1. Awesome potter/ceramic artist Toni Losey was featured in this past episode of Argyle Fine Art's Studio Saturdays - Toni has a show coming up in July at the same time as the awesome painter Gordon MacDonald, should be a lot of awesome!
2. Powdered Magnesium Citrate. According to this article I saw on Facebook a lot of people have magnesium deficiencies, due to crappy food, stress, sugar, and poor soil quality from intensive agriculture. Hmm. I seemed to have a lot of the symptoms including sleep issues, eye twitching (embarrassing) and tendonitis!!! I asked what was popular at The Healthy Bug and picked up some unflavoured Natural Calm Magnesium Citrate Powder. Success, I think. Hard to know if it was the supplement or the placebo effect that made me feel better but it makes a lot of sense from a biology point of view. Even the tendonitis seems pretty much gone despite all the carving I've been doing (potters, take heed).
3. Our new ice cream maker! Speaking of crappy food it seems that store bought ice cream these days has way too many chemically intense ingredients and tastes a bit like sweet plastic. So after doing a bunch of research we picked the Cuisinart Pure Indulgence 2 Quart Frozen Yogurt/Ice Cream and Sorbet Maker, which gets rave reviews and happens to be on sale at Home Hardware until May 30th. It's great, and lets a person choose all natural ingredients like local raw honey, goat milk and organic cream. The first batch was really good (vanilla with a custard base) but I'm looking forward to finding and trying some vegan recipes with coconut cream or fruit sorbets. We have a freezer but the only downside I've read about this thing is the bucket takes up a bit of freezer space if a person only has a fridge freezer.
Monday, May 25, 2015
Monday, May 18, 2015
This Week's Favourite Things! Monday May 11 - Sunday May 17th, 2015
1. Craft Year 2015. Neat, thanks, Twitter, I had no idea this was a year of craft in Canada. Craft year 2015 is a project of the Canadian Crafts Federation. There are all kinds of events all over, and every Saturday crafters are encouraged to post pics on social media with the hashtag #craftselfie Saturday. Fun!
2. Mother Earth, the film by Ben Proudfoot, Breakwater Studios about the lovely Louise Pentz, master potter, sculptor and formerly a co-president of the Nova Scotia Potters guild, who has offered smoke firing workshops in her yard. Awesome to see Louise get celebrated in this film. She and her husband, painter Don Pentz, currently have a show at the Lunenburg Art Gallery, called "Paintings and Sculptures", it's awesome, and up until May 31st. Here's a Herald article about it.
3. Speaking of Master Potters I haven't actually made it into the new Made in the Maritimes Artisan Boutique in the Sunnyside Mall in Bedford, but I'm so happy to see that Carol Smeraldo has work there now. It looks like a fantastic shop that's generating some great buzz about all things handmade. The pics of everything on their Facebook page look awesome, just what Atlantic Canada needs IMO. And they ship all over!
4. Ted Talks. I've been carving away on some mugs and listening to a pile of Ted Talks on youtube, here are a few favourites:
The Art of Being Yourself by Caroline McHugh
The Discipline of Finishing by Conor Neill
Programming your mind for success, by Carrie Green, founder of the Female Entrepreneur's Association. Carrie Green also has a youtube channel with more inspirational videos.
5. This video for the song 70 million by French band Hold Your Horses. It's awesome! it's a few years old but I never saw it until a friend posted it on Facebook this week; the band imitates several famous works of art with it. Nice.
6. More videos from Infinite Waters, yes this is the sort of stuff I binge listen to while carving.
10 Things to Give Up to be Happy,
How to Set and Achieve Any Goal
Secrets of Truly Happy People: Dealing with Hard Times
7. The Present Moment! Haven't listened to Eckhart Tolle for awhile but enjoyed this:
The Power of the Present Moment: A Meditation
2. Mother Earth, the film by Ben Proudfoot, Breakwater Studios about the lovely Louise Pentz, master potter, sculptor and formerly a co-president of the Nova Scotia Potters guild, who has offered smoke firing workshops in her yard. Awesome to see Louise get celebrated in this film. She and her husband, painter Don Pentz, currently have a show at the Lunenburg Art Gallery, called "Paintings and Sculptures", it's awesome, and up until May 31st. Here's a Herald article about it.
3. Speaking of Master Potters I haven't actually made it into the new Made in the Maritimes Artisan Boutique in the Sunnyside Mall in Bedford, but I'm so happy to see that Carol Smeraldo has work there now. It looks like a fantastic shop that's generating some great buzz about all things handmade. The pics of everything on their Facebook page look awesome, just what Atlantic Canada needs IMO. And they ship all over!
