This afternoon I found myself in between projects. I just spent two days on the computer with a graphic design job, and this morning I tied up some other little loose ends. Paul is out of town on business, so it’s just me and the boyz. For some reason I couldn’t get myself going on either sculpting or glazing. In fact I’m feeling a tiny bit pressured about some of the glazing work I’ve taken on for this fall, I’ve got my entire family coming to visit this weekend, and our whole yard is a construction zone. What artist could feel good about doing anything creative on a day like this? If I don’t feel enthusiastic about the work it suffers. So it is best to just put it all aside until the mood or other factors change. And it is a gorgeous pre-fall day.

There was nothing else to do but play hooky for a few hours. I took the boyz to the East Boulder Rec Center’s excellent dog park, the one with the great swimming pond. Kanab doesn’t really like dog parks. For all that he is outgoing at home, I can tell he’s overwhelmed by lots of strange dogs and just stays by my side. I really thought he’d be the social dog, but neither of them really are. All they seem to need is each other. But at 1 pm in the afternoon on a Wednesday, we were the only people there. It was perfect.

KitKat of course loves the water and this was another chance to try to teach Kanab to swim. This is the same place where Kit discovered he loves to swim. I just kept throwing tennis balls in the water, and Kit would swim out for the ones in deep water and Kanab would get the ones he could wade out to. Then when everybody was relaxed I took Kanab’s head in my two hands, and gently drew him out with me into the place where he had to start paddling. He just looked up into my eyes and with absolute trust, let go of the ground under his feet. It was amazing. His instincts kicked in, and he was swimming! I let him make his way back to the shore, and we tossed balls in some more. Each time he seemed to let him self get in a little deeper. So I did the same thing again, leading him in with me. The rest is “history”!

We spent the next hour in wet muddy fun, both of them retrieving balls out of the deep water. When Kit discovered he loved the water, it was this joyful splashy doggie epiphany. He tends to get out to the ball and then forget himself in his pure bliss of swimming. Kanab walks in with deliberate care straight for his target and brings the ball all the way back. He takes it all very seriously but I could have tossed that ball in the water for him the whole rest of the day I think. It was hard to finally say, time to go! I can’t wait to take Kanab back there to see if he remembers this day. I wish I had the camera with me!

On the way back home, all three of us wet and smelly in the car, this pop song by a female singer came on the radio which has the refrain, “Breathe… just breathe.” (I wish I could identify the song or the artist.) That’s what we needed, a little Wednesday break to just breathe, and it resulted in a lovely breakthrough for Kanab. I now have two fishy dogs and all of us couldn’t be more pleased! We’re going out for pizza to celebrate, just the three of us.

I received my sample of the Optime sculpture made in earthenware china instead of bone china. The above photo shows from left to right: My original master sculpture (what all resins and chinas were cast from), the earthenware china, and a bone china. The photo illustrates the differences in size from shrinkage of the two different china materials. I thought that the earthenware would be a little closer in size to the original, but it is still larger than the bone china. I decided to go ahead and order 6 more of these in earthenware (hopefully the molds will be good for that many), and then close the Optime edition for good!

Also, I am pleased to report that my first four Keeshond tiles came out of the kiln in perfect shape! Maybe I will actually have these glazed and for sale in my Etsy shop next in a few weeks.

P.S.: I changed the title of my blog to: a westerly view.

Well a week later and the house is coming along. The stucco crew has been covering all the walls with some sort of sealer-material and then nailing on the layer of wire mesh that the plaster will be applied to.

One thing we didn’t anticipate: they are pounding on the walls so hard that things are falling off walls and shelves on the inside! This black-lacquered Caprice resin that was in a windowsill in Paul’s office took a dive and suffered damage that I’ll have to repair. And two stereo speakers also came crashing down. I went around and took down all pictures, and moved any chinas etc. away from any walls!

