Just a quick posting to announce that I’ve finished the first of the Grand Finale Greys, the Eberl “Sharif” and have listed it for sale to the MyAuctionBarn site. It is a 3-day auction ending abut 6pm mountain time on Monday April 6. There are many more photos of Sharif on this webpage.

I have photos of the other Greys I finished this week that I want to share. I will write separate blog post for them later as they all finished up super nice and deserve their own accolades!

I can never resist taking photos of the Boyz out in the snow, and they spent a long time playing hard yesterday. The snow was higher than their legs so they did a lot of jumping around; they were exhausted when they came in! I think we got about 14″ total from the storm.

And below are photos of the finished “Davydd” sculpted by Sarah Minkiewicz-Breunig and cast into earthenware china by Joan Berkwitz. I think you can tell I loooove this kind of grey—even my two dogs are that color!! I love bold color and lots of contrast, and this incredible sculpture really wanted to show off the mane and tail sculpting. What a pleasure to glaze, and I am sure new owner Carol Johnson of South Dakota will find a lot of pleasure in having him in her collection.

Today we’re getting a genuine blizzard, at least that is what the weather people are promising. The photo shows the view out my studio window with the first 4″ of snow on the ground. Glad I don’t have to go out today. The Boyz are in snow-dog heaven! We’ve had one of the driest winters on record here so this heavy wet snow is a good thing, to get the spring plants growing. Maybe I’ll actually get some green grass on the lawn now.

This is a good day to work on the Production Line:

These are the previously mentioned Grand Finale Greys. Save up your pennies because the dapple grey Horsing Around/Eberl “Sharif” Arabian will be sold when finished, should be next week. It is glossy finish. (I just heard that Horsing Around has sold out the Sharif china edition.) All the others are commissions. I need to have all these pieces finished by April 10th when I leave for Arizona!

Now where did I put my snow boots—at the bottom of the stuff packed for the England crate of course…!!!

We found a family member to house-sit for at least the first year. So the house won’t sit empty—but we won’t have to do as much to the property as we would if we were turning it over to a rental company. (OR sell the cars!)

I’m packing up all my model horses and storing them away in a spare closet at my parents’ house across town just for extra peace of mind. That way the studio can be used as another bedroom (other family members will be staying when they come to visit my parents) and the horses won’t be sitting out and subject to who knows what!

Check this photo out:

This is all my winter clothes, and about half of my summer and athletic clothes and shoes, that I am taking to England. That’s IT! (Boy am I low-maintenance!) I taped out the dimensions of the airship crate into this hallway, so I could test out how much stuff would fit. I just did a preliminary bit of packing yesterday since I think winter is about done here. The main thing was to see how my clothes fit, and then fill in with other more optional stuff. We can’t fill it completely though, because Paul took 4 large suitcases-worth of his clothes over already, and we are only allowed to ship the same size container back at the end of our stint in the UK. (But if he retires as planned at the end of the 2 years, he says he is giving all his work-clothes to charity and not taking any of it home!)

Paul moved into the house this past month, only to find that it was not furnished except for 2 beds! While the rental agents duke it out over the signed contract, Paul had to order a bunch of furniture from IKEA, which will arrive this week. So we will own a whole bunch of furniture we will have to figure out what to do with in 2 years! He says he loves the neighborhood and has already met the neighbors (mainly because he locked himself out of the house one evening—the house has the most bizarre locking system he’s ever encountered!). It is really quiet and aside from some little annoying things to deal with (like teensy bathrooms with no storage space, mirrors, or electrical outlets), he says it is a great place.

I am really pretty freaked about learning to drive on the “wrong” side of the road, but I simply must learn because I will want to be out exploring every little town and village within a day’s drive of our house! The company car they are leasing for us had to be ordered because we wanted an automatic transmission. Apparently automatic cars are very rare in the UK. Our cars here have always been stick-shift, but it would be TOO much to have to shift with the left hand in addition to everything else! Gaack! I wonder how many times I’ll be whacking my right arm on the door trying to put it in park, drive, or reverse, even with the automatic.

Here’s a photo of Paul unloading stuff at the new house. Isn’t it cuuute??

These are my last weeks of glazing chinas. I have to stop using any art tools I want to bring to England by April 10th when I have to get things ready for the shipping crate. So I am finishing up my last confirmed commissions, and all are greys. Here are teaser photos of two of them I started recently:

With a little over 2 months to go before the Boyz and I step on that plane, I am starting to feel a teensy bit of time pressure! I would like to find time for a couple of non-commission pieces to finish and offer for sale before I’m forced to quit. But I am wondering if anyone has any money left for china horses… or if maybe I should just wait 2 years for when I get back and the economy should have recovered. (I prefer to take the optimistic road on that prediction!)

It will be hard to give up glazing completely for 2 years just when I feel that I am really reaching for the top of my game and each piece has been exceeding even my fussy expectations. (And it is quite possible that we might stay overseas longer than 2 years if Paul wants to continue to work rather than retire in 2010. The opportunities for the most interesting work in his company are in places other than the US.) So I ought to have my painting tools with me to keep all options open.

I am taking my 2 best airbrushes and my air eraser. I can always buy a little hobby airbrush air compressor over there if I need to, they don’t cost that much. My main project/goal is to learn to slip cast my ceramic molds and do customizing of the clay bodies. But if I really learn to do it and get bisque pieces maybe I’ll find a local commercial studio kiln I can buy firing time on. At the very least I can save up stuff and make the 2 hour drive to Donna Chaney’s studio and buy time on her kilns when/if she has space available.

I decided not to try to push to finish the “Clarity” sculpture before I go. Or the little walking Morgan. This may change if I find myself with time in May when I can’t glaze anything, but right now I can tell I am just not into that work. I am really really focused glazing right now and that is enough to keep me busy. If I try to rush a sculpture I know it won’t be right. They will both keep just fine as-is, covered up and stored. What I can do is pack my favorite clay and sculpting tools and start something new in England if I feel like it! It costs so little to buy the parts for a new armature setup. Who knows, I might fall in love with a horse at a horse fair or show and start fresh on sculpting.

Even with Paul all moved into our new house over there, and describing his life via daily emails and occasional Skype calls over our computers, it is still impossible to visualize what my daily life or my worklife will be like there. I can’t wait to find out! I do know that I will miss my studio here. It looks like I will be working in the dining room over there; that’s the only room possible to be converted to a workspace near water and sinks where I can make messes.

Speaking of Paul, I just got the nicest surprise! I’m going down to Tucson for my big 5-0 birthday the 3rd week in April and to see my siblings and their families for the last time before I go overseas. Paul just told me he will be joining me there for a few of the days!! He was trying so hard to make it a total surprise that I wouldn’t know about until we got there, but the logistics were too hard to coordinate even with my mom and sister in on it.

I won’t have to wait 4 months to see him again after all (and have the big romantic reunion in Heathrow airport I was envisioning–like the end of that movie “Love, Actually”.). Though I told my family since I only have 2 nights with him (out of the 5 total I’ll be there) we may not come up for air very much!