Color College Avenue

Color College Avenue

On Saturday, May 19, the Blacksburg Regional Art Association, of which I'm a member, handed paint and brushes to hundred of youngsters (and some oldsters) for Color College Avenue from the corner on Main Street to Draper Avenue, right in front of The Lyric Theater.  A wonderful, if somewhat messy, time was had by all.

This event was spurred on by a statewide initiative for children and the arts called Minds Wide Open.  Even though their website still won't let me register the event after the fact, I'll still give them credit for being the seed that started all this amazing creativity.

BRAA was the driving force behind this day even though it didn't look like that in the article in The Burgs.  Nancy Norton, BRAA co-VP, was the glue that held all this together, gathering volunteers, getting most of the donations, calling meetings and handling dozens of details.  She and a bunch of others showed up at 6 a.m. to get things ready and lay down the chalk outlines of planned and unplanned artworks.  She was there until the bitter end wearing an appropriate amount of paint to prove her attendance.

The Lyric Theater, especially the executive director, Susan Mattingly, was a huge player.  Thanks for the marketing, the drawing, the use of your office and sidewalk.  Our apologies for the wayward paint on the floor, carpet and traffic markings!  We might have lost just a bit of control!

Thanks to the Center for the Arts at Virginia Tech and Ruth Waalkes for the wonderful video produced of the event.

The big, formal blocks of artwork were designed ahead and painted by students from Harding Avenue Elementary, Blacksburg New School, and Blacksburg Chinese School.  Two other blocks were provided by Textile Artists of Virginia and The Virginia Quilt Museum and painted by volunteers.  Freehand art just took off on its own and by the end of the day, nary an inch of pavement escaped some color.

Thanks to Valley Paint and Decorating, Heavener Hardware, Lowe's and The Home Depot for their generous contributions to this project.  It couldn't have happened without them!

Thanks also to the Renaissance Music Academy for bringing their young and wonderfully accomplished musicians to add a touch of class to the event with violins and cellos.

The weather was perfect, the turnout of an estimated 1,000 people who either painted or enjoyed watching was heartwarming.  That is one thing I really like about Blacksburg.  There is a sense of community and a wonderful family atmosphere for every event on the calendar.  

If you are a Blacksburg area artist and haven't joined BRAA yet, maybe it is time.  www.blacksburgart.org.

We are a nice bunch of people and new members with new ideas are greatly welcome.

New Works at Jacksonville Center for the Arts

 A wonderful new show opened at the Jacksonville Center for the Arts in Floyd this past weekend.  The variety and quality of the pieces was so very good it was a joy to have two of my works included in the selection.  These two pieces are quite small, only about 8x24. They are acrylic on canvas and are the first of that medium I have ever exhibited.  I don't consider myself an acrylic painter and did these two atop canvases I painted in Germany and thought were just awful.  They are greatly improved by this new painting!  It was very interesting (and encouraging) to have several people tell me how much they love these pieces.  Many people told me they saw an oriental influence in them, especially the tree piece.  Both paintings have several layers of things under the actual art, giving them more depth and interest.  The House with Sky piece I hope to recreate on a 22x48 canvas to hang over our brick fireplace.  It will be the largest piece I've ever done so I must admit it is a bit intimidating to get started on it!

Morning in the woods

On this first day of the Daylight Savings Time, I was confused by how dark it still was at 7 a.m.  I looked out the kitchen window for my morning bird feeder check and, in the morning light saw what I thought was something white all ripped up around the feeders.  It soon dawned on me it was the clumps of newly opened daffodils popping with happiness over the spring weather!  On my walk to the mailbox at the end of our drive, I startled a doe no more than 30 feet from me.  We both stopped and stared.  I spoke to her but got only a twitching ear in response.  Her feet didn't move as I continued my walk. As I returned from the mailbox, there she was, rooted to the same spot, eyes still on me. Again, I greeted her and stopped to admire her wonderful, flower-eating self.  I asked her to leave my yet to grow garden alone this year but knew my plea was nothing more than air on the wind to her.  I continued on and even after I went into the house, she remained standing there in peace.  The spring daffodils soon called me back outside to pick a few for the house (deer don't eat these wonderful flowers for some reason).  While rummaging through the blooms to select my pickings, I poked around where I knew other things had grown last year and was happy to see signs of life around two clumps of bee balm.  I will plant more of these inside the soon to be fenced off area because they were one of the few stars of last season.  The artist in me loves looking at the deer.  The gardener I want to be wishes they all would move elsewhere.

