Glynnis Lessing

Kohler Festival of the Arts

For some odd reason I’d hoped to get through this latest art fair without any dramatic incidents but of course that would not make for a good story!

We rented a trailer again- it’s really easy to load and then we have our own car the whole time.  The drive to Sheboygan was lovely.

This person travels heavy!

When we got there, there was ample space to just pull up and it was shady too.  We unloaded and then ate a picnic lunch right on our spot.  As we prepared to set up they decided they had to do some last minute mowing!

Set up is getting smoother as we become more practised and find short cuts and routines.

We had a really nice spot.  

As soon as we were done, we went right over to the Kohler Arts Center. The exhibits were excellent. Interesting, thought provoking and sophisticated.

Then there were the bathrooms.  Luckily our little group (my family)  had genders of both kinds and so got to give each other the “all clear” sign so we could view ALL the bathrooms (there were 4) Here is the main Men’s note that the mirrors are reflecting the other wall – all of it was AMAZING.

my favorite was this Women’s Bathroom.

And the other Men’s was also great.

it was all about water. Although that paisley pattern has a germy look.

Next we went out to eat at Il Ritorno- OMG!  The best pizza I’ve had in years!  Possibly ever! Also a great salad.  Sated, we went off to our hotel which has an attached water park and we all went on slides and inner tubes etc. until we were exhausted and saturated with chlorine.

The next morning dawned beautiful and sunny but I had a fairly slow day. At some point I left the husband in charge of my booth and walked around.  I was really impressed with all the great pottery. I now own some pieces by Michael Kahn of Greenbush, Mi. and also Ryan Myers (who won an award at this fair) of Mudhead Studio.

As soon as we packed up for the night (all the pots in boxes on the ground) we went over to the(  free)  Artists Buffet and Awards Dinner. This is the 40th anniversary of the Festival.  Chinese food, great salad and beer or wine; very nice.

Another winner was Sarah Chapman a fellow Lill denizen- a jeweller.

Back to the hotel where we had a walk on the beach and the kids did the water park again.  So far incident free, right? Everything going smoothly… BORING but smoothly.

The next morning we got all set up- we had the awnings down overnight because of possible wind- and right after we got all set up it rained on us pretty hard.

Unlike 57th Street, that didn’t scare the customers away for the day- they came out with the sun and I had a slow but steady day.

THEN with 45 mins left to the fair, while a volunteer was shopping in our booth, this HUGE TORNADO SIREN goes off. We were about a half a block from it

it was so loud it obliterated all thought and all my decision making functions in my brain shut down.  Should I take my kids to the nearest basement? Should I try to pack up my pots? Was it a REAL TORNADO?? What if it was just a strong wind? Kids would be okay but the pots could be detroyed…. but what if it was a REAL TORNADO? Then I didn’t care about the pots at all….. finally the sound stopped and my brain unfroze. The jeweller across the way who had already lost a tent that weekend (his wife was in Iowa at a different show and wind destroyed their better  tent) was packing up extremely rapidly – to put it mildly.

It looked to me as though the artists all decided, “okay, the customers are gone, it’s been a fair with lackluster profits* let’s just call it a day”

*let me just reiterate here- the fair itself was really really nice- well run, great art, lovely setting, good treatment, good music. These are just tough economic times.

So we all began to pack up.The sun actually came out again and everyone was pretty relaxed.

Amazingly, some customers did return only to find the things they’d been eying for several hours packed away.

Load out was easy, and we were headed home by 6.

Oh, and by the way, there WAS a tornado- north of us!

The Krasl Art Fair

What an interesting fair in terms of what I learned and also rife with little incidents.

First of all, I decided to try using a trailer to haul my stuff to the fair.  I paid for a hitch to be installed on our poor old car and rented a U Haul 4×8 trailer.  The men at the U Haul seemed vastly more confident in my driving skill than I was.Really flattering picture, eh?

I picked it up Friday morning and drove it  without a hitch (haha!) to our house where a spot to load magically opened.

Everything fit in there with room to spare; darn, now I realize I didn’t take a photo!

As we drove off I noticed in my rear-view that the trailer has a sign on it- designed to be readable in my mirror- “Max Speed 45” !!

So there I am creeeping along the highway until I see some guy pulling the exact same trailer whiz past me at about 65 or 70!  So I went 60 with no problem after that.

We arrived in beautiful weather.

