Pumpkin Doughnut Muffins

http://www.food.com/recipe/pumpkin-doughnut-muffins-martha-stewart-441904
Hopefully, my image gets matched with the recipe at food.com.  I wonder what other recipes need to be displayed on my dishes.  I picked up this recipe last fall when we were growing a pumpkin.  The prolific mystery squash in the garden this year turns out to be butternut.

The muffins were still good despite forgetting the buttermilk. They're best warm.  The doughnut part happens to be the melted butter drenching post baking and roll through cinnamon sugar.

First Day of School

Pretty excited to get the kids off to school today.  I have a cupboard full of pots to decorate.  They are staying quite damp with all this rain.  I guess I should have taken a picture of the bottoms too!  It's like having decorated 8 pots instead of four.  

Still playing with the ikat pattern.  It's really fun to paint so that it has a tromp l'oeil woven texture.  Thinking I should spend more time in the fabric store.  A trip to Mood in NYC would be excellent.  Perhaps I have been watching too much Project Runway when I start to think of my pots as fashion models while designing the pattern to compliment the form.  

The leaf pattern when fired should reveal a layer of leaves below the sponged straw surface.  I had to force myself to give up the tulip pattern for now.  I guess I'm not ready for the seasons to change.  For someone who paints lots of flowers it's hard to get all wintry in September.  After the kids got home I finished one more piece.  Wheat is a happy compromise from this Kansas girl.

Thanks Mom and Dad!

My parents had the awesome foresight to rent a minivan when they came to visit so we could tool around the finger lakes in one vehicle. Of course anytime I have access to that much cargo space I jump on the opportunity. We hit the ReStore in Corning and found two excellent lower cupboards for next to nothing. They are nicer than my kitchen cupboards. The thought did cross my mind to do an IKEA kitchen makeover and salvage the old kitchen cupboards for the studio. If only there was a store nearby. Maybe I'll get lucky and find a complete kitchen at the ReStore. Now I have a beautiful ten foot counter which holds exactly a kiln load of work or thirty gargoyle masks. My parents enjoyed the temperate climate so much in the basement they purchased and put in more lighting. Had they stayed a few more days I think I could have gotten them to plumb a sink as well.

Second Firing Better Than the First

I guess I got spoiled having my kilns loaded and fired for me at the arts center. It's been years since I've fired my own kilns. Let alone any kiln with brand new elements. My first firing in the new kiln went horribly awry. All the work bloated. Rich dark clay bodies like mine will do that since they are full of organic impurities. My strategy for this batch of pots was to bisque fire hotter and slower to get all the volatile gases out before the clay begins to vitrify.

I never paid too much attention to Val Cushing's lectures during graduate school since at the time I was making sculptures. The technical information pertained to crafting pristine glazes for functional pottery. Often if I did the reverse of what was said making glazes pit, crawl and penetrate the surface. Thankfully I kept good notes and reviewing them was like taking the course for the second time.

When I was in Alfred last summer I discovered Val still sells his orange spiral bound lecture book at the local grocer, Kinfolk. We were his last class before retiring in 1997. It was difficult to imagine who could fill his "clogs." Since then glaze testing at Alfred has greatly expanded from low fire to mid range incorporating much more color than back in 1996. Look at an old Nelson book of ceramics and you will see the most uninspiring collection of brown pots. It's hard to believe that was my undergraduate textbook. Of course back then there weren't encapsulated pigments like those I use today to safely create bright red and orange. And I would not have fathomed becoming a potter myself.

Nine rolls

This is what 9 rolls of toilet paper and 200 pounds of clay will make. Not pictured: a dragon skull, a toucan on a branch, two otters swimming in sea weed, a baby seal, the almost life-size torso of a deer, a fruit platter, three hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil monkeys and another veiled figure. Did you catch all that? Am I missing anything? Oh yes! We dipped, dunked, and schmeared paper clay on an assortment of leaves, feathers, egg cartons, pasta and even a loaf of bread.



The students of 171 Cedar Arts Center had free reign since I knew a little secret. The center would soon be getting a new kiln with a grant from the Community Foundation. So why not fire anything and everything under the sun.