Pencil on paper

One of the many things that impress me about artist Robin Poteet's work is that her drawings skills are as wonderful as her painting skills.  She tells us to keep the pencil on the paper as long as possible to draw confident lines and renderings of what we see.  My habit before studying with her was to sometimes draw with a much more feathering sort of approach.  In my twice-monthly drawing group this past weekend, I decided to make the effort to keep the pencil in touch with the paper as much as possible and see what happened.  I couldn't have been more pleased with the outcome.


I ended the evening with three pieces I was happy with and all had very good proportions.  I think it forced me to truly look and see the lines of the body better than before and somehow that seemed to translate to the brain and the hand.  When I first saw this pose, I thought it would be a bear to capture. In reality, it flowed well and was fun to work on.  I really believe keeping the pencil on the paper as much as possible made a big difference to my work.  Practice, practice, practice.  Two years ago, figure drawing was very intimidating to me.  With effort and practice I have come a long way!

Purple Hat #2

I've been going to watercolor classes with Robin Poteet at The Studio School in Roanoke for over a month now.  We are concentrating on the styles of Charles Reid and Mary Whyte for the painting of portraits and historic figures.  The big painting is the second version of the Purple Hat I have painted.  This one is twice the size of the first.  I like her fairly much but feel the hand on her necklace looks likes someone else reaching into the painting!  Too funny.

I find the biggest challenge in painting portraits--besides getting a likeness--is trying hard not to over paint, to keep messing with the skin tones until they get muddy.  This lovely lady of color I think stayed within bounds and has a lot of attitude.

The smaller painting is from the same photo but looks quite different.  The second hat is much better than the first and the face is friendlier.  I like things about each portrait and dislike as well.

The class is excellent.  Each session provides a challenge for me.  I've learned that choice and strength of colors is one of my biggest challenges each time.  I have been discouraged lately because I want to be the best in the class and I am not.  We all look at Robin's work and declare that we should just quit and go home because hers is so amazing and she makes it look so simple.  We've all been challenged when trying to do the very loose Charles Reid style complete with drips and spots. These two portraits are closer to the Mary Whyte style which is much more controlled.

One lady in class did a portrait of her great grandmom and when it was finished said, "poor grandma, she didn't deserve what I did to her today."

I see the color

Again, inspired by that same artist friend, I recall a piece I wrote in 2010 at the end of the FloCoIMo art project.  I created a small piece of art a day for 30 days and created a book of them all.  This narrative ended the book and described my transition from burnout condition to creative again at last.  Only a handful of people have ever heard or read this piece.

I was so tired. I tried to push myself to get things done and realized, for the first time; my heart just wasn’t in it anymore. Piles of papers moved from place to place and my mind went blank trying to remember everything I needed to consider to complete the task—the task that just didn’t seem important anymore. These feelings had been growing for many months.

Resentment mounted upon resentment and filled my chest with tension. The tension had feet wrapped in combat boots. Boots that storm trooped over my body when I should have been sleeping. My patience was worn like old stone steps pounded by demanding feet; granite slickened by the history of too many passages, too many loads. These feelings wore me away with a deafening water drip that everyone heard but no one fixed.

Twice the dripping became a roaring down the canyon of my fragile self, breaking bones, pounding my body, my confidence, my sureness, leaving fear and pain and defeat in its path.

I promise to leave the river. To remove myself from this whirlpool, I marched steadfastly through a forest of paper, plans, boxes, people, trains, planes and automobiles in search of a new way. At the end of the march I do all that again in reverse, hoping, hoping, hoping the new way will be the right way, a way that will renew me and make the misery of the past months fade away like morning fog chased by brightness.