There is a certain air of quiet, hardworking, purposefulness when all the artists are setting up. It feels good to be part of that.

While we were setting up some guy sunnily walked through singing very badly at the top of his lungs.  Pretty harmless.

Our spot on the bluff overlooks a brand new fountain. We knew they were building one last year but we had no idea it was an interactive fountain!  My son could barely contain his excitement enough to help us set up and then we let him go down there where he stayed for nearly 2 hours! Every 20 minutes or so, the “big cannons” go off.

We also have two friends from Argentina in the fair. Last year, I noticed Marisa Rufino’s  paintings and sent my husband down to check them out and he came back very excited saying they were from Argentina, up here for about a month to do a bunch of art fairs and could they stay at our house?

So they are back. Her partner, Daniel Belloli makes these incredible sun dials so they were both in the fair this year. This is their web site:  http://www.artejuela.com.ar/

The next morning as I was setting out my pots, I could hear some guy just yelling. I thought maybe it was our singer from the evening before but pretty soon word began to spread. The guy had been asked to leave and was completely out of his gourd. First the police tried pepper spray and then finally they had to use a tazer- neither of which had any effect at all! As I went to change clothes at the hotel,  I saw 4 of St. Joseph’s finest really struggling to get him into the squad car. He was alternately yelling “I love you!” followed closely by vicious swearing. I just kept walking feeling grateful this happened before the fair opened!  By the time I emerged, the squad car was gone with the guy in it.

It was a beautiful day and people were very appreciative. This fair is the best run fair I’ve ever been in and they treat the artists wonderfully. I love being here.

My son and husband went off to ride the new carousel and check out the museum and fountain (again).

Sunday was another lovely day

and I had several customers who had bought things from me last year. It’s always so wonderful to hear how people are living with my pottery and if they like it.

I guess the reason I make mugs is because it is an object so many people take away from the table, cradle, hold, sip from, and start their day with.  I can’t tell you how much pleasure I get from hearing people say, “I start my day with your mug every morning”  or “ I love my mug!”

Late in the afternoon we had yet another small incident when I heard one of the artists nearby chide a tourist – who had been bad mouthing Obama- “you’re not a very good Christian” at which point the tourist came at him very aggressively and the tourist’s wife had to physically drag him away while he raged that he had been called a  “bad christian”.

This unpleasantness was completely erased by the pleasantness of all the other fairgoers who cheerfully walked the length of the fair in the hot sun buying art and chatting with the artists.

Our take-down is getting better and more organized but we did have to stop and go get the trailer which kind of slowed our momentum. I tried backing it in but at some point, with traffic backing up I started yelling “just unhook it and we’ll push it by hand!!” which is what we did and that worked just great. The 4X8 is easy to manouver by hand when it’s empty.

We had a a celebratory dinner with Dani and Marisa and slept well at the hotel. The next day we went blueberry picking and had a picnic lunch at the beach nearby.  A perfect weekend!

Slip ‘n’ Surfaces Week 4

It’s been a great class with really wonderful students. I’m always so thrilled to see what they are working on each week. Since this was the last week, I reall packed in the demonstrations.

Banding

I started off by throwing a bowl with about 3 pounds of clay. People wanted a refresher in how to throw a larger bowl. This was a good item to demonstrate banding with slip  while it was still on the wheel. One of the most common and annoying problems with banding is that the slip doesn’t just glide on there in a steady stream leaving a perfect highway of color on your pot. Especially if you are applying it to a leather surface, the clay can suck up the moisture from a thicker slip and give you a very uneven, often kind-of pitted surface.  If you are applying to leather hard it helps to spritz it with a bit of water ; wait a few seconds for the water to sink in a little, otherwise you lay your slip down onto a thin layer of water and it can drip and not stick well.

If you are applying to a freshly thrown pots (which is ideal for bonding for porcelain slip bonding to stoneware) you still have to dip the brush more frequently than you’d think. Just keep the wheel going steadily and hold your hand steady too. You can always clean up the edges with a metal rib or stick tool. Here I used my rib to put a little wavy edge on my band.

Leaf Stencils

Next I threw a low terra cotta bowl so we could do some stencils using leaves. I also showed how you can take something like a fork and with an even motion while the wheel is going slowly, make another kind of border around the rim- this time on the inside. 

I had  some problem getting the leaves to really lay flat but Kristina solved that problem by using some newsprint to really presss her leaves down flat.

