Our Juicy Life

France...here we come!!!

               

How beautiful is this house?  We loved it from the moment we saw it on the internet.  We knew this would be the house we would live in for 1 year.  It's called Les Costes  and it's in the Aveyron region, our favorite region of France.  It's located about 1 hour northeast of Toulouse.

We sent an email out today to all our customers.  It's official.  We are taking a 1 year sabbatical in France...1 year in this lovely home.  We have been working on our plan for about 5 months, but I haven't been able to post anything because some of our clients read my blog and I wasn't ready to tell them yet.  But now we have a person who will be taking over the teaching of the classes.  This was the hardest part...finding someone to fill Bruce's shoes.  Everyone loves Bruce and I will say that he is amazing with the kids and is casual, relaxed, patient, fun, cool and a great artist.  We have a friend, Travis, who we have known for 15 years.  He's Bruce's long lost soul brother.  Same personality, same gift with kids, an artist, surfer, cyclist, etc...we wanted him, wanted him so bad...well, he accepted our offer to take over the studio for 1 year.  That happened last week.  So now I can talk about it.  Now it's official.

So...we leave the end of September.  We are going to rent out our home here in LA for 1 year.  We will sell the car (it's an SUV and when we come back we don't need an SUV).  We will rent a car and drive across the US to New York.  We will stop and see friends in Ketchum, Idaho and Boulder, Colorado and see my family in Michigan and then drive on to NYC.  We'll have all the dogs with us too.  We leave on October 4th on the Queen Mary II, from NYC to Southampton, England.  6 days on the ocean.  The boat has 1 level that is a state-of-the-art kennel facility, it's the only way we could travel with the dogs, as I would NEVER fly with them in the cargo area of the plane.  We'll arrive in England, rent a car and drive to France.  Then we'll go to our new home and live a new life for a year.

Bruce will spend part of the day painting and drawing and I'm looking into cooking classes and pottery workshops.  We'll bike with our friends Jacques & Fabiana and Fabrice & Anka.  We'll hang out in the cafe, drink great coffee, great wine and eat great food.  We'll travel and see more of France and I'll take Bruce to Italy.  Most of all we will re-charge our batteries.  We are both a bit burned out right now.  We have been teaching art at our studio for 9 years and the longest break we have had was 3 weeks (and that was in September).  Teachers have the summers off and professors have sabbaticals for a reason.

I'll keep you posted as the time comes closer.  We have loads to do:  rent the house, sell the car, get the studio turned over, get the dogs ready to enter England (loads to do there), get our long-stay VISA's, etc...
We are both so excited and so ready for our new life.  I'll keep this blog going while we are there, so you can hear about all our adventures in France.

Stay tuned...

A POTTERY EXPLOSION

                  

This year I was invited to participate in about 7 holiday bazaars.  I only did 1.  Why, well all of them were either on Saturday or in the afternoon during the week and I had to work.  I did one because I committed to it early on and didn't want to disappoint anyone.  I left Bruce at the studio alone for 3 classes on a Saturday.  He was such a trooper, he decided to do clay with the kids.  It's an easy project when you are alone...you don't have to worry about standing up and giving a lesson, passing out paints, etc...  But I felt bad that he had to do it alone and I don't really make that much at bazaars and it's a pain packing up all the pottery and unpacking and being happy and cheerful for 8 hours.  I did sell quite a bit of stuff though, so thanks to everyone who bought something. 

 

New color for me.  RED.  It's the most expensive glaze but I like the results.  Alone it's not so good - fire engine red, but I really like it pared with brown.  Most of my colors are blue, brown and green, all cool colors, so I like having a warm color in the mix.

I shared a table with a woman named Rebecca Hahn .  She chose me to share a table with her and that made me smile.  She is a very talented illustrator and it was her first bazaar.  I bought one of her t-shirts for Bruce.

I was panicked getting ready for this bazaar.  It was 1 weekend after I got married and I wanted to make sure I had a big variety of stuff.  I was also doing a very large custom order for a good friend of mine and she wanted everything for Thanksgiving.   And my family was in town for 1 week.  It was crazy.  BUT, I haven't thrown since then.  I would love pottery to be my full time business, but sadly it isn't.  The Studio is my full-time business and it brings in the bucks.  It's hard to find time between cycling (which is very important to me and usually takes 2 - 2 1/2 hours a day to do) and napping (which is also very important to me).  Pottery takes time, you have to weigh out your clay, then you throw your piece, then you trim your piece (or add a handle), then you let it dry, then you  load into the kiln for the bisque fire, then you take it out, then you wax bottom, then you glaze it, the you put it back in the kiln for the glaze fire, then you take it out and finally you are done.  Hopefully if we move to France I'll be able to throw full time.  It would be great to spend 1/2 the day doing stuff that I know sells and the other 1/2 experimenting. 