At the end of the march I awake thinking of paper, plans and people again, but now it is different. It is paper made plain and fancy all at once. It asks for no information, doesn’t care what my birth date is, doesn’t want my secret number, my address, the make of my car on the ocean, the list of damages. Which ones would it want? The ones inside the truck or the ones inside my soul?

This new paper asks only for water and color and brushes and pens and ink and my undivided creative energy and drive. No one tells me what to put upon the paper. I am the driver of my time. I have only to plan where the lines will go, what color they will be, will their spirits be joyful or sad. The people in my mind help me, inspire me, cheer me on. They are the people of my new way, just being with them often tells me what will go on the paper next, their own words and art kick start my creative energies and build me up.

The water has stopped dripping. The storm-trooping boots are silent. The new way is strewn with small pebbles and I see the color in them once again. 

The snow storm

So long I have not posted.  I wrote the following in an email to a fellow artist friend of mine this morning and his reaction to it inspired me to post it on my blog.

This time yesterday, the snow storm was a cranky child, sputtering one moment, sulking the next. As the day wore on, she sat in the corner and moaned continuously, her voice rising to a steady wail layer upon layer, covering all in its path.  With the dawn of today, the aftermath of the tantrum lay over the land in brilliance. The forest recreated in a frosty bath of white, sparkling against a porcelain blue sky, looked down upon by a sun that ran and hid from the child the day before.

Every branch, every twig, every shape of every size is burdened by the wet, white fallout of the storm. Evergreens normally holding their arms wide and swaying in the wind, are draped and sagging as though covered in thick wet bath towels left on hooks to dry.  Bushes and young trees, still supple in their youth, are bent double with the weight, threatening to break from the task.

The cold air, barely of voting age, keeps shadowed corners in frozen suspension. The sun seeks all places offered to its face and slowly warms the winter-brown trees, pushing the snow from slender twigs and hurling it to the forest floor. The tallest bits fall, colliding, sliding and grabbing twigs and branches and snow below pushing it  to the ground below in countless mini tantrums like so many minute diamonds cast from the hand of a wealthy merchant.  Under the rooftop snow, the sun's power is multiplied, slowly, invisibly until rivers of water fall from the eaves in a gymnastic display of freezing, thawing, dripping.  Spikes of crystal magic add to the tableaux of this winter morning.

Below the trees the ground is blanketed to the depths of the forest and beyond, its smoothness broken by mysterious but alluring shapes which suddenly come alive as the warmth of the day awakens them just enough to spring forward in freedom, shaking off the burden of the night.

We watch the scene unfold.  We want to be in it but not to disturb it, not to mar this perfection with our boots so we watch from windows and doors, marveling in this breathless beauty, grateful for the gift left by the storming child.

My first juried acceptance brings honorable mention

The Model - watercolor and pencil

Last year I entered a piece for consideration in a juried show and it wasn't selected.  No problem. I basically did it for the experience, having never gone through the process before. I didn't expect to get selected.

Recently, I submitted three pieces to the New River Art Biennial Juried Exhibition which opened last night..  Two of the three pieces I really thought had a strong chance and I added "The Model" to complete my allowed three entries.  Much to my surprize, "The Model" made the cut and then, last night, I was surprized again when the piece was presented an Honorable Mention!  Entries totalled 150 pieces by 53 artists.  The juror selected 39 pieces for exhibit and presented 11 awards.  I feel truly honored to be among those 11.

After having also won a third place in July, I'm hoping this jump starts my creativity which has been in more than a little slump lately.  Time to go clean up my studio, get the cobwebs out of my head, ignore the laundry and dusting and get back to acting like an artist.  There is just never enough time for all the things I should be doing.

A tribute to 9/11

In remembrance of 9/11, I am posting the following which I wrote for the first anniversary of the tragedy.  I delivered it to my fellow employees of the Defense Commissary Agency, Europe, region headquarters, located on Kapaun Air Station, in Kaiserslautern, Germany.  Following completion of these comments, we held one minute of silence.
 
++++++
 
I am an American.

