I got got the word today from England that my “Caprice” Holsteiner sculpture’s bone china mold is worn out. No more chinas can be cast from it after the last few pieces on order are made. I know that mold was the one most likely to be done soon, as it is also the oldest and multiple molds were not made. I am letting all my china molds play out and then each edition will be finished forever, but this is still kind of sad for me somehow.

I don’t know how to make ceramics molds, and I’m not that inclined to learn. Horses are especially difficult to master the casting of, I think. I have learned to make molds in urethane rubber of my sculptures for resin casting, and it is pretty difficult. At least those mold pieces are flexible, where the plaster used in ceramics is not! So I never really expected to ever see my sculptures in ceramic.

I have been in love with ceramics my whole life. Especially china horse figurines of course. It was a dream come true when I met Mark Farmer of Alchemy Ceramics, and he told me he could cast my work in fine English bone china. In 2001, “Caprice” was my first sculpture produced in ceramic, and it was such an incredible time for me. I remember vividly holding the first glossy white “Caprice” in my hands, just received from England. I cried!

I went over to England in the fall of 2001 to spend a few days at the Alchemy Studio, to see the casting and painting process. (This was only about 6 weeks after the events of 9/11 changed the world. I felt so brave flying over to England by myself!) While I was there, I had a chance to try my hand at at overglaze chinapainting for the first time, on one of the first Alchemy “Caprice” chinas produced:

I only painted the little dappled areas, and it took me literally hours; chinapainting is that difficult to master! Anthony Thomas, Alchemy’s painter, had to paint all the other areas like the legs, hooves, and eyes, because I couldn’t do the hand-shading with paintbrushes at all! (I still can’t! I have to use the airbrush to paint any kind of blended/shaded large areas of color!)

Fortunately I will have just enough copies of “Caprice” for my personal collection. I sold a few this year thinking there would be more coming, yikes! There are 35 china “Caprice” pieces in existence.

We got to New York and back over the weekend with only minor delays in Chicago the Sunday before Christmas, whew! But I’m very glad to be back into the normal routine.

Here’s one more cute photo of Kit in the snow, and then I swear I’ll stop! We’ve gotten 2 snow storms in about 3 days this week. He just goes out there and lays in it; doesn’t matter how cold. His other name is now “frosty face”.

Here is how the Eberl “Valentin” bone china glazing came out:

Last week was definitely my week for glazing lustrous deep brown coat colors you could drown in! Yumm! I wish everyone could hold that bay silver “Optime” that I finished last week in their hands, and turn him around in the light. My photos just didn’t show show all the rich reds and shades of bay going all the way to mahogany, that are in there.

The key I found is applying and firing layer upon layer of each actual shade of color. (No cutting corners here like just mixing one mid-tone color and applying it lighter in the light areas and heavier in the dark places all in one firing.) It may seem like all those layers will just be getting covered up. But they don’t: they are under there and due to the transparency of the glazes they provide the deep dimension in the color! I think the best-painted bay horse colors remind me of dark wine or other dark liquids in a glass. Especially in the glossy ceramic finish, ooh aah!

He’ll be on his way to owner Kim Knight of Chicago next week. Thanks for being such a loyal “patron” of my work, Kim!

I just love this color and I think I will be glazing a “Boreas” in something like it; I’ve been casting around for a “keeper” color on a “Boreas” to glaze for my collection and this is it!

So what’s on deck for January?
Well, in booked glazing commissions I’ve got:

• A dapple grey “Heart of Darkness”.

• A very exciting very-matte finish large-size Boreas in dapple grey. Exciting because I’ve not yet glazed a “Boreas” in the very-matte finish. I call it “very-matte” to distinguish it from the “satin” finish a lot of ceramists use. This is definitely not that! I fire the overglaze paints right onto the bone china bisque; it is just like colored bisque but a little smoother with no “shine” at all (except for the glossed hooves and eyes).

• An Optime in very-matte rose dapple grey—the first “Optime” to be glazed very-matte, too.

• Lastly, a “Meribel” in black pinto.
I have another week-long trip coming at the end of the month, so I may not get all of those finished!!

Non-glazing-wise, I should complete the Keeshond tile sculpture (and then on to: figuring out how to mold/cast it myself in ceramic, yeeek.). I also plan to sculpt a Quarter Horse head tile (while I’m in tile-sculpting mode anyway), and of course spend time on the new 3-D sculpture too. There are no deadlines on any of those, but gee I guess I’ll be keeping myself busy—that’s only January!

Here are pictures of a china Optime Arabian and china Halfling Boreas that were just completed today.

And now for something completely different…

Yesterday I started a new bas relief sculpted tile. This is going to be a portrait of my dog KitKat’s grandfather, a Keeshond, who passed away this past summer. His name is Ch Sherwood A*Starz Chips Ahoy, aka “Skipper”. (Gotta love those show dog names…!)

The photo is of the tile just started; there’s a lot of work to go to make it really look like Skipper. (I noticed that the head is not at all the right shape yet!) I am using “Classic Clay” (a non-hardening oil clay) and working on a piece of 1/4″ acrylic I had cut to the tile size target (will be a 6×6″ tile when fired). Sculpting right on the acrylic, I get a smooth background to work on and I don’t have to sculpt the tile itself, only the bas relief art. If all goes as planned, I will be hand-casting these tiles in my own molds in earthenware clay.

I participated in an ornament exchange with a small group of fellow ceramists this month, and I thought it would be fun to share mine with the Blog. This is my hand-built (in earthenware clay) glazed and fired pine cone, which I then topped with a wired bow and a bit of artificial pine branch to hang it from. It was very fun to create something different like this, from scratch.

We went snowboarding at Vail and Breckenridge the last 2 days, the first time this season! Which is very unusual, since we usually get going up there by mid-November. But the snow had just not arrived until the past couple weeks. It was great as usual to get back on the board, but it was WAY too cold. It was -4° Saturday morning and only warmed up to maybe 10° by the time we left. UGH! The older I get the less I want to ride on anything but sunny, 20-30° days. I forgot the camera or Paul would not have missed the chance to take the oh-so-flattering photo of me with frozen slime all over my lower face. But I pray I never get too old to have this amazing excuse to be up there at 12,000+ feet, seeing such magnificence as the Colorado Rockies in winter. Or, just shoot me when I can’t get up to do it anymore!