Now Available at Jenny Jib, December 12th, 2016

Here are pics of new work that was dropped off at Jenny Jib in Lunenburg this past Friday.  The shop is now open every day until Christmas and has tonnes of great stuff to peruse for anyone in need of a relaxing shopping excursion to this scenic town.

There were some new experiments in this firing including a couple of large relief carved plates.  These come wired with picture hanging wire in order to hang on the wall when not in use.   

Relief carved Humpback whale plate

Relief carved Bald Eagle Plate

The relief is a bit higher in this sleeping fox 'plate' which is also wired to hang on the wall

Here is a photo of the above plate with two new fox bowls.

Next up seagulls!  A bowl and a mug - these are the first functional seagull pieces I've tried, and they were quite fun to do.

Puffin bowl - also a new product from this firing along with the next bowl...

Bald Eagle bowl

 A flounder plate, wired to hang on the wall.

Next are new, handsculpted, one sided flat ornaments.  With the exception of the lobster which ended up getting glazed, these are sanded bare clay on the back and so can be personalized with a marker or even used as gift tags.

Whale, orca, dolphin, fish, puffin, lobster and sharks

Foxes, sleeping foxes, sheep, sleeping cat, rabbit, elephant

Duck

Polar bear

Elephant figurine with larger elephant sculpture

More new figurines...

Border collie tending a small flock of sheep

Larger sheep sculpture

"Skulk" of foxes, including new sleeping fox figurine and new hedgehog figurines

Blue jay, turkey and crow

Puffins and whale

Now Available At The Art Gallery of Nova Scotia Shop, December 12th, 2016

Here are pics of new pieces dropped off at the Art Gallery of Nova Scotia shop in downtown Halifax, this past Saturday.  It is nice to see the new shop filling back up with beautiful locally made things!

a white tailed deer fawn, two owls and a moose

A small skulk of fox figurines

two black bears and a polar bear

New ornaments, handsculpted and relatively flat but have a bit of relief to them. The backs are unglazed so that they can be personalized with a marker, or used as gift tags.   In addition to the ornaments pictured here there was a dove, whale and dolphin.

Pig and rat

Puffin bowl

Robin, crow and blue jay

Seagull with two puffins

Wolf with two sheep figurines and a larger sheep sculpture

Glad to finally have some new work for the shop! In addition to these pieces is a black bear bowl and beaver bowl from a previous firing.

Now Available At The Dart Gallery, December 12th, 2016

 Here are pics of new work dropped off at The Dart Gallery in downtown Dartmouth on Saturday December 10th.   

The gallery is packed with lots of new items for holiday giving, and Picnic at Dart is open for suppers and weekend brunches with a new menu for the current group show "To the Stars", a tribute to the celebrities who passed in 2016.

There were a few centimeters of snow on the ground which made for some wintry photos after unloading the kiln.   

Figurines:

Cats and dogs

fox figurines

'Mini' figurines - a rabbit, owl and mouse

ferret

new flat ornaments, to join an assortment of ornaments from previous firings.

Bears, rabbits and skunk

flock of sheep with larger sheep sculpture

Mugs

Raccoon mug and skunk mug

Wolf mug

This (past three) Week's Favourite Things! Monday November 21st - Sunday December 11th 2016

1. Kejimkujik National Park at the end of November.   Here are some pics from when I stopped to take a look on the way home from a nice visit in Annapolis Royal.

Keji deer, nonplussed by cars

Lichen covered rock

Lichen close up

 Also on the list: Helen Opie's newly constructed front entry which she designed and will also start serving as a home gallery next season, forgot to get a pic though, the Digby YMCA which is very nice, especially the view from the pool, and Annapolis Royal's Ye Old Town Pub.

2.   Hot Coffee.  This is a documentary on how big business and the media have colluded in attempts to weaken the justice system in the United States.  It points out that thanks to media spin doctoring, lots of people thought the lawsuit against McDonalds by a plaintiff who split hot coffee on her lap was frivolous - when in fact the burns were so severe she required skin grafts and just wanted her medical bills covered, it turns out there were 700 complaints to McDonalds about the coffee temperature before this happened.

3.  New youtube channel: "Higher Self".  Eg, "Spiritual Warfare" which is pretty out-there but I enjoyed this because awhile ago I wondered if earth could actually be some sort of virtual reality video game between "good" and "evil" sides where the end goal is to turn the planet into either a black hole or a star; this video talks about aliens, parasites, and psychopaths, a few of my favourite internet research topics from the past couple of years that one doesn't often find discussed together.  Other videos I liked: Get Ready For Your Mission, No More Excuses, It is time  and Do You Have A High Vibration? 10 Signs of a Vibrational Shift To Look For.

4.  This has been on the list before but the Franklin D. Roosevelt quote about how the only thing we have to fear is fear itself.  Here's his 1933 inaugural address on youtube.  Given the first of the seven Hermetic/universal Laws - "the law of mentalism" which states all is mind - staying out of fear seems like a good idea.  

5.  This most recent firing, the pieces are now at their new venues, with pics to be posted later today.  While this took a couple months longer than planned I'm excited about the direction the work is going and am already working on the next firing with more ideas.  Here's a pic from opening the glaze kiln:

I plowed through this firing without stopping to post progress shots in order to get stuff to the shops asap.  Good timing too, as today we're getting a dump of snow!  Here's a pic of the kiln/glazing shed getting covered.