It is sometimes easy for Americans to think 9-11 only happened to them. It was our buildings, our planes, our cities, our country, our people.

Who are our people?

Our people are of many colors, many races, many countries and many religions…or no religion at all. We are William and Gerlinde and Mohammed and Nejat and Nolasco. We are Maria and Riccardo. We lead our lives in many different ways and yet we are the same. We work, play, love, laugh, cry, live and die.

In the days following 9-11, I felt as though I moved through life watching a bad movie. I expected it to end so I could walk out of the theater into the sun and know everything was normal again. I did not want to believe nothing would ever be truly normal again.

I looked into the eyes of German friends and saw they shared my tears. I heard the emotion in the voice of an elderly man in my village who told me he was sorry…as though he personally had done something to make me sad.

I saw the many flowers adorning walls, fences and gates presented to us by Europeans who shared our pain. I saw strangers in the early days after the attack that looked at me as an American and did not know what to say to make it better. Somehow just their look of understanding soothed the heartbreak.

In an Egyptian restaurant in Baden Baden I talked with the owner as he looked at his near empty restaurant on a Saturday night and told me he did not do this awful thing. I wanted to make him feel better so I told him of my warm reception in his country. Tears came to his eyes as he thanked me and said “you have made my heart sing.”

I came to Europe an American, hungry to see the world. Today I am a different American…I am British, Dutch and Belgian. I am Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, and Turkish, Saudi and Egyptian. Mostly, I am German, taught by my many German friends who have opened their hearts and homes to me. I am international and I am glad.

9-11 happened to all of me. It happened to all of us.


Written by Gerri Young
September 9, 2002
For 9-11 tribute ceremony

Long time, no blog

Yes, I've been busy but I've also been uninspired!  Looked at my blog several times over the last month but my fingers wouldn't move.  So here's a little update or two.

My painting called "Shadow Woman" shown in my Jan 28, 2011, blog post won a third place in the Blacksburg Regional Art Association's "Expressions" exhibit in VTLS on 1701 Kraft Drive in Blacksburg (inside the Corporate Research Center area).  It was one of 52 pieces.  I was amazed and pleased!  Made all the work necessary for that watercolor batik seem very worthwhile.

I've been painting iris notecards for the St. Pierre Gallery in Floyd and every one of them sells.  Decided I needed to make some printed cards because it is difficult to always produce enough originals.  I took my two newest with me to add some finishing touches while working the gallery last Friday and, just as I finished, a lady bought both of them!  Maybe it pays to be working on art while working the gallery, but sometimes it is just too busy to do that.

On a funny and un-art-centric note--Bill and I walked a couple blocks of Blacksburg last night after attending a movie at the Lyric.  It was a lovely evening for a stroll.  Apparently the wildlife thought so, too.  As we turned a corner on Draper Road to head to our car, there was a bushy skunk on the lawn across from the Farmer's Market.  He paid no attention to us as he involved himself in digging holes in the grass, aided by the glow from the streetlights.  We paid close attention to him as we gave him a very wide berth and made it to the car without incident.

Our friendly, but hungry deer

A couple weeks ago a very friendly deer starting coming around our house. She seems to have very little fear of humans.  One morning she walked right up on our front porch and proceeded to eat every potted plant arranged there as though it were her private buffet.  As much as I enjoy opportunities to see wildlife up close, I must admit I was quite upset at the ruination of all my work.  No deer had been brazen enough to walk on the porch before so I considered it a "safe" bet to garden.

This deer loves the clover by our front door and will graze for 15-20 minutes with us just standing outside and watching from no more than 30 feet away.  In the video, she is about six feet from the house.  I truly don't care if she munches the clover.  There is plenty of it, but when she crosses the edging and starts feasting on my flower bed it is another story entirely!  She seems to start early in the morning so I have started checking all the windows from the moment I get up and sometimes race outside with arms and pink, fuzzy bathrobe flapping wildly.  She trots away about 50 feet, stops to look back at me and I can almost hear her say, "I'll be back!" as she twitches her white tail and flutters her wonderful eyelashes in my direction.  Is that an impatiens branch hanging down below her glistening black nose?