4. Ted Talks. I've been carving away on some mugs and listening to a pile of Ted Talks on youtube, here are a few favourites:
The Art of Being Yourself by Caroline McHugh
The Discipline of Finishing by Conor Neill
Programming your mind for success, by Carrie Green, founder of the Female Entrepreneur's Association. Carrie Green also has a youtube channel with more inspirational videos.
5. This video for the song 70 million by French band Hold Your Horses. It's awesome! it's a few years old but I never saw it until a friend posted it on Facebook this week; the band imitates several famous works of art with it. Nice.
6. More videos from Infinite Waters, yes this is the sort of stuff I binge listen to while carving.
10 Things to Give Up to be Happy,
How to Set and Achieve Any Goal
Secrets of Truly Happy People: Dealing with Hard Times
7. The Present Moment! Haven't listened to Eckhart Tolle for awhile but enjoyed this:
The Power of the Present Moment: A Meditation
Friday, May 15, 2015
Now Available at the Art Gallery of Nova Scotia gift shop, May 13, 2015
Here are pics of some figurines and bowls that I dropped off at the Art Gallery of Nova Scotia (AGNS) gift shop in downtown Halifax on Wednesday May 13, and here's the same album on Facebook.
The AGNS has a great shop with a wide selection of Nova Scotian made craft, such as pottery and jewelry. And it's always open to anyone, whether you're visiting the gallery that day or not. The Teichert Gallery, formerly known as 'Art Sales and Rentals' is a commercial gallery just across the hall and always has lots of great paintings by a variety of Nova Scotian artists to check out which are available for purchase or rent - like the gift shop it is accessible at any time without charge. There are new shows at the Teichert Gallery every month as well as new pieces arriving every couple of weeks by gallery artists. Check out their facebook page to see what's new!
One more art plug for another art venue: tonite (Friday the 15th) at 7pm is the opening reception for No Strings Attached - a group show in tribute to Jim Henson at the Dart Gallery. Yay! Looks like they have some authentic puppets, thanks to the help of one of Henson's puppeteers, ready for an awesome time! Here's a clip from Global News this morning with more details. The show runs until June 2nd.
On to the pics: everything is cone 6 stoneware except for the kingfisher which is earthneware. The bowls are all foodsafe, microwave safe and dishwasher safe though washing by hand is recommended. Everything is hand sculpted & there for 'one of a kind' though sometimes I work in series.
The AGNS has a great shop with a wide selection of Nova Scotian made craft, such as pottery and jewelry. And it's always open to anyone, whether you're visiting the gallery that day or not. The Teichert Gallery, formerly known as 'Art Sales and Rentals' is a commercial gallery just across the hall and always has lots of great paintings by a variety of Nova Scotian artists to check out which are available for purchase or rent - like the gift shop it is accessible at any time without charge. There are new shows at the Teichert Gallery every month as well as new pieces arriving every couple of weeks by gallery artists. Check out their facebook page to see what's new!
One more art plug for another art venue: tonite (Friday the 15th) at 7pm is the opening reception for No Strings Attached - a group show in tribute to Jim Henson at the Dart Gallery. Yay! Looks like they have some authentic puppets, thanks to the help of one of Henson's puppeteers, ready for an awesome time! Here's a clip from Global News this morning with more details. The show runs until June 2nd.
On to the pics: everything is cone 6 stoneware except for the kingfisher which is earthneware. The bowls are all foodsafe, microwave safe and dishwasher safe though washing by hand is recommended. Everything is hand sculpted & there for 'one of a kind' though sometimes I work in series.
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| A snowy owl bowl |
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| Three of these squirrel figurines: the ones on the right, bottom right, and middle of the log |
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| Bighorn Sheep figurine |
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| Bobcat figurine |
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| Buffalo figurines and a "Bowlfalo" |
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| Another buffalo figurine |
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| White tailed buck figurine |
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| Fox bowl |
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| A larger fox bowl |
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| Fox figurines, there is one sitting and a few standing at AGNS |
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| Larger sitting fox figurine: this is in the $75 size/price point as opposed to the smaller foxes which are $30 |
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| Rabbit bowl - front view |
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| Rabbit bowl - side view |
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| Pileated Woodpecker figurines |
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| Sheep figurine - I brought in one with the swirls on it |
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| Snowy Owl figurine |
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| Black bear figurine |
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| Polar bear figurines (two) |
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| Skunk figurine |
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| Belted Kingfisher Figurine |
Monday, May 11, 2015
This Week's Favourite Things! Monday May 4th - Sunday May 10th 2015
1. The annual Artist for a Day event at NSCAD (Nova Scotia College of Art and Design) which happened this past Saturday as part of Open City. It was nice, the campus was full of free fun demos for all ages.