Here is the plate after she pulled the leaves off

Beautiful. She will go back in when the slip is leather hard and clean up any places the slip snuck under the leaves.

Jennifer put some on the outside of her mugs which also turned out great. It’s important to think about how the leaves will fill the space. I think all these examples (except mine) are excellent.

Marbelizing

Another thing you can do with two or more colors of slip is to marbelize- like the fancy paper you often see. I think for this you need a fairly flat, contained surface. I had a small stoneware plate  which I poured some blue slip into and then dotted and trailed green on top of that in a fairly random pattern. then I dragged a very pointy brush (you could use a feather or pointy stick too) through the dots.  I was inspired by plant forms.

When I trim the plate, I’ll go in and clean up the edge of the inside too.

The one thing to be careful of when marbelizing is that it adds a LOT of moisture to your pot. Make sure your form is supported or dry enough to absorb that moisture and keep its shape.

Etching

Then I did my surprise demo. This was “etched” clay. Really, I would only recommend this technique for porcelain as you will soon see why. I threw a tumbler and set it to dry. When it was hard leather dry, I painted a pattern on it in wax. After the wax was completely dry (and you can do this technique with varnish was well)  I began wiping at the surface with a wet sponge. The wax protects the surface beneath it but the surrounding surface is removed. If this was stoneware, it would just be horribly gritty.

After a few wipes, I decided to scratch into my wax a little to get a more detailed resist area. 

This will look great with a breaking glaze like Shino, Celadon or even Josh Green.

Kelly took this idea and ran with it – here is her process: and she got the brilliant idea of inlaying black slip into the wiped away areas. She painted it on and the wax resisted it over the raised areas. She sponged away all non-adhering slip and here is the resultDoesn’t that look cool?

Another variation on this idea is to paint your entire surface with slip, then a pattern over it in wax and then when you wipe away, you leave the color where the wax protects it and the color is removed everywhere else. Kristina suggested this and I can’t wait to try it!

Garden Gnomes

GNOMES!

I have to say, Garden Gnomes could easily fall into the “too cute” category but we had a blast in my Garden Gnome workshop.

My class was wonderful- I had at least two people who had never really done anything in clay before and they all came out great!

We had a very short discussion on what your standard gnome looks like and we did look at this book which may have had undue influence; but I stressed to everyone that the gnomes could look like anything, be any gender and wear any type of clothes. That said, I think we all liked the way the book (and example) looked. Perhaps because these are supposed to be Garden Gnomes, we wanted them to be recognized as such.

I started with the body being a double-pinchpot construction which turned out to be ideal for him. To make double pinch pots- you take two balls of clay roughly  the same size make a sturdy pinch pot of each one- pinching below the rim so the rim stays thick and attaching them to each other, making sure to seal them completely so the air trapped inside keeps them from caving in when you roll them to smooth them and get the shape you want- I rolled mine along the table to get a “waist” . Then set him up on two sturdy legs that were hollowed-out cones.

the tips were bent over to make his feet. I put a flange on the top of the cones for ease and security of attachement. Here is the body on the legs

IMPORTANT: any trapped air needs a small hole to let it 0ut, we pierced all our sealed air traps after we were done.

I have a little neck knob there but it turned out I didn’t need it- we made the heads as a single pinch pot with maybe a coil or two added to get the height right. here is Shawna’s head with the beard on it- the beards were made using a garlic press. you just have to remember to press all the little hairs against the body so they don’t break off.

I foolishly put the head on next and the beard before painting slip on his jacket.

After that my students did it the right way, painting the coat before adding the head. We added a little skirt around most of them to make it look like a long coat, blending the top edege into the body .

To make the “stitches” I had brought a notched wheely tool that is often used in sewing. Note also that Shauna’s Gnome is wearing clogs.

Above, you can see Jennifer’s body and legs awaiting belt, head and arms. In the background, Rich’s body rests atop curly-toed boots and already has the belt.

Next we attached the heads- Krissy’s guy looks a little like the muppet version of Uncle Fester but later he got hair. He is also sporting a super-fashionable spotted belt.

The arms were pretty simple and most people chose to copy the pose in the book where he has them clasped behind his back. Here is one of my arms:Veronica put her Gnome’s arm to good use, bearing arms!check out his great ears too!