Life in the forest

There seems to always be something going on with wildlife in the forest surrounding us. Sometimes those goings on have a direct impact on me.

I planted several dozen impatiens in an effort to have a garden behind a fence of deer screening.  The deer have ignored them completely so far.  Is there such a thing as racoon screening? Trying to be a good little green person I used organic fertilizer to plant my new annuals.  That night something dug up in between every plant and ate the fertilizer.  I filled the holes back in.  The next morning, the next set of plants were not only dug up (inside the deer screening area), but the plants were seemingly laid carefully aside and the fertilizer eaten again.  I'm assuming a racoon did this, considering their very capable little paws.  It's hard enough for me to plant these days without having to plant the same plants twice!

We have been providing suet blocks for the birds and especially enjoy watching the woodpeckers they attract.  Suddenly, the blocks were disappearing at an unusually fast pace.  We couldn't help but wonder what was causing this because our bird population in May has been dramatically lower than in April.  Not lower is the number of huge black crows visiting our feeder area. Too big for the feeders, they normally just enjoy the seeds tossed to the ground by the smaller finches and titmice and others.  One day this week we discovered the mystery of the suet blocks as we watched a crow jump high off the ground and hover beside the block.  It took several attempts, but the crow was successful at knocking off a chunk or two and falling back to ground to enjoy it.  Always trying to win the battle, we attached a shiney aluminum disposable pan to the bottom of the suet feeder today in an attempt to make the crow's efforts more complicated.  Still waiting to see whether or not that is successful.

My favorite forest story is the most personal for me.  A few days ago I was watering a potted plant on the back patio.  Suddenly, I hear the sound of bird wings fluttering and getting very close to my head.  Just as I started to raise up to see what kind of bird was so close to me the bird stopped its flapping and landed square on my head!  I froze in place as the still unidentified bird hopped around my head yanking my shortish blond hair as hard as it could.  I wanted someone else to see this amazing thing so I slowly walked toward the workshop window to alert Bill to the happening.  The bird continued its yanking until I raised my arm to knock on the window. It then flew up a few feet, made another attempt at landing and flew off.  Only then did I see the bird was a titmouse.  My Virginia bird book was quickly thumbed through to find this bird has a reputation for yanking fur out of sleeping dogs and squirrels to use in nest building.  I never thought I looked like either of those things, but one friend said the bird thought my hair looked like a haystack.  She might be right.

Luxembourg Twilight

Luxembourg Twilight by Gerri Young, 2011

In the last year before we left Europe, Bill and I went to the beautiful city of Luxembourg which was just a couple of hours from where we lived in Germany.  I liked the place so much I wish I had explored it earlier and been able to go back numerous times.

As we strolled the old city near twilight, we turned the corner to this enchanted scene where a street light had come on and bathed the narrow way with golden light.  The photos we took stayed on my list of things I wanted to paint for quite some time before I met Robin Poteet, a wonderful watercolor artist in Roanoke, who gave me the courage and guidance to capture this beautiful atmosphere.  I showed the finished painting to a nice Luxembourger lady in Blacksburg who said she felt "transported" by it.  So do I.  Every time I look at the painting now, I get to go to the city again.

A walk in the woods



I know she named this one, but in my concentration to get
 a picture and not fall off the rock at the same time, it
totally escaped me. I now know it is a Canadian Columbine.

 It's one thing to stroll through the woods by yourself. It is quite another to do it with Holly Scoggins, Associate Professor, Department of Horticulture, and Director of the Hahn Horticulture Garden at Virginia Tech.  First she scouts a location for the walk a couple days ahead of time and remembers the location of assorted lovely flowers and plants.  Then she leads a group of early risers through the morning chill and damp and points out treasures like May apples (flashback to my childhood, carefree days in forests), Jack in the Pulpits (familiar, but rarely seen by me), walking ferns (obviously more gifted at walking in the forest) and horsetail reeds, a bundle of which I once had in my possession.  Of note is that she doesn't just say "horsetail reed," she says "Equisetaceae," or things like "Aristolochiaceae" and she somehow wraps her tongue around them before 9 a.m.