The addition of paper pulp makes a very sturdy clay which builds quickly and thinly. If it wasn't possible with regular clay, paper clay could do it. Wings, single strands of hair, standing soft slabs, twisted kelp, a hollow branch, skinny giraffe legs, nothing could defeat the power of pulp. We attached to fired bisque ware and bone dry paper clay. We patched cracked or broken pottery with it. The clay fired up fabulously and took glaze like regular clay.

In the fall we'll do it again with porcelain paper clay. There is always plenty of clay to reclaim and I saved the toilet paper from the mummy wrapping contest at the library. I can't imagine what people were thinking when I asked to have it.

Hook up woes

On my blog bio I joke about voltage.  But seriously I had no idea it was going to be this complicated.  The kiln is 208 volt not 240 volt.  I can replace all the heating elements or see what happens.  The electrician hopefully has a magic wand.

Well Coiffed Fish

Abel is usually the first one down to my studio after the bus drops them off from school.   There's always some new clay critter in the works to visit and his belly needs a snack asap.  Today he agreed to snap a quick pic before claiming the last Irish Cream Brownie.  It's amazing how he can keep his hair so fresh and perky all day.  He had a similar profile for his President's Day portrait silhouette.  

I am currently in gargoyle mode making down spout covers for spring showers (not the 5-8 inches of snow predicted tonight).  I have the corner window display at Handwork for the first two weeks of April.   It will be jammed full of bunnies, frogs, fish, astro turf and fake rain. Any ideas how to make fake rain...

Phase 2 complete

Before

After

While I was away picking up the kiln, Adam and Richard were installing my new studio floor.  The old floor I imagine was much like the surface of the moon.  It was a composite of undulating cement and river rock.  The new plywood floor is cushy on the feet and my fake laminate flooring makes it easy to mop.  I can even still wear my clogs in the studio despite having lost two inches of head space under my feet.  The next project or phase 3 is setting up the kiln and kiln vent.  Phase 4, lady sculpture storage...and some day a dreamy slate work top like those in grad school.  Abel is shown here at my old drafting table from high school.  Sad to say there will be no fall studio tour to show off my fabulous new space.  Maybe it will become a spring tour in 2012!

The Kiln Arrives, Potter Still Alive

Honestly, when I left Boston I had no idea we were getting blasted in New York.  As soon as I hit the tolls at the state border the first flurries appeared.  It took eight hours to get home.  The worst part was stopping in Owego (about 40 minutes from Elmira) for a celebratory box of fried cheese curds only to discover they were way undercooked.  Totally not worth the effort of leaving the interstate.  The best part:  Olive shoveled out the driveway for me.  Thanks Jaime for setting me up with a beautiful kiln.

In the window

 I'm pretty sure Bryan Adams saw my work when it was in the window at Handwork.  I saw his tour bus parked out front of the State Theater in Ithaca which is right across the street.

After my exhibit in Corning I brought my work home for a week until Lise suggested I put it up at the store where I sell my pottery.  Many people have never seen my sculptural work so it was great exposure.  The members of the artist cooperative got to know me better too.

And I got a candid view of people's expressions as they looked at the work while I dusted the glass ware just inside the store behind the window.  The relationship between the store window and a temple frieze is remarkably similar.  I wish I had had a web cam for those first few days the pieces went up.  Maybe a grant funded project has just been conceived.  Crossroads deadline here I come...

Seconds For Sale

The semi annual second sale starts Friday morning, January 14, 10am at Handwork in Ithaca.  I helped set up three tables full of coop members cast offs.  It's really fun to glimpse into the artist's process by picking through their not-so-good work.  Naturally, I had many pieces to contribute (three bins full).  I had almost one whole kiln load that I didn't like. I also still have three circus teapot sets left from when we lived in Green Bay.  Every time I see those monkeys, lions and bears (oh my) I can't believe I made them.  First, my son was about 8 weeks old when I began sneaking off to the studio in the evening to have clay time. That I could be as productive as I was that year is truly amazing.  Second, I am really not a big fan of circuses, however, I did feel like I needed a reason to use color.  Of course now that doesn't stop me.  It's surprising how quickly the pieces fly out the door.  Never fear there is always more so stop by often if you can.

Precious Melon Photo

I took this when I was consumed with blogging.  I should really show all three shots so you can get the full effect.  There must be a genre for these artful yet practical visuals.   You should see what I can do with a recycled cereal box when I'm not getting enough studio time.