Our Juicy Life

Fresh out of the kiln

I've been handbuiding lately...haven't thrown in about a month.  I'm really enjoying handbuilding and love the results.  I don't have molds so my works is "organic"...which I like much better.  I also play with the glazes so no two pieces are the same.  I've been making platters and serving dishes - all sizes and shapes.  They sell really well. 

Here's a bunch of bisqued work, sitting and waiting patiently to be glazed and fired.  Sometimes it's hard for me to get out and glaze, especially after working at the studio all day.  For those of you who might not know, my husband and I own a children's art studio called Art-Works Studio.  We have drawing & painting classes for kids ages 5-17.  We also have summer, holiday & spring fine art camps.  It's our bread & butter and we've had the business for almost 8 years.  It's great, we only work 20 hours a week and we do art with kids, but it's draining. So these poor things sat in the garage for about a week.

 

Glazing is fun, but time consuming.  First I have to clean the bisqued pieces to make sure they are dust free, if there is dust or anything on the bisque the glaze won't stick to it.  Then I have to wax the bottom of all the pieces, so they won't stick to the furniture in the kiln.  Then I glaze them with a solid color and let that dry.  Then I take the squeeze bottles, which are full of "thick" glaze and decorate the inside.  I can't predict what it's going to look like after it's fired, so much is out of my control.  But I love when I open the kiln and see such beautiful results.  The photo above shows pieces all glazed and ready to be fired and the photo below are the same pieces after they have been glazed.  See what I mean that you can't predict what they will look like!

It was the first time Bruce and I worked together in "our" studio too....it was fun.  I really enjoyed having someone out there with me, sometimes it can be a bit lonely.  I still have 1 maybe 2 more loads to do, the platters take up a lot of space so I can only fire about 15 at a time.  These are all for sale and I'll be updating my website The Juicy Pear over the next couple days, so come and have a look around.  All of the platters/serving dishes are under my one-of-a-kind section. I love being a potter, but am finding it hard running a business and also trying to pursue my pottery business.  There are not enough hours in the day to do both.  So hopefully when our dreams come true and we move to France I'll be able to pursue it full time.

Summer Camp

I didn't go to camp during the summer when I was a kid.  I just spent my days riding my bike and playing around the neighborhood.  Times were different back then.  Now kids are booked all summer, at least out here in Los Angeles they are.  That's good for us, since we own a children's art studio.  We are booked all year with after-school art classes and booked all summer for our 1/2 day fine art camps (camps were full by May).  Each camp runs 4 days (Tuesday-Friday) from 9:00 - 1:00 pm.  We only take 12 kids, we like to keep it small and give them tons of attention.  It's a great gig.  We are done at 1:00 and have Saturday-Monday off.  This is the first time in 8 years of having the business that we are not having afternoon classes.  It's just too draining...working with kids is exhausting.  So we decided that this year we'd only have camps and it's working our great.

We are on our 5th week.  We can't believe how fast the summer is going.  We only have 7 more to go.  Our camps are very project oriented, we do some painting and drawing projects, but we also do a lot of mixed media projects like clay, paper mache, plaster, wire, printmaking, and other super cool projects.  I can honestly say that the projects we do are awesome.  Yesterday we did plaster frescos.  The kids had to mix their own plaster and put it on a piece of burlap.  Then they had to sketch out a design (something very simple always works best) and draw it onto the dried plaster.  Then they painted it with acrylics.  Once that was dry they did 2 layers of brown (watered down) acrylic on top of their piece to make it look a bit old and once that was dry they cracked it and covered it with white glue.  We then mounted them on black matboard.  They were so beautiful.

Today we did clay.  Kids love clay.  We try to make our projects fun and interesting and also allow the kids to be creative and expressive.  We don't tell them what to make, we want everyone to go home with a unique piece.  Bruce is such a wonderful teacher...so wonderful that when we tried to bring in another teacher to help with classes people complained and moved out of the class with the new teacher.  He is so enthusiastic and patient with the kids, it really makes kids love coming to the studio.  Today we did clay relief tiles - they were 6x6 and the kids could make anything on the tile that they wanted to, they just had to build it up (instead of carving into it).  They'll paint them on Friday.  Here is Bruce demonstrating the process (rolling coils, making things, scoring, adding water to make a slip so things don't fall off, which is a bummer, etc...)

The kids did some super cool tiles.  They are all so creative.  It's really great because the kids that come to us LOVE art.  We have some kids that return each year just for camp.

After clay, we set up 2 still-lifes and did a drawing project.  The kids chose a color of chalk pastel and first toned their paper.  Then with charcoal they had to draw what object was in front of them, then they added shadow and then white conte for highlight.  These pieces turned out great! 

Stella came with us today, we road our bikes so she was in the carrier.  I counted the smiles on the way to and from the studio - total 16.   

We are really enjoying our summer, although we are counting down the weeks until we go back to France.  We'll have 144 kids pass through the studio this summer, all of them making amazing art.  Life's good.

Sharing my space

My husband is a painter - a great artist. He has painted since she was in high school. He has sold many pieces and is very passionate about his art. His studio has been at our business (an amazing space), which was both good and bad. He's a bit of a mess and he would have to clean up every time he was done painting (hard for a painter to do) because our classes are held there and it needed to be clean and organized. It was a bit frustrating for him and he hasn't been enthused to paint.; So,then we moved him into one of our bedrooms - the back bedroom that opens to our deck. It WAS working great for him up until about 2 years ago when we really got into cycling (we have 5 bikes - I have 2 and he has 3) and now they hang from the ceiling in his studio. As you can see from the easel in the picture above, he works on large canvas and he did not have much room left. SO...I suggested that he come out to the garage and share my space with me. Could be fun I thought, to create art together. So, we cleaned out the studio and it's now back to a bedroom - well, not really...it doesn't have a bed and there are still 5 bikes hanging from the ceiling. But at least it's clean. I laid out my Persian rug on the floor (which has been stored away for 3 years). The dogs love laying the rug, so I guess someone is enjoying the room.

I have a little more than 1/2 the garage for my kiln, wheel, work tables, storing shelves, slab roller and glazing area.

He has a little less than 1/2 for his work table and easel.There above his easel are our surfboards - which he shaped himself (another passion)...don't get me started on the mess that made! We decided to leave space in the inside studio/bedroom for him to store and dry his work, since my clay can be a bit messy. We haven't been out there together yet, but are looking forward to creating some beautiful art together.