Belts were also added after painting the coat- we used slip for the colors since we will be high-firing these so they can be outside all year ‘round. What I’m missing are photos of how to make the hat. We just made thin slabs, rolled them up with a point at one end and cut away the rest- they are only one layer thick- we attached the edges to seal the hat and tried them on the gnomes- cutting off clay around the opening and shortening them until they fit.As soon as he’s fired, he’ll be ready to move into my garden!

Here are some more finished but unfired Gnomes:

Finally, here are some photos of the finished gnomes!

the hat color comes from Cohen’s Red glaze and the body is covered in clear. I left the face just raw, unglazed clay. The gnome on the right, above has no glaze on it anywhere.

And here’s my little guy

First Time Potter Week 2

TRIMMING

This week we first learned about trimming since we started with bowls last week.

It’s always a toss-up;   bowls are easier to throw but you really should trim the bottoms. Cylinders are harder to throw but you can make them so that you don’t have to trim them.

The first step in trimming is often forgotten.  You should take a really good look at the inside of your pot- I’m going to say bowl here because that’s what we’re trimming. Take a look at the shape of it, try to feel the thickness of the walls and bottom and then turn it over.  The reason you are memorizing the shape as best you can is that you will be trying to make that same shape on the outside so that your bowl eventually has even walls and the foot should be like a little ring of clay sitting on the bottom of your bowl.

Next, center your upside down pot on the wheel head. Many potters can “tap” their bowl into the center- this is a huge mystery to me.  I have never mastered this amazing skill.

Instead, I hold a pencil steady and where it makes a line, I slightly push until it’s even all the way around. Then I press clay down around the bowl taking great care not to deform the rim- press against the wheel head, not the rim.

Now tap on the bottom gently, Eventually you will be able to “read” the resonance as to how thick the bottom is.

Now look at the curve of your bowl. You want to continue that curve. you don’t want your foot to be so wide that the curve doesn’t have a chance to get started. You also don’t want your foot so narrow that you have a super-tippy bowl. There is a lot of wiggle room here- it ranges from  mixing bowls that have nice wide sturdy feet, like sensible shoes all the way to little rice bowls which have delicate feet like party pumps that you can dance in.

Draw the circle that will be your foot on the bottom and then

choose a loop tool you are comfortable with and begin to carve away the rest – do not touch inside the lines that delineate the future foot! Remember you are trying to mimic the curve that is going on inside your bowl. this picture is a little confusing because I am holding two tools but only using the big loop tool  at that moment. Sometimes I alternate between the two so often that I am holding them both while I trim. I am not using them both at once!

Once you have the shape you can use a wider loop tool or even a metal rib to smooth it  and also use your fingers or back of your nail to smooth any rough edges on the foot- you don’t want to scratch your mother’s coffee table!

Cathryn did a great foot right away!

Adrienne did too- and it’s one of those delicate feet.

The two most common mistakes are not trimming enough and

trimming too much as one of the students found out to her chagrin:

Steve needed a foot thrown on so I demonstrated that- I did a post about that some time back….

CYLINDERS

Then we tackled cylinders. I started by making a pitcher with a curved floor (as opposed to a flat floor).

You start this like a bowl but then bring the walls straight up.

After you collar it in, use a tool handle to make a simple spout.

Cylinders, because of centrifugal force, inevitably want to get wider. it is helpful to collar in at the top after every pull as well as compressing the lip to keep it strong.

Next I did a vase with a flat bottom inside- The trick to vases is to get them as tall as you can and then instead of just choking it in at the top, you must coax it inwards, keeping the wall arched for good support- just like a cathedral!

the finished vase shapeLater, I will trim the bottom a little but I will trim it while it is right-side-up on the wheel so that I don’t have to use a chuck.

Lastly, the simplest and most realistic cylinder for beginners to make is a mug. A mug takes about 1lb to 1.25lbs of clay and is a great way to practice vertical pulls and later, attaching handles!

Special thanks to Melissa for taking the photos and also being pretty darned funny!

Slip ‘N’ Surfaces, Week 2- Stencils & More

Slip ‘N’ Surfaces, Week 2

It was a very quiet class this week with just 3 of us but we had a pretty fun time with stencilling.

I did my popular “Birch Platter” demonstration.

I have posted this before but in case you haven’t seen it and don’t want to endlessly scroll backwards through this blog, I will post a quickie verion and also a photo of the ugliest “birch platter” I have ever seen.

The birch platter has the virtue of of having three layers of color with only two layers of slip.

