New Work Taken to The Dart Gallery, December 19th 2017

Here are photos of new pieces dropped off at The Dart Gallery in downtown Dartmouth last week, starting with a group shot to give an idea of relative size of the pieces:

The gallery is looking fantastic with all sorts of wonderful local pottery and jewelry, a show of fun pieces inspired by Pixar and many great cards and prints.  The gallery also has a handy storage with many great pieces from previous shows. 

For folks who would enjoy some delicious food and drink with their Christmas shopping, or are just looking for an artsy holiday outing, Dart is adjacent to Picnic at Dart, a licensed bistro under the direction of a very creative chef who trained at Le Cordon Bleu Culinary School.   

The gallery's neighbourhood has also been hailed in the national news media this year as "Halifax's Brooklyn" as downtown Dartmouth turns into a popular indie shopping/dining destination. 

On to the work!  First, a bunny and mouse holding flowers, which could hold rings for safe keeping:

  
 Next up: an owl and pussycat sculptures.

  
For Chinese astrology fans, next year will be the Year of the Brown (or Earth) Dog, beginning February 16th, 2018.   I didn't realize this when sculpting or glazing this basset hound and corgi:  

Next are bunnies with their hedgehog friend: a bowl, sculpture and figurines.  One accidentally ended up with a coat that looks similar to Huxley, the gallery bunny - a glazing "mistake" that ended up being an improvement:

Elephants! A small bowl and a figurine, with trunks turned upwards for good luck, ready to shower good fortune on passers by:

Four more figurines, a frog, cat, German Shepherd dog, and raccoon:

Three chickens, a goat and a rooster.

Four crows:

Four sheep and four foxes:

Next, a selection of handsculpted brooches and pendants!  These are brand new products for my art practice.   First, the brooches, with a loonie (Canadian dollar coin) for scale.  These are a bit big but suitable for a jacket, coat or bag, I'll be making smaller ones in the new year:

Next, the pendants.

Suggested musical pairings: for the flying crow pendants:  "As the Crow Flies" by Stephen Fearing. For the pig pendant, "The Grim Trucker" by Ron Sexsmith.

In addition to the twenty pendants above, there was a mushroom pendant I didn't manage to get a photo of. 

Finally here is a high relief carved bowl of a fox chasing a pheasant:

 

Now Available At The Art Gallery of Nova Scotia Shop, August 30th, 2016

Here are pics of work dropped off at The Art Gallery of Nova Scotia shop in downtown Halifax today.  I'm super excited to have some pieces here again!  These are all from previous firings, though the pics were taken this afternoon at Cable Wharf on the waterfront with Amos Pewter in the background.  

Lidded Vessel: crow with nest of three baby crows

Four larger figurines:

Polar bear, snowy owl, bunny

Puffin

 Smaller figurines:

Buffalo

Turtles

Sled dog

Two crows, which made me think of a Local Xpress article about the soon to be opening if it hasn't yet Two Crows Brewing Company pub downtown which looks super cool.  The articles mentions a "One [Crow] For Sorrow" nursery rhyme I had never heard of before!

 

Rooster

Polar bear and brown bear

Two bunnies 

 

Snake

Barn owl and beaver

Bowls!  All of the pieces in this group are white mid fire stoneware, as with all my functional ware, these bowls are foodsafe.  They are also technically dishwasher safe, although handwashing is recommended.

Large crow bowl

Two rabbit bowls

Snowy owl bowl

Suffolk sheep bowl

I'm still working away on a kiln full of new stoneware sculptures and functional/sculptural pieces, including some new designs, coming along as soon as possible!

New Christmas Ornaments at Jenny Jib, November 18th 2015

Here are pics of the ornaments from this most recent firing that I dropped off at Jenny Jib in Lunenburg on November 4th, along with some other new pieces. 

All of these are handsculpted stoneware, created in Lunenburg County the Balsam Fir Christmas Tree Capital of the world!  There are lots of tree farms near our rural home.  

These new ornaments are made with ornament hooks embedded in them, instead of heavy wire, which means they're now finished on the bottom. There were 28 of them total at Jenny's shop, they're $25 each and include a wire ornament hanger:

Lobster, whale, seagull

 

Reindeer and an owl wearing a Santa hat

Three Great White Sharks, 2 wearing Santa hats, and a baby Harp Seal which looks like it might be in some trouble...

Close up of a shark and the seal, where they've decided to be friends

Bald Eagle

Polar Bear and Squirrel

Flock of 5 sheep with a donkey

Four Fish

Farmyard friends: Horse, Goat, Rooster

Four doves

 

Birdfeeder Buddies: Blue Jay, Cardinal, Chickadee

Fox

The Blue Jay, from above, demonstrating how these new ornaments hang with a simple