In addition to the many interesting flowers and plants Holly pointed us to, she also led us to the Falls Ridge Waterfall which squirmed its way over the rocks, left and right and left again for a total of 80 feet, delivering the always satisfying sound of water in motion and the vision of sunlight dancing on the ripples.  It was not a bad way to start the day.

St. Pierre Gallery sets grand opening--with my work included!

The St. Pierre Gallery on the main street of Floyd, Va., has announced its grand opening date for May 6, from 6-8 p.m.  This is especially exciting for me because the gallery is now carrying my work!  This is a first for me and it has happened just one year after I moved to the area.  It has been such fun to meet so many talented artists like Carly Burke and Bill St. Pierre who have made the gallery possible.  Their beautiful work is, of course, included in the gallery.  Bill's gorgeous woodwork is all over the two-room space and Carly's Mountain Light Jewelry graces the shelves and tables.  Becca Imbur's incredible handmade books are a delight to see; Eric's pottery sits near Wendy's and they are all gorgeous.  Photos by Rob Jones.  Paintings by Starroot.  Many more whose names I don't know are also there. All of these talented folks have been in the area and the business a long time.  My watercolors, prints and ink drawings are new to the mix and I'll let someone else describe them!

At any rate, we are all excited to be a part of this locally owned and operated venture and hope you can make your way to the lovely town of Floyd to see it.  If you come during the grand opening you get a big bang for your buck because it is on a Friday when the town is full of blue grass music, flatfootin' and people from all over the place!  Mark your calendar!

Bird feeders and prayer flags

A bright spot of color in a brown and green world.

It seems every bird watcher/feeder who lives near or in a forest must go through the battle of squirrel versus bird, and it hasn't been any different at our house. Lately, squirrels and some unidentified other furry creature were winning the battle and cleaning out all but the finch feeder overnight. Bill thinks about things a good while and then pursues his plan.  This one meant putting a ladder up against a tree, attaching a heavy, plastic-coated cable and repeating the same process on another nearby large tree. A pulley was threaded on to the cable and the filled feeder attached, then raised high up in the air.  Worked like a charm and no trees were damaged in the doing. 

Guess who suggested the prayer flags? Me, the artist, of course. A nice, bright spot in a brown and green world.  Bill, always the analytical thinker, inquired as to whether or not birds would be frightened by them. The next morning I sat by the window a long time to find out.  Two titmice could have cared less and flew straight to the tray.  Nuthatches, normally very adventurous acrobats, flew at it, under it and beyond it numerous times, landing on a tree and looking back to inspect the new arrangement. Finally, they landed on the roof of the feeder and did one of their upside down flips on to the tray.

Nearby, a flying bright spot landed on a branch to soak up the sun--a bluebird with a worm in his mouth!  I just love this splendid creature and am hopeful he will become a regular visitor even if he never uses the feeders.  To encourage his presence, we cleaned out all the bird houses and I'll start putting out some fruit for him. I read about how to raise my own mealworms for feeding the bluebirds, but decided the rather slimy, smelly and laborious process was not my thing...even for a bluebird who already has proven he is quite capable of getting his own worms!

At the front of the house, our house not the bird house, my hopes for the phoebe's return has been answered as I watch him flit around outside the kitchen window wondering what happened to the nest he and his mate left on the downspout last year.  I'm sorry, dear phoebe, but we really needed that new guttering and the new downspout is even bigger than the old one. Your sturdier perch awaits you as I await the return of the hummingbirds to provide aerial entertainment for us both from just a few feet away. 

All this just in time for the first day of Spring.

Earth, wind and fire

All the pieces finished in Jennifer Mulligan's raku glazing and firing session. My pieces are all the front row slab work and the tall slab piece with circles in the back.

Dirt fire pits lined with paper and ready.