2. Mark Grantham's 20th show at Studio 21, which opened this past week. Inspiring! Beautiful work and it's cool to see someone proving that it is possible to make a living as an artist with hard work and dedication. Here's an article about the show.
3. Relief Carving! and various youtube videos I've listened to while doing it. Pics coming soon of works in progress but having made tonnes of little things over the past while, ornaments and figurines and such, I've been feeling like working on some bigger things, like relief carving on to vases. It's fun. Previously I've only done this on earthenware red clay with black stain, so we'll see how making things with coloured glazes at cone 6 goes. So I've been back in the studio carving away listening to tonnes of stuff about manifesting and law of attraction lately, always a favourite topic. Here are some videos:
Louise Hay - Receiving Prosperity. I like the bit in this one where she says that "feelings are thoughts in motion in the body". Interesting when you consider that you can choose your thoughts. Hmm. On the topic of creating one's reality I re-listened to these Teal Swan videos which were very good to re-hear:
The common pitfalls of manifestation
Spiritual Bypassing
How ego comes through the backdoor
And this video about presence with Eckhart Tolle is nice and speaks about the balance between the urge for creative expression and presence (being versus doing), eg "if you becomes stressed you're losing yourself in the doing". aha.
Eckhart Tolle author of the power of now explains the divine purpose of the universe
4. This video about economics that I saw posted in a comment on a Globe and Mail article about Canadians and their debt. Seems to explain economic cycles really well.
How the Economic Machine Works by Ray Dalio
5. This blog post by a potter (Back Bay Pottery) on how to make a covered butter dish, great blog, super great post with awesome photos, and great facebook page and social media presence in general. Inspiring!
2. Mark Grantham's 20th show at Studio 21, which opened this past week. Inspiring! Beautiful work and it's cool to see someone proving that it is possible to make a living as an artist with hard work and dedication. Here's an article about the show.
3. Relief Carving! and various youtube videos I've listened to while doing it. Pics coming soon of works in progress but having made tonnes of little things over the past while, ornaments and figurines and such, I've been feeling like working on some bigger things, like relief carving on to vases. It's fun. Previously I've only done this on earthenware red clay with black stain, so we'll see how making things with coloured glazes at cone 6 goes. So I've been back in the studio carving away listening to tonnes of stuff about manifesting and law of attraction lately, always a favourite topic. Here are some videos:
Louise Hay - Receiving Prosperity. I like the bit in this one where she says that "feelings are thoughts in motion in the body". Interesting when you consider that you can choose your thoughts. Hmm. On the topic of creating one's reality I re-listened to these Teal Swan videos which were very good to re-hear:
The common pitfalls of manifestation
Spiritual Bypassing
How ego comes through the backdoor
And this video about presence with Eckhart Tolle is nice and speaks about the balance between the urge for creative expression and presence (being versus doing), eg "if you becomes stressed you're losing yourself in the doing". aha.
Eckhart Tolle author of the power of now explains the divine purpose of the universe
4. This video about economics that I saw posted in a comment on a Globe and Mail article about Canadians and their debt. Seems to explain economic cycles really well.
How the Economic Machine Works by Ray Dalio
5. This blog post by a potter (Back Bay Pottery) on how to make a covered butter dish, great blog, super great post with awesome photos, and great facebook page and social media presence in general. Inspiring!
Tuesday, May 5, 2015
Now Available at Jenny Jib, May 3rd 2015
Lunenburg is bustling and Jenny Jib is now open for the season again; I think the current hours for May are 10-5 Monday thru Saturday, and 12-5 on Sunday. Jenny has a great shop with a mix of local art and craft, with paintings by artists including Evgenia Makogon, Zehava Power and several others. Jenny's so understated about how awesome she is to the local art community! Her store also carries carefully selected, quality, decor items from further afield. There are always lots of cool things to see.
Here are pics of a few pieces from these latest firings that I dropped off on Sunday, and here's a link to this album on Facebook. Bowls are mid-fire stoneware, foodsafe, microwave safe, dishwasher safe though washing by hand is recommended.
I also dropped off quite a bit of work before Christmas, and being the most brutal winter in decades the shop was largely shut until now, so there are still pieces available from my last firing. For the next firing, I'm excited to start working on some Jenny Jib-specific things such as whale mugs and flounder platters!