I make a drop platter of stoneware (with iron) and immediately cover it with white slip so that the surfaces have plenty of time to bond. When that slip is not sticky to the touch, I tear newspaper into narrowish strips.  You want to tear the strips, not cut them- they stick down better.These I spritz down with water and also the surface of the tray so that the newspaper adheres.

Next, paint another darker color over it- blue for example. Remember to paint in the same direction that the strips run or you will peel up the strips with your brush.

After the (blue) slip is no longer runny, you can pull up the strips.

Now you have a cool striped plate. You could stop there but I like to go in and make birch markings.

Here is a photo of real trees just to remind everyone.

I had a lot of fun this time because I decided the “devil’s hoofprints” (as one student told me) look like eyes and I put lots of faces in my trees for people to find.

My students seemed to really like this stencil idea and each went with it in their own direction and did a great job:

Jennifer went vertical- on mugs:

Richard did a bowl- and stenciled over slipped circles:

Kelly went non-representational with this pattern:

I also tried another thing- something I haven’t done before.

Because I suck at slip-trailing, I thought if I did it onto a plaster mold  I might have more control- so I drizzled and painted on a vine. and then laid a slab over it and pressed it down with a brayer. when I pulled it off, the vine was inlaid into the clay but the leaves decided to stay on the plaster mold.

and here is the dish:

I would not call it a success but I think that anything that was a bit raised- that had any thickness to it, successfully inlaid. Possibly next time, I would spritz it before laying the slab on to facilitate bonding.

Lastly, I promised you a photo of the ugliest birch platter ever. A friend has this- I think it looks like a tree that  maybe could be related to a birch caught smallpox or maybe  just the victim of a tree surgery gone horribly awry.

So I hope to see you all next week!

Top Ten Things to Remember When Throwing

Once again I have the pleasure of teaching First Time Potter and it is always exciting to see people introduced to the joys and frustrations of throwing.

First of all let me say, my class ROCKS!  Take a look at these pots from the first class!  I am so proud!Aren’t they awesome?

Then, because I’ve posted before for FTP, I thought I’d do something slightly different  – as I try to tell my students everything they need to know to make pottery, I realize there is simply too much information to absorb in the time allotted. And not only do they have to learn about the properties of clay, and the steps involved in throwing but also have to learn the systems at the studio. When to put what where! Each stage has a different location and system.

Since it is easy to become overwhelmed, I thought I would write up a list of

The Top Ten Things to Remember When Throwing

(for beginning students)

something like the Cliff Notes™ you would read when cramming for a test

If the test was making a pot that didn’t careen wildly around, laugh at you and collapse.

Really, I should have had the class vote on these but we don’t have the time! Maybe later they can tell me what was the most helpful.

So as a teaching tool and reminder, here is my ultra-subjective

Top Ten Things to Remember When Throwing

• 1. When centering, brace your arms- preferably your elbow against your hip; make your left forearm an “immovable force” (kind of like I’d hoped to parent my teen but failed.)
• 2 .Don’t forget that whenever the clay feels “sticky” to use a little more water! You can end up ripping half your clay off the hump and wondering what you did wrong.
• 3. Remove all the lumpy clay that is at the bottom against the wheel head. You won’t be able to center if your hand is bumping over that. BUT keep the bare wheel-head clean or you will sand off your skin.  And.  Bleed.
• 4 . After you open the clay, slow down! You will be unable to control the clay when it’s going too fast. (again the teen analogy springs to mind)
• 5. When you open, you set up your future pot- wide base or narrow base, flat floor inside for a cylinder or curved bottom for a bowl. DECIDE NOW.
• 6. Always always always triangulate! Brace your arms, connect your hands! If they are just floating out there you can knock your pot off center.
• 7. When you do a pull, make sure your fingers are directly across from each other. The entire pot should pass through that little space between your fingertips. It’s a zen thing. And try to throw from your wrists, not your shoulders (I know, this should be a separate tip- just count it as a bonus and be grateful, okay?)
• 8. Go on and off the clay in slooow motion. If you remove your hands abruptly, it will throw the pot off. You are Isadora Duncan but without the scarf- because you know what happens with scarves and wheels.
• 9. You can use a rib to compress the sides and remove some moisture. This could extend your throwing time. (If you use a metal rib, it could extend your time in the ER getting stitches. Remember, the clay wants to take your tools from you and hurt you with them.)
• 10. When wiring off the pot, stretch the wire very tightly and push down against the wheel head. The wire’s inclination is to rise up as it encounters resistance; (TEEN!)    if it does this, it can cut a hole in the bottom of your pot. Then you have a flower pot. Every Time.

