stinkin hot...

It's a week of high 30's, 38, 38, 39, 39 and hopefully a change at the wkd

So with this in mind I have been considering going out to the studio after 7.30 in the evening just to get some work made and keeping it on the concrete floor, covering with copious amounts of plastic and trimming the next evening. It's a plan and i'll try it out tonight!

Well, happy new year! I certainly am hoping for a smoother run than last year, that was truly exhausting… I worked harder than ever in the studio just to keep my head above water financially, two of my best buds opened a cool new shop in Stirling, Milan Rouge, Adelaide Hills and helped immensely with that challenge. My regular photo/plan job got so quiet I have had weeks without work, bummer. Other things happened that really took a tole, unfortunately my plans are not always successful and then there's the factor of banks and the way things work these days. Needless to say I'm not impressed with the way some people do business. Anyhoo then there was that really cool adventure of my trip to Vietnam with big sis for an epic birthday tour! What a year…

What to do with 2014, well the organising has begun and studio clean up was relatively easy this year. The new system is working well, I have some extra storage in the kiln roof space and not that I need it right now but the studio heater is in with flue! My lil kiln baby is nearly loaded, after a good start and a couple of quick throwing sessions I'm doing a bunch of TMK porcelainous bowls for some shino and nearly ready to do some more Tagines. The clay is nearly all pugged for the first session anyway! 3 days of pugging and blisters on my hands but it's all looking good. After I get some template tools together I'm having one last go at getting the lids right and getting the commission done or letting it go… the issue is needing every lid to fit every base, not so easy! so the plan is to make all the clay the same by pugging and mixing up all the batches together, so the clay is all the same. Using templates to trim to and making the lids much smaller than the bases as they don't shrink at the same rate… fingers and everything crossed for this one!

Also this year I'm putting my hand in for President at Tea Tree Studio, we have quite a few plans already, Exhibitions to work on celebrating our 35th Year, hopefully an installation work for this!

We have a 'Big Clay Day Out' planned involving raku and pit firing…

Workshops and Talks, Open Day, and a Mexican Quiz night… that should all keep us quite busy!

I need another 2 Galleries I think to sell my work, on that already, along with another market throughout the year, also on it… and one more day a week job doing something I don't know what yet but searching for it and I should be set. It sounds like a lot but most of it just involves motivation and I know that will come!

So I'd better put some pics in, nothing like a bunch of visuals to feast on :)

Ah yes January wrecking month…. I got stuck into my kitchen and bashed out a useless wall, installed 2 new shelves! and vwalla! new kitchen still minus 2 doors but who cares….

And tiger boy keeping cool…

A good start to the new year pots made already...

And catchups with ol besties!… many years ago when Caffa first came to town we shared a flat, what crazy times that was and so glad to catch up every few years when the family is in town!