Here are pics of a few pieces from these latest firings that I dropped off on Sunday, and here's a link to this album on Facebook. Bowls are mid-fire stoneware, foodsafe, microwave safe, dishwasher safe though washing by hand is recommended.
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| Sleeping Fox Bowl |
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| Sleeping Fox Bowl, another view |
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| Rooster bowl |
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| some fun figurines, I'm hoping to make more of this sort of thing! |
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| A kissy fish figurine (inspired by a birthday card) |
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| Fox figurines, I dropped off 2 of the sitting and 2 of the standing ones |
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| Suffolk sheep figurines, Jenny has a small flock |
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| A chickadee figurine |
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| Loon Figurine |
I also dropped off quite a bit of work before Christmas, and being the most brutal winter in decades the shop was largely shut until now, so there are still pieces available from my last firing. For the next firing, I'm excited to start working on some Jenny Jib-specific things such as whale mugs and flounder platters!
Monday, May 4, 2015
This Week's Favourite Things! Monday April 27 - Sunday May 3rd 2015
The first item is something I forgot to post in a previous week:
1. This Business Insider article by the head of the biggest asset management company in the world: Larry Fink: Contemporary Art and Luxury Condos Are The New Gold.
2. Learning more about symbols, like the eye of horus - a symbol of protection, royal power good health, and 8 pointed stars - which have a variety of meanings such as the time portal through which quetzocoatl passes through. I've realized I've carved some of these elements into my art before without realizing it and now am thinking about getting more deliberate about it.
3. Lunenburg and the Portland Street area of Dartmouth - after dropping off work this week I realized what these two shopping district have in common: lots of cool indie shops and restaurants, many of which are owned and operated by younger people, and a relative lack of big box/mega chain stores. It's nice!
4. This Wall Street Journal video about why the income inequality gap is widening. Not a 'favourite thing' but interesting. Ends with some doom and gloom about how hard this will be to change, but will it? What if the folks sitting on big wealth stores with way more than they really need to be comfy/set for life, put more money back into the economy by collecting art from living artists/craftspeople (the new gold!), or into real estate to create affordable housing/rent to own/affordable commercial rental opportunities... or come up with other ways that could shrink this gap and give more people the opportunity to own their own homes and businesses, in a win/win sort of way, not a rich person/charity case sort of way, just like society used to be in the 50's, only with better human rights and internet. Just an idea! Solution number two: everyone wake up, speak up and quit letting wealth pool in the pockets of potentially psychopathic people via megabonuses and CEO salaries as illustrated by Jason Bateman's boss in this movie I just watched on Netflix "Identity Thief". This is a feel good movie because the people who got shafted by a greedy boss shuffle along to form a better company and there's a happy ending.
5. Terry Alex's twitter feed: @takecareofUUU full of inspiring quotes and pics
1. This Business Insider article by the head of the biggest asset management company in the world: Larry Fink: Contemporary Art and Luxury Condos Are The New Gold.
2. Learning more about symbols, like the eye of horus - a symbol of protection, royal power good health, and 8 pointed stars - which have a variety of meanings such as the time portal through which quetzocoatl passes through. I've realized I've carved some of these elements into my art before without realizing it and now am thinking about getting more deliberate about it.
3. Lunenburg and the Portland Street area of Dartmouth - after dropping off work this week I realized what these two shopping district have in common: lots of cool indie shops and restaurants, many of which are owned and operated by younger people, and a relative lack of big box/mega chain stores. It's nice!
4. This Wall Street Journal video about why the income inequality gap is widening. Not a 'favourite thing' but interesting. Ends with some doom and gloom about how hard this will be to change, but will it? What if the folks sitting on big wealth stores with way more than they really need to be comfy/set for life, put more money back into the economy by collecting art from living artists/craftspeople (the new gold!), or into real estate to create affordable housing/rent to own/affordable commercial rental opportunities... or come up with other ways that could shrink this gap and give more people the opportunity to own their own homes and businesses, in a win/win sort of way, not a rich person/charity case sort of way, just like society used to be in the 50's, only with better human rights and internet. Just an idea! Solution number two: everyone wake up, speak up and quit letting wealth pool in the pockets of potentially psychopathic people via megabonuses and CEO salaries as illustrated by Jason Bateman's boss in this movie I just watched on Netflix "Identity Thief". This is a feel good movie because the people who got shafted by a greedy boss shuffle along to form a better company and there's a happy ending.
