Wow it’s been nearly a year since I wrote something on this blog. Well here at last is an update on me and my studio. Just a reminder that most of my news action takes place on my Facebook page (until their not-page-friendly algorithm kills off artists like me). 

Some Studio News!

Hard to believe, but here on August 22, our aspens and cottonwoods are turning gold for fall. About 3 weeks early. A turn of season is a natural time for me to assess and look ahead.

This past spring we bought a new house. Across the valley from our old house. (It’s a long story!) But a big part of it was that I got a brand new gorgeous studio, that I designed myself.

Now that I have this beautiful, large, and insanely organized workspace, I can work efficiently and with pleasure on multiple projects of all kinds. I didn’t realize how the studio-wedged-into-a-bedroom in our previous house was holding me back. (I was soooo not ready to leave my great studio in Boulder when we moved to the mountains in 1991!) I don’t have to put away the glaze paints when I want to sculpt. Or put away the sculpture mess when I want to pour molds. This fall and winter I am so excited to get going on every thing at once!

Sculpture

After stepping back from the model horse community practically all of last year and a good chunk of this year, I’ve had a lot of time to assess and think. I came around yet again to affirming that I want to always be a part of this. For me that has to come down to new horse sculpture. As Sarah Minkiewicz-Breunig has said it, I want to keep making the playing pieces for this game. I’m not that interested in showing any more, but I love knowing my clients do that with my work. I’ve been looking at my body of work with a critical eye and I can see how I’ve learned and improved, and I do want to keep going!

Soooo, a new sculpture is going to get started.

Aside: I’m sorry to say that the winged horse I showed a beginning photo of on FB last month is being abandoned for the third time, this time forever. Anyone can put wings on a horse. But my particular vision was technically difficult to produce and probably too expensive. For a fantasy niche piece. 

I am instead going to work on a trad-scale Irish Draught. In some sort of non-base-required walk or trot. If I sculpt what I love it’ll come out much better. 😃 And do I love these horses!!! Below are a few inspiration photos I pulled quickly from my print files.

Ceramics

I will be pulling new whiteware out of my archives and glazing them and getting them out to you. Some of them have been in the stash waaaay too long.

I will be periodically getting out my older sculpture molds and pouring earthenware pieces, and customizing them, like the 3 Streetwise I’m working on this month:

I’m at full-stop on glazing commissions until further notice. I work far happier when I’m not directed or time-constrained by anyone. Someday when I run down my own whiteware china stash and there are other interesting bisques out there, I’ll glaze yours.

Other

I’m going full-speed into oil paintings, as a very needed break from the horse-shaped stuff. I want to always have something on the easel staring at me, for those times when the kiln is running or the clay is pushing back! The Big Red Butte shown in the studio photo above hasn’t had new paint on it for a month now but that will change. There’s a large blank wall in my new living room waiting impatiently for it!

Paul and I are not traveling much the rest of this year, not until February. (Just one trip in October to Georgia/Tennessee/Alabama!) I’m besotted with my new studio and look forward to watching the seasons change out my four windows (one at each point of the compass) as I rediscover the joy of creating.

Thank you so much for still coming along with me.