutes. Then came the painting the reverse of that outline on the glass. This is where the problems came in. Our instructor said that the paint needed to be "thin." No problem. I can do thin, I do thin with a 3-bristled brush and thinned black underglaze to make my ladybug details. It was too thin. The paint is supposed to be as thick as ink, thick enough to make a wall to hold in a layer of paint. Mine was watercolor thin. I think I spent 20 minutes working on getting the consistency right, then keeping it right (because the water evaporated quickly in the super-air-conditioned room).

I brought the piece home with me to work on after my sale. I won't have time this week- it will be a glazing, cleaning, and re-arranging fiesta at casa Bridgman, but we don't meet again until June 22, so hopefully I will have time next week. Interestingly, all of the other designs available were very detailed- mine is very simplified from the original icon. It is also the reverse image, but oh well. I'm not perfect. Neither is it.


*last night the dove came back- I've seen him around, but he was hanging out in the tree house WITH the boys. While they were hammering. Then eating from both of their hands. Pretty magical. But this is someone's pet, so we put an ad in the paper today. But man, oh, man, I'd like to hold the dove again!

pottery photos

most of the photos of my pottery on this blog are pictures that I've taken with my little Kodak EasyShare C603 Zoom. It wasn't expensive, although my days as a college and graduate student, living on less than $500 a month, have permanently colored my vision of personal finance and I'm extremely careful with spending, so that $150 or so felt like a small fortune. Eventually, we'll upgrade, but I take almost all of my pictures with the macro feature (forgive my dismal knowledge of photography lingo) and I'm pretty pleased.
This photo was taken by Kim, who ordered a set of herb and vegetable markers from my shop. I love it- it is so different from my other herb marker photos- maybe just because it's in her garden and not in mine!
Many of you have seen Molly's berry bowl. One of my college friends recently said that it looks like a professional food photographer took it! This week Jennifer took another lovely photo of the bowl and shared it on her blog. Again, I see food-styling in her future! I'm tickled to see my work in use in your lives*- creating work to enrich daily living is one of the biggest reasons I do what I do. Well, also, I don't think that I could stop.

This coming week may be post-light as I work towards glazing and cleaning the house for my sale this weekend. I'll still be around, so I'll see you later!

*Sunday edit- Michele of calico daisy added some pictures of my butter dish here. Thanks Michele!!

Friday!

There are several magazines that I subscribe to with the laughable goal of being "on trend." Sometimes I'm ahead of the curve slightly, but mostly I make what I make and these magazines are eye candy. This little teacup and saucer, from Anthropologie, has been in Domino twice in the past couple of months. Really, it reminds me of the tumbler and bowl I bought from Molly Hatch and her now (sadly) empty etsy store. So I love it, they come in different colors, and it's a very good thing that there aren't Anthropologie stores in Tennessee (that I know of, and please don't inform me if there are) and that I no longer get the catalog, becuase I love their home goods but they, ah, prevent me from attaining my goal of a clutter-free home.

Originally, I ripped this out to see if I could make my own variation of it, but at this point in time, it seems that I will be making nothing but berry bowls for the foreseeable future. Not that I'm complaining! I'm going to attempt one, maybe making similar lines with a blue underglaze pencil, or make a blue one with white lines. . . in the fall.

Today I have my mother's helper, but all the pottery I'm going to make for my sale is made. I have more berry bowls for orders to make, but not today. I've done 26 this week, both for orders and my own sale, but today's task is herb markers, finishing sale postcards, and listing the pieces that I photographed for etsy on Monday (while I catch up on my podcasts!). Thursday was an all-day little boy fiesta. We went to the library, out for lunch, went to the barber shop for our first professional haircut (and silly mama forgot her camera), to a playdate, and then to the pool for a swimming date. We finished the day by catching fire flies at dusk under the trees at Rhodes College, and reading books in mamas bed until we passed out. Literally. I woke up with books around us and the lamps still on. Ahh, summer.
Have a wonderful weekend!

postcards

postcards
Originally uploaded by Bridgman Pottery

today's task- finish addressing and mail the postcards for next weekend's sale. My postcard mailing list is limited to Memphis and surrounding suburbs, so I only send them out a week ahead of time. I'm pleased with how they turned out, but I am definitely going to go the sticker-address-label route next time.

I LOVE the tropical fruit stamps, but I've always been a fan of postage stamps. Two years ago (or was it only last year?) I bought 200 Gee's Bend quilt stamps. I'm still using them, just adding more penny stamps. Stamps are such little works of art- I frequently find myself peeling canceled stamps off envelopes to keep for craft projects.

When Gary and I married in 2000 the Louise Nevelson stamps had just come out- all black and white and spare and graphic. I used them on my wedding invitations! I know some people must have thought we were insane, but Nevelson has been one of my favorite artists since I was in high school. I even came up with a Nevelson-inspired project when I taught kids' art camps. Now if only there would be Louise Bourgeois spider stamps. . . . .

I'm feeling a little all over the place today, seeking balance and realizing that I always feel this way the week before a sale. Just keep breathing, I tell myself.