5. Terry Alex's twitter feed: @takecareofUUU full of inspiring quotes and pics
Sunday, May 3, 2015
Now Available At The Dart Gallery, May 1st 2015
So excited to have new pieces at The Dart Gallery! It's a lovely space, voted best gallery in Halifax in 2014 by Coast Readers, in the hip, happening Portland Street Area of Dartmouth.
For visitors to downtown Halifax, or residents even, this shopping district with great indie shops and restaurants is a short pleasant stroll from Alderney Landing. Accessible by the scenic and affordable public transit ferry that crosses the Halifax harbour, this makes for a fun excursion that doesn't require a car!
The Dart Gallery is currently featuring a beautiful show of abstract work by Amy Corbett, "Comfort Item", until May 13th, and on May 15th there will be an opening for a group show of pieces inspired by everything Jim Henson, which sounds just awesome!
Here are the pics of the work, which are also in this album on Facebook. I managed to get photos of everything except 2 mini white owls, a chicken figurine and an alpaca figurine. All of these pieces are mid-fire stoneware (cone 6) except for a couple of earthenware figurines as noted. All of the 'animal' bowls are food safe, microwave safe and dishwasher safe although hand washing is recommended.
For visitors to downtown Halifax, or residents even, this shopping district with great indie shops and restaurants is a short pleasant stroll from Alderney Landing. Accessible by the scenic and affordable public transit ferry that crosses the Halifax harbour, this makes for a fun excursion that doesn't require a car!
The Dart Gallery is currently featuring a beautiful show of abstract work by Amy Corbett, "Comfort Item", until May 13th, and on May 15th there will be an opening for a group show of pieces inspired by everything Jim Henson, which sounds just awesome!
Here are the pics of the work, which are also in this album on Facebook. I managed to get photos of everything except 2 mini white owls, a chicken figurine and an alpaca figurine. All of these pieces are mid-fire stoneware (cone 6) except for a couple of earthenware figurines as noted. All of the 'animal' bowls are food safe, microwave safe and dishwasher safe although hand washing is recommended.
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| Sullivan's Pond Geese! Inspired by the much loved geese of Sullivan's Pond in Dartmouth... the honking one is saying "What are we doing here, this isn't Sullivan's Pond! Let's Go!" |
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| Getting closer to migrating to Dartmouth... |
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| Goose Close Up |
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| Rabbits! The Dart Gallery's owner, Jane, has a sweet, inspiring, Holland Lop rabbit named Huxley who usually hangs out at the gallery with her. It was fun to make some new rabbits & "rabbitware" for the space; there's a large bowl, a smaller bowl, 5 small figurines and 2 larger figurines. |
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| Close up of large rabbit bowl |
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| A Brown Rabbit bowl - this one is about half the size of the blue/brown one |
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| A pair of real rabbits that appeared and chased each other all over the woods after I photographed the brown rabbit bowl! Hopefully an auspicious omen! |
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| Small Rabbit figurines |
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| Black Rabbit close up |
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| Large Rabbit figurine with a smaller one for scale. |
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| Beaver figurines |
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| Beaver bowl |
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| Same bowl, top view |
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| Mallard Bowl |
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| Owl Bowl |
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| Same bowl, side view |
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| Chickadee Figurine |
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| Turtle Figurine |
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| Small turtle figurine |
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| Fox figurines - I left 2 standing and 2 sitting ones at Dart Gallery. |
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| Squirrel figurines: Dart has the large one, the mini one, and the 2 with spirals on their haunches (the ones beside and below the largest squirrel) |
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| Squirrel figurine close up |
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| Sheep Figurines - there are 3 at Dart Gallery |
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| "Larger" figurines each of these is at Dart |
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| Larger fox figurine close up, I'm guessing it's around 7" tall? |
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| Brown bear figurine |
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| Polar Bear Figurine |
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| Wolf Figurine |
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| Piping Plover Figurine - earthenware |
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| Large Puffin Figurine |
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| Owl Figurine |
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| Large Beaver figurine with one of the other figurines for scale |
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| Side view |
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| Doberman Figurine |
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| Shih Tzu Figurine |
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| Brown and White Dog Figurine |
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| Sled Dog Figurine |
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| Horse Figurine |
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| Ox Figurine |
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| Earthenware Rooster Figurine |
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| Stoneware Rooster Figurine |
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| Monkey Figurine - a bunch of the figurines in this group are also Chinese Astrology animals |
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| Rat Figurine |
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| Snake Figurine |
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| Dragon Figurine |
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| Tiger Figurine |
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| Elephant Figurines |
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| Grey and White Cat Figurine |
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| Black and White Cat Figurine |
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| Calico Cat Figurine |
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