mad month...

our stall panorama

our tree

ahhhh market day! finally a warm one and peeps were out in droves in the morning and as always its chockers by 9 - 10 am 

twas a lovely day bit average sales wise and loads of visitors which is always lovely...

Raj has new t-shirts next door the latest is a mini cooper which will go off as mad as the combi t-shirts...love em!!

And lovely plant time at the market too, I'm waiting for my 2 sunny boy tomato plants which should arrive this week..

Rose and I quietly set to the setup again with practice shop for the real thing which opens this friday folks....woohoo!!!

ooh I cant forget birthday week, it's been a busy one with nothing planned so I decided to book in a few things and so did everyone else, hence the birthday week and a bit! loads of dinners, lunch with friends and out to see opening night of the Jersey Boys on friday w big sis, v cool show had to laugh at the door warning, authentic Jersey language and gun fire!! which did make me jump, ha!!! a wkd of more partying and drinkies at the shop which was lovely..

It's been a mad month for Ali and Rose getting the keys, painting, heading off to auctions and seminars and getting the whole shop biz organised.. there's loads of our fantastic art and design friends work, it's been fun catching up with who's been in and what lovely wares they have brought..

Anyhoo shop Milan Rouge Oak Plaza Stirling SA officially opens this friday with the opening night next friday night, can't wait to see it all unfold, best of luck my friends have an awesome week!!!!

cracking the bubbly

me and Ali

Birthday drinks with the shopees

guard fish

studio daze...

Oh what a wkd...
with the glorious weather arriving and work permitting, I had time on friday to get a head start with pugging some clay and start prepping for some weekends work in the studio...  the mugs started off well with a couple of trays worth friday into sat then some fresh bowls made with soggy fresh clay so a few disasters there!

The cone 6 mugs got a glaze inside last week and there they stayed and the second batch of earthenware is ready to load and no over firing this time... note to self when you take out the pyro don't forget to reinsert!


So a fresh stash of mugs all done stamped and handled.. new bowls ready to trim tomorrow and a kiln stack awaits.. I'm hopeful a quick sand and reglaze will fix the inner bubbles from the over fire.
Then onto finishing the cone 6 glazing monday as well.

I do have too much going on but hey I created this chaos, now I have to clean it up..

Enjoy the flick... it's from handle making today and a few shots around the studio work and hey really nice results from the last firing apart from the bubbles inside :))

getting my glaze on...

 Don't quite know what's going on with this spring but it was chilly but! outside today... I did get some studio time to get my glaze on... woohoo, get it loaded tomorrow and fire up friday would be ideal.

I have some flat plate work under plastic drying slowly, I've found with this style of plate the slower for every stage the better otherwise they warp all over the place..

A new gallery opportunity in Tea Tree Gully has given rise to quite a bit of enthusiasm amongst the arts crowd and as a member of ARTAG, the advisory group to the new gallery, I got to have a tour of the new space yesterday. Sorry didn't take any pics yesterday but plenty will feature here soon, I think the great space will be lovely when some work is in it !! It's so nice to walk around a place and see the possibilities and hear peeps enthusiasm.. anyhoo more on that soon.

Another great adventure is happening up the freeway in Stirling... Milan Rouge contemporary craft and design is getting closer to its opening date and by now Rose and Ali will be up to their elbow in new artists work for their space. I for one can't wait for this baby to get started and no doubt we'll be handing out invites at the next market this month in Stirling, woohoo!!!

Any road up its late I'm just in from class tonight unloaded a cracker of a kiln and will take pics soon of my new rustic garden pot... so see you soon when all these ventures and their opening days ensue..

white on red...

So itching to get back into the studio after the 2012 australian ceramics triennale conference wkd so I got stuck in on Monday yey for holiday mondays!

After a couple of throwing sessions this weeks priority became trim and slip before everything dries out too quickly..

 We always have a strange spring, there's a couple of nice in between weather days then bam ! it's super warm a 27 deg day last week had my new bowl bone dry in a flash. It may have been too quick as i needed to damp down the work before brushing the slip insides, hopefully all will be fine but won't know til the glaze is done if the slip will splinter off..

Anyhoo had loads of fun with white dots on red clay and stripes with a few dots also, I always find in no time the work is decorated and I'm just getting in the zone deco wise but now there's no way around it I'll have to make small batches into summer or swap back to the white clay and deco with UG colours and printing again..

The making list is long as the last few months have been good at the market and multiples selling, thats always a good sign pre christmas, yikes did I say pre christmas!! yep thats what the list is all about..

work for stocking the stall plus new shop wares and something really exciting 2 of my besties are opening a shop in Stirling called 'Milan Rouge' contemporary art & design and more on that later as we get close to launch date in November..

So post conference I have quite a few sample bags of clay to try out some new decals and of course some new tools!!

And how could I come away without a new magazine subscription Ceramics Technical that came with a freebie which I have enjoyed plowing through this week. It was cool to chat with the rep only to find out she's from NY and the square of course wasn't working I got a tad excited when I thought it was arriving in Oz but not yet it seems we have to wait for that remarkable sales device to hit our shores it's probably a bank thing, I wish they'd hurry up and sort it!!

So that's it.... my bisque kiln 

is loaded and ready to go tomorrow I even had pots that wouldn't fit...

let's see what this week brings peeps...

subversive clay conf...

 

Sundays conf. day was just as Jam packed with great content as Saturdays and in my usual jiggy style I've taken a few subtle subversive hints and put together this...

Laura McKibbon printing

Laura's demo was on saturday and quite a lil treasure of information with her polymer plates, exposure info and water clay context of using these plates, so a lil vid of her own was in order..