So, here I am, this small little pottery studio.  I don't do any marketing because it's not a full time job and I just don't have the time and if I market myself then I have to make more and I just can't do both businesses right now.   I sell my ware in 2 stores here in Los Angeles and at our studio.  I have some very loyal customers (thank you if you are reading). So, imagine my surprise when last week I received an email from a writer with the New Jersey Star newspaper.  She was doing an article about handmade gifts, found my website, loved my pottery and wanted to feature it in the article.  WHAT?  So, I send over some pictures and it was in the home section of the paper on Saturday and it's on the home section of their on-line paper for 1 week.  SO hurry and check it out.  Handmade Treasures.  My sister asked me what would I do if all of a sudden I got tons of orders...  I'll keep you posted!

We're done!

Our summer camps are done!  Yesterday we finished camp #12.  In June I remember saying to Bruce, 12 camps, oh my.  Then in July we said only 6 more camps and then in mid-August only 3 and then last Tuesday only 4 more days...it went quite fast.  We had a great summer with all the kids that came to our camps.  144 kids came through the studio this summer, regulars who come to classes, regulars who come to camps every year and some new kids.  I enjoy camps, but it sure puts a wrench in my other life.  I haven't thrown any pottery since June.  I haven't road as many mile on my bike and I come home so tired.  I really like our fall-spring schedule of after-school classes.  I am a morning person, but would prefer to focus that energy on my passions (pottery & biking).  During our fall/spring schedule we don't have to be at work until 3:00 and only work until 5:30 - 6:00.  We do work all Saturday but then have Sunday & Monday off.  I'm ready to get back to that schedule.  BUT...enough about work.  Because I am officially on vacation!  So why am I up at 7:30 am working on the computer? 

Yesterday I ran about 8 million errands and realized that I hate running errands.  Traffic here in Los Angeles is horrible.  I tried to take side streets from here to there and although I didn't sit in traffic (this isn't on a highway...it's just on a street) it was still a pain.  We leave tomorrow for France.  3 glorious weeks in France.  ah....I'm feeling relaxed just thinking about it.  We just bought a new camera a couple days ago.  It's a Canon powershot SD850.  I LOVE IT.  Took the picture above while walking Dashell.  I just love this door it so reminds me of Europe, not Los Angeles.   

I took this one on the walk too.  It has an image stabilizer and takes really great pictures and it's easy to use.  It's also super tiny, great for throwing in the pocket of my bike jersey.

On my errands today I stopped by to see our friend Andrea and her dogs Burdock and Woof.  The are also golden retrievers and Burdock and Dashell are great friends.  Andrea is a very talented designer.  She makes a line of handbags (I have 2) and now she's making ceramic jewelry.  Her work is very unique and so cool.  She gave me this lovely pendant necklace.

Check out her website at Bite Down Bags, she makes amazing things:  bags (all animal free), earrings, cuff links, rings, necklaces.  All one-of-a-kind and so beautiful.  She is so talented it makes my head spin!

I also received this in the mail last week, it's a beautiful anklet from one of my best friends Laurey.  I was so surprised and touched it made me cry.  This anklet has a little boston terrier on it (for our little Daisy that we just lost) and she told me that she made it into an anklet because she was small and down by my feet.  I have worn it everyday since I got it and I just love it.  It's probably the most touching gift I have ever received...but that's Laurey, she's a beautiful person.

We have to take the furry kids up to their vacation ranch today.  The place we take them is amazing, it's called Alpha Pet Lodging.  Last year when we went to France we took Dashell their and he loved it.  Antje is the owner and she is a trainer and a vet tech and a dog lover!  Her place is small, she has a guest house that has 4 rooms inside and by rooms I mean rooms, not kennels.  Dashell stayed in the spongebob squarepants room (so fitting for him).  They have their own bed (not on the floor...a real bed), their own dog door that goes out to their private run and the front of the room has floor to ceiling bars, so all the dogs can look into the "living room" and see each other.  She only takes 4 families of dogs at a time, so there is tons of individual attention.  The dogs also have playtime 2 times a day in a very large arena.  Dashell loved it last year and I felt very comfortable leaving him there.  This time we are taking Dashell, Stella and Augie.  We normally would have someone stay at our house with Augie and Daisy.  But since we don't have Daisy anymore we thought that all the dogs would rather be together and having someone watch 3 dogs is asking A LOT!  I'm not worried about Stella or Dashell, but I must say I'm a bit worried about Augie.  He's 14, deaf and have never stayed any place besides our home.  I'm sure he'll be fine...the other 2 dogs look after him and he'll have new smells to investigate and Antje will take great care of him.  She doesn't take dogs on a Sunday, so we have to take them up today.  It will be very strange having a dog free house until we leave tomorrow.

I won't be blogging while I'm in France.  We are not taking the computer.  I need to free myself from this thing, it just sucks you in.  I don't want to think about work or be tempted to do any work.  But we will take loads of pictures and I know I'll have many stories to share with you.  I also can't wait to speak french everyday for 3 weeks!

A bientot

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.

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.