Octopus's Garden Collection

I have been pretty busy lately, these days I am always busy and when not so tired, that I don't feel like doing anything, except watching Netflix. The new season of "What not to wear" is available on streaming and I am just addicted to it. I am not ashamed to admit it.

Also, I had catching on movies, the Hobbit and Catching Fired, are so good, you should go and see them.

You see, very busy ;)

Here is the Octopus's Collection, there are some more to come, I promise will posted tomorrow night. I posted this on my FB page and turn out to be quite popular, what do you think?

Octopus's Garden Bowl

This is a B I G bowl for me,  as you may know I always have a hard time centering the clay. Anything beyond 3 pounds is such a challenge, sometimes I can, sometimes I can not, nowadays I am practicing with close to 4 pounds. This bowl will have had required at least 6 pounds, so I did something different, I made it with a slab of clay that later I slumped it on a mold. The process is slow, very different from the fast spinning wheel.

I did it because I have an idea on my mind, I wanted to make a big bowl with the "Under the Sea"  or "Octopus's Garden" theme, something big than can make people look at my table in future shows. Before I started the decoration process I realized than I have never had so much space for drawing, empty spaces scare me. I start thinking on my regular characters, jelly fish, octopus, fish, somehow it didn't seem enough for so much space,  I started to think on marine images and one image came to my mind, a turtle!!

Why a turtle, well, I should have started by telling that I have a friend, her name is Rhonda, she is a marine biologist and most of her work consist on  rescue turtles, of course there are more, something about the marine currents, the waves, the weather, the tide, the wind... it is quite embarrassing but sometimes I can not fallow her, I blame it to my lack of English words concerning marine biology, but perhaps I would not even understand it in Spanish either. Marine Biologist, get so passionate about their jobs, that I feel bad to interrupt them to ask silly questions, I get the big idea and I am happy with that. When I talk to her I feel a renew optimism, not everyone is evil, maybe not everyone has sold their souls to devil in exchange of money, prestige or fame. I am a pessimistic, I have no faith in humans.

However, I do remember a time when I was younger and really wanted to make this world a better place, I worked and volunteer in a couple of organizations back in Lima, but then, I found out the corruption, the personal interest and get into the conclusion that we are doom. But when I see Rhonda, and read her daily post on FB I feel better knowing that there are still some people working for us, protecting living creatures and their environment, Rhonda is one of them, isn't she the best!!

She works very early fallowing turtles paths, saving their nest, and much more, if a turtle needs help she will never  say: "Too bad, its 5 pm, I am out of here". Bad thing is that this wonderful people are badly paid, even worse than teachers, they don't receive paid vacations, or sick days, or retirement money, nothing, just good bye was nice to have you here, isn't it horrible!!

Thank you Rhonda for being there for the turtles, and for be my friend!

Octopus's Garden Set

Pitcher and cups :)

Octopus's Garden Pitcher

Here it is, my Octopus's Garden Pitcher. I also made a some cups that will match it, but I will post them tomorrow :)

Made by Hand Show

So I did it, I finally did my really first show. It was this past Saturday, November 17th. We were asked to be there by 6:30 but I couldn't I arrived at 7:30, but it was OK, the show started at 9 am. I should explain for the ones who don't know me that I am part of a long traditions of Peruvians who are always late and even when I try to change it seems that will not happen, I will never be like my Germans friends always on time, like my dear friend Katalin it was so common for her to say on the phone: I will see you moni in 13 minutes, not 10 or 15 but exact 13!!! and she was always able to manage her time and arrived at the exact time she said she will be!! But I digress from my story.

I was sharing the booth with a fellow classmate the wonderful Kathie King, she makes incredible glass flowers and now she is making fairy houses, kids, specially little girls come to the booth magnetized by them.

So we set our tables in a uncommon Florida cold morning, it look nice everybody working on their booths trying to display their art pieces in the best possible way. We already had a workshop about how to display our stuff how to talk to the people, etc. Things in theory easy to do. . . in theory.