I have finally figured out how to pour ceramic tiles in my Keeshond and Arab horse head tile molds. I felt like an idiot, that I couldn’t do something this simple! But I’ve now gotten the hang of it and am building up a nice pile of them. (The darker ones are the most-recently pulled from a mold; they get lighter as they dry out.) I haven’t fired any of these yet; that’ll be my next learning curve and we’ll see how many of them explode in the kiln due to air bubbles or something!

This “Crusher” bone china sculpture sculpted by Kitty Cantrell and produced by Horsing Around, is in-progress in the glazing dept. this week. He is looking very sharp!

On the non-progress side, I ran out of black glaze pigment and loaded a new batch in the ball mill for it to grind on for a week. One day later, a belt inside that drives it broke. So the black glaze for the dapple grey I wanted to complete this month will be delayed, rats. I should have the new belt sometime next week.

I also haven’t worked on Clarity since I’ve been back from vacation. However it sits right on my studio counter, and I have been looking at it every day. I’m about ready to get back to it again. One of the reasons I named it “Clarity” is because I am pushing myself harder to “see” more of the reality of horses and try to get that into this sculpture. (Did that make any sense at all??) I want very much to push my own equine art envelope with this one.

Lastly, I am fully booked again on custom glazes through the end of the year. Thanks everyone for checking in on your spot on the list or inquiring for the first time. I had to order more Boreas’s! I think I am going to finish out these commissions and then the first half of next year paint nothing but colors I choose. It’s time for me to glaze what I want on some of these pieces, for a change of pace!

I am enjoying our abrupt switch into fall weather. I totally love these 70° days and 50° nights! And that feels like Football Season, GO BRONCOS! !

I know things change in people’s lives, and I decided I would like to update my waiting list for custom glazing work on my china sculptures. I’d like to know who is still seriously interested and who will be dropping out, as I schedule my work this fall and winter.

Bone chinas I now have in-hand: 2 Caprices, 2 Boreas’s, 4 Streetwise, and 2 Heart of Darkness chinas. I would like to get a couple of them scheduled for October/November/December. (September is booked.) Optime is still on hold; I’m supposed to see the first earthenware china (as opposed to the regular bone china) in a couple weeks and then I’ll decide whether to order any more of them.

If you had contacted me in the last 6 months or so about wanting a custom glaze on one of my works, please drop me a confirming email if you are still interested in a particular piece and tell me when you’d want me to schedule it. If you can pay in full for work I complete before the end of the year and you wanted any of the above pieces, please let me know!

I am still planning to stop china production on Heart of Darkness, Streetwise, Caprice and Boreas by the end of this year. (And Optime, too, if we ever get the last ones ordered actually cast!) So this really is the last call for those sculptures in china to be glazed by me. If you want to get on my list, you still can. I’ll take orders for any of those up until December 31st. But I need a pretty firm commitment because I have to order it to be made for you and I have to pay for those myself ahead of glazing them for you.

You don’t need to contact me again about chinas I have agreed to glaze that are not my sculptures (like HA Sharif’s that are not delivered yet). Your pieces will go into my schedule when they actually arrive! I just need to schedule some of my own works this fall because at last I have a nice little group of them in stock… and for cash flow reasons I need to get them glazed! 🙂

If you’re getting this blog post via the feedburner email, you can reply directly to this email and I’ll get your message. If you were on my list and I don’t hear from you this week, I’ll assume you’re no longer interested.

Many thanks! And here’s hoping for NEW ceramic works from me next year!!

Our quiet home life is under attack! We’re getting our house refinished this month, replacing the 23-year-old wood siding with contemporary stucco. The demolition crew was here ripping off the old siding and the rain gutters, and this is what it looks like with most of the siding off. We’ll be in for about 3 weeks of pounding on the walls and people crawling all over the house. It feels like I’m in the zoo—never knowing when somebody is going to be outside the window looking in! (Must be especially alert when in the bathroom…!)

I got the pinto large Boreas glazing all finished this week. I never get tired of painting bays and I surely love contrasting that color with white markings. His Halfling kiln-mate will be done next week too. His teensy little blue eye still needs another layer of paint.

Have a fun Labor Day weekend!