Its that time of year again...

Well, the summer is over and its starting to cool off.. time to think about getting started on Christmas stuff and finishing entries for the state fair. I've been trying out some new pieces and finally have my fair entry finished. This year I will be entering 1 piece in the handmade pottery/ceramics category and my grandmother's cookies in the baking category.


This is my handmade piece, the plate measures about 10 inches across, the outside of the plate is hand carved as well as the underside and the middle is full of melted glass.



You can see from the close-up, the glass has a solid surface but underneath there are lots of hairline cracks, making for a very cool effect.



I don't have a picture of the cookies because I gave them away right after they were finished but I will get a picture of them next time I make a batch.


This is another recent piece, it started off as a long triangular shaped tube and I manipulated it, cut holes out and then raku fired it.



It needed something more so I used some reclaimed jewelry from Dorcas to decorate it.



This piece now belongs to Kim who runs the Curl Up & Dye Salon in Cary. She runs an awesome Aveda salon and has a great collection of unusual art all over. If you need a new stylist or are just looking a change you should check her out. Here is the link to her website.


This dish was done as a free form piece with random textures from all kinds of things.




These pillow dishes came from using up some leftover extruded cylinders. A clay extruder in its simplest form is basically like a large metal wall mounted play dough machine. You insert the shaped die that you want in the base of it, cram a bunch of clay in the chute and turn the wheel to push out your shapes. To make these dishes I smooshed the cylinders, sealed the ends with some stamps and cut holes in the top of them.




I took another fused glass class recently and I'm trying to get a head start on Christmas this year since I failed miserably last year. One of Mom's presents was cooling off in the kiln when they arrived last year so instead of opening her present, she opened the kiln for it... so... this year I'm looking to do better than that. :)