Okay !  So I hope these are helpful and I look forward to my next class!

Week 1 of Slip ‘n’ Surfaces

I am teaching a 4 week class this June called Slip ‘n’ Surfaces.

I have a lovely group of students and I’m really excited about teaching surface decorating techniques.

This first class we started out discussing slips. What is slip exactly?

The slip at Lill and in many places is simply liquid porcelain with pigment in it. Here we use Mason stains which are very dependable. The key to using slip well is to understand its properties. Because it is clay, it will not run or flux as glaze does and so you get great sharp details and precision but it does shrink as it dries. So you must apply it in time for it to bond to the surface of your clay and for them to shrink together.  You have a a much bigger window of opportunity when applying slip to porcelain than to stoneware because porcelain and stoneware have different rates of shrinkage.

I gave a demo of my favorite texture and color technique- what I call the Eric Jensen technique- I’ve posted about it before so I will be very brief in this description:

Start with a thick pad of clay- at least an inch thick, spread slip on it and then “dry out” the slip with sheets of newspaper.

Once the slip is “dry” (you can touch it without it sticking to your hand- it’s a kind of a leather feel to it) then you can add a second slip or stamp it or even draw in it. If you add more slip, you must dry it out again and then you can begin to throw the slab out.You can put two colors down with out drying in between but they lose their definition and blend as above.

The key to this stage is that you must keep the slip side up while you are throwing the slab. Because you’ve dried the slip, it will break up instead of stretching with the clay  and you get a great texture. If you’ve incised lines in it, the surface tends to break along those lines.the line around the perimeter of this slab was made with a spiky wheel normally used for patterns in sewing.

Then I took that piece and put it in a mold or “drop mold” so named because to settle the clay into it, you drop it once or more.

This is a different slab and you can see it tore where the clay was uneven or had air bubbles.

To adapt to the shape of the slab, I took some extra clay and built up part of the mold. Next week I’ll put little legs on this tray.

Next I demonstrated painting and sponging on slip by doing some of these summer trees. A sponge with a rough surface is excellent to get the slip applied so it emulates the transparency and distribution of leaves.

I then go in and clean up the trees with a stick and loop tools as I have more control with those than the brush or sponge.

This is almost the finished product.

Lastly, I did a brief demonstration of what I do the most, cover the surface with black slip, draw an image with a nice wooden stylus (you can see some of my sticks in the upper left)

and then carve away negative spaces with a fine loop tool.(and here you can see some of my fine loop tools)

Today I went back to my leather hard pieces and used a sure form to finish the edges. This is a tool often used for plaster and can be found in most hardware stores.It’s a very handy tool!

57th St. Art Fair- How it went.

That was SOME FAIR- unfortunately I don’t mean I sold out or anything like that. We had a lot of dramatic WEATHER with dramatic results.

Overall I felt we were pretty lucky …until the end.

I was mostly worried about the morning load in. We purchased this hand truck (the R10) just in case we weren’t able to drive to our spot.  It’s a great item, recommended by our good friend Judy who was also in the fair. She is pretty much my go-to gal for Art Fair tips. She’s been in the biz for 20 years and can take down her tent before you can say “Jumping Jehosaphat!”

But I digress.

We were in the “alley” behind the school and were able to drive to our spot…. if we were stunt drivers! Inching through other artists’ vans and trailers we finally got close enough to unload. Then we left our 10 year old to guard everything while we went off to parallel park in the streets of Hyde Park. There were rumors of an artist parking lot- attested to by our neighboring artist but hotly denied by one volunteer manning a street barrier.

After my husband helped me maneuver the UHaul cargo van into a parking spot we walked back and began to set up.  The sky got darker and darker.

After we got the tent erected and had even put a tarp from the back of our tent over the fence behind us to make a kind of back tent area-

(you can see the moisture on the ground)

and after we got everything assembled and inside, it POURED.

We were dry and protected.  So I felt lucky.

Then, magically, at 11 when the fair opened, it stopped raining!

Unfortunately the damage was done, we had pretty low traffic that day.

I also felt lucky that both of the artists on either side of our tent didn’t show up! We could open our walls up and have a lot more visibility.

So we spent some of the time getting to know our nearest neighbor, a beautiful young woman who makes incredible glass and metal sculptures.