So at 9 am everybody were ready to make a lot of sales, art pieces nicely display coffee or hot cocoa, big smiles ready to welcome the first costumer and we wait, and we wait and we wait. Couple hours later people start coming, not many but some enough to make us feel better. It is something fascinated how people always come in groups without being conscious of that, people come like waves suddenly bug groups of people and then nothing... how that can happen, they don't know each other so how they can do it is like a symphony ( I am just copying my dear friend Erika's way to describe the cars on the highway).

Many people came to our booth and compliment our work but they didn't buy anything. I was next to a booth who was selling pottery and glass as well but way cheaper than us. At some point I was wondering that maybe my stuff was overprice but then I think again, my bowls for example are very unique, there are not 2 exactly alike, I tried real hard to make sets and decorated one by one fallowing a theme that initially is only in my head. Would be much easier to just glazed them in one unique color, less work, less thinking, less material, probably less expensive, but I will not be happy with them. I like my bowls, I only sell the ones that are "perfect" for me, even when I am the only one who can see the mistakes, a different tone of the glaze on the bottom, a scratch when it was on greenware that was cover by the glaze but I can still see it, or a shape that according to me is not for the design I have in my head, those bowls or pots are reserved to be given away, some of my relatives are happy with my craziness, they always get pots.

So then I think that my prices were right even if I sold only one, to recuperated my expenses I will be happy, at the end I sold 2 bowls and a couple of more things, so I think it was ok. Some of the vendors sold a lot and made a lot of money and I am happy for them, specially for the ones who were congruent and loyal with their true self and respect themselves as an artist. Another friend who was at the show was Andrees, he is an sculptor and made wonderful pieces hand build, he uses raku glazes and his pieces are incredible, I still can not afford to buy his pieces but I hope I can one day. He was not making any sells for hours and then suddenly one lady bought one of his big ones, he made $450 on one sell!!! So I guess one just need to wait for the right person.

I have been accepted in another show, Art in the Park in Ybor City so I guess I will try again. I already have the fabric and all the little things to display my art so why not.

My wonderful boyfriend took some photos of the event, feel free to make any comment or suggestion about my display... it is still a work in progress.

Octopus's garden...

This is a new bowl, I am trying new animals like octopus, sea rays and fish... what do you think?

My super friend  Betsy Gordon, said my bowl remind her the song Octopus's garden by the Beatles, I don't know why I didn't think of that since I like the Beatles so much and I use to la-la-la (tararear) that song so much. Thank you Betsy, I will rename the bowls and the new plate that is right now in the kiln :)

Under the Sea Bowls

This is the first bowl with the "Under the Sea" theme, I am making more now but I am a very slow person, plus I took a week off and went to the Smokey Mountains, TN and Asheville, NC. I live in Tampa Florida, so I usually don't see the the colors of the fall, so we decided to go before the red and yellow leaves on the trees fell down. We were lucky the colors were so pretty but it was sooo cold. I will post some photos of the trip later. Now I am back at the studio making more "Under the Sea" bowls, my friends keep telling me that this may sell well for Christmas since it is Florida theme.

I will be part of "Made by Hand" show on November 17th, which is next Saturday..... and I don't have things ready yet!!!

I will keep you posted.

Under the Sea

I have been practicing vases, tumblers and pitchers lately. My teacher told me that I should practice more shapes besides bowls. Pitchers are hard to make; first of all, I have to  center on the potters' wheel 3 pounds of clay, more if possible. After that, make a cylinder, the walls should be thin because they will carry water and it should not be too heavy to manipulate.  Then, a shape should be formed and, depending on the shape, the spout should be molded.

After that, it should dry enough to trim the bottom and add the handle, and OMG! handles are so hard to do. Maybe that's why I am making tumblers now, no handles needed hahaha!!

Any way, the one here is a piece that refused to be a pitcher, so I made a vase :) and since I started to make the top in a scalloped shape, it kind of reminded me of waves, so I thought the best way to decorate it was to draw a marine theme with jelly fishes and marine plants.

I carved the design and also used some slip for the final touches. When in bisque I added some iron oxide wash before applying celadon green glaze. The piece was fired on cone 6.