Playing with fire should have been warmer, but it wasn't.  The raku shelter at potter Jennifer Mulligan's place was on a cold and windy bluff above a small river.  The wind blew and the rain fell on and off the whole day.  Cozying up to the gas kiln during the first stage of the firing provided some solace.  In spite of the wind, the other two elements of earth and fire provided a high degree of activity and excitement to the handful of students hellbent on having a raku experience on this day in March.

Raku is a thing of mystery.  The glaze buckets were labelled things like "yellow rose" and "purple haze." My tall moonscape came out blue and pale turquoise and lovely anyway.  "Copper penny" glaze and "yellow rose"  produced a nearly black interior with hints of metallic and a pale greenish exterior on my coiled piece reminiscent of a burst-open pea pod.  You paint on the glaze with adventure and bravery in your heart and then turn the piece over to the raku gods.  Wind, dampness, coldness, temperature, too much paper, not enough paper, too much sawdust, not enough sawdust, too much oxygen, not enough oxygen--all these factors toy with your glaze and create a piece you are in awe of but cannot duplicate. Sometimes they blow your piece up and give you bits you learn from. 

It's all good, creative fun.  A day in the country, nice people to meet and the opportunity to say things like "apple crackle" as you vow to put that glaze on a bigger piece next time because it is so special.  Thanks, Jennifer. The earth, wind and fire day was terrific.

Going in circles with clay

I learned several things during a two-day wheel pottery workshop at Jacksonville Center for the Arts this past weekend.  First, I have a greatly renewed respect for potters who make all sorts of round things on that spinning wheel made rather famous in the sexy scene from the movie "Ghost." Second, making wheel pottery is far more difficult than it is sexy. Third, not sure I have the strength in my left hand to ever become a full-time potter.  Despite that, I had a great time in Sarah McCarthy's class and am pretty pleased with all the pieces I created--even the very first little bowl with a definite angle to it.  Sarah has thrown thousands of bowls and has such a positive attitude that she makes you believe even your funkiest bowls were good efforts in your first time at the wheel.

After spending most of the day trying to center lumps of wet clay on the wheel and being successful only part of the time, I switched to some slab work to give my throbbing hands a break.  Slab has been successful for me the vast majority of the time and this day Sarah taught me how to use wooden molds to quickly create very lovely pieces.  I can hardly wait to see all my pieces glazed and ready for prime time. I'll be proud of them all, even that slightly lopsided first bowl.

Aside from the creative process, the very best part of this workshop was meeting new people, working with friends and getting to know Sarah better.  Make that two Sarahs and their incredible gifts of contagious laughter.

Determination of a squirrel

I think we could all learn something from squirrels.  Even though these little creatures at my house are surrounded by abundant forest, they love to "eat out" and try new and exciting things.  Their appetite for this kind of diet knows no bounds.  "No squirrels allowed" signs mean nothing to them. "Shoes, shirts and ties required" doesn't slow them down a bit.  At even the best buffet of mixed seeds, cracked corn and that favored supply of sunflower seeds, they'll cut in line and "cherry pick" at every opportunity.  They have the determination of an Army tank on full speed.  When the easy-picking sunflower seeds were gone from the feeding platform, this furry critter went straight to the source by lifting the lid, hanging on with his back feet and repeatedly dropping into the feed tube to feast on the sunflower seeds before the birds even had a chance at them.

Determination is a good thing in life and, more often than not, it pays off.  Just don't forget that sometimes too much of a good thing is a bad thing!

Art with friends

I spent a good portion of yesterday doing art, chatting about art, and eating surrounded by art in the lovely and interesting home of an incredible artist in Blacksburg, Darcy Meeker.  She works in stone carving and copper and abstract paper on canvas and ink and clay and jewelry and notecards. She inspires me to keep on experimenting in many different mediums until I am smitten with the two or three that I can concentrate on.

Around the table, Darcy and Charlotte, normally a watercolor painter of enormous flowers and such, worked on copper. I sketched and then began to ink an amazing clump white birch tree.  Bookmaking Becca Imbur came buy to show her best creation, beautiful little daughter named River.

It was a lovely time. Creative sharing and supporting of the best kind.

http://www.darcymeeker.com/ -- be sure to watch the video
http://www.bimburbooks.com/