I was really happy to see so many of my friends who came to visit and look at my whole set up. It was the absolute best part of the fair for me.

Near the end of the day, rumors of high winds went from booth to booth. We passed on the information and my husband began strapping down the tent to the fence in back and doubling up our 40 lb. sandbags to the front poles.

At the end of the day I took everything down and packed it into the boxes and put them all on the ground- no stacking of boxes. This is pretty much standard procedure. Then we zipped up the tent and drove the UHaul home.

I was asleep by 9:30.

Sunday dawned absolutely clear and cool- none of the steaming humidity that made us all sticky the day before. It was going to be a great day!

We parked and walked the 4 blocks to our tent, passing our glass sculpture neighbor’s tent and were horrified to see shards of broken glass spilling out from under her tent.  High winds had blown her tent into her display and knocked down a lot of it on one side. Many pieces were irretrievably broken.

We opened our tent to find that indeed, high winds had knocked our shelves down but nothing was damaged. We  put the shelves back up and began to set out the work. When our neighbor arrived she was devastated.  The entire artist community felt terrible. Everyone wanted to help. A fellow glass artist came and helped her sweep up the carnage. There was an outpouring of sympathy and support for her.

Being the amazing person that she is, she rallied from losing perhaps one third to half her inventory and within an hour, her booth looked amazing again.

We had a lot more traffic on Sunday, more friends stopped by and I had a fairly steady stream of customers.

After the example of what wind could do (of course rain doesn’t hurt my work!) I was very skittish every time there was a gust; but the wind only blew over a vase that had flowers in it – the flowers made it top heavy- and the vase didn’t break (because my work is sturdy!)

There was a sudden cloudburst and all the fairgoers simply dashed into the nearest tent. It was kind of fun to “host” a small group of people during the short shower.

At the end of the day we had to take everything down before we could get a ticket to drive in and load up. We felt pretty good because we had packed up in about an hour or so- everything was stacked and ready to go but when I pulled in I was unable to park and there was probably 15 minutes of screwing around and waiting for various people to move their vehicles before I could finally pull up.

And then, KASPLOOSH!  A deluge!  Now we’re throwing our shelves in (they can’t get wet- the POTTERY can get wet, but not the shelves!!) helter skelter and trying not to swear at eachother. In retrospect, we had a tarp there – we should have just covered everything and waited a bit.

When we got home and unloaded we were utterly exhausted; my darling 10 year old son wiped off every shelf bless him! And we used that hand truck and it was great!

I am really looking forward to the Krasl.

Mosaic Time Line Finished!

Whew!  I am very pleased to have finished the Murphy school Mosaic Time line.

This is the 3rd year I’ve worked on it with the 6th graders.

I am continually impressed with the level of capability amongst so many of the students there.

This year we added 3 more eras:

a Sampan from Feudal China,

a Building from the Renaissance

and a Globe and ship to represent the Age of Exploration.

The steps of the process were as follows:

All the students drew pictures of things representing something from one of the three time periods.

I chose some images and made life-size drawings.

The kids came in small groups of around 8 to lay tile out on these drawings.

After the mosaic was completely laid out students or I taped the whole thing.

I then cut it into manageable sized parts.

Students applied mastic

and then with two student assistants, I lifted the parts up and held them in position while my helpers pressed it into the mastic.

Once everything was up, the students helped me with two more steps.

I had a student glue the actual time line “dashes” individually up onto  the wall while the clear tape was being removed by other students

The mastic was allowed to dry for several days.

The last stage was the grouting. I put up an outline of blue tape around each mosaic to contain the grout and then I put down a drop cloth. (These drop tarps are great in that they are pre-taped and come on a dispenser roll!)

I choose to grout alone as it is too tricky to try to manage students at the same time- it is messy, requires a fair amount of skill and can cut one’s fingers. I wear latex gloves but they offer little protection.

In fact, now that I think of it, this is the first mosaic I have done where I have escaped without sliced fingertips!  Yay!   I must be getting better at this!

After using sponges to  apply the grout using a kind of sweeping ‘S’ shaped movement to bring the grout into the cracks from various angles, I go back to the earliest piece that I grouted and hope that it has reached the “dusty” stage of dryness.

Lastly, I clean them off vigorously with paper “rags” and then remove the tape before the grout hardens completely. If I didn’t, the tape would actually get trapped under the hardened grout (it’s cement actually).

and VOILA!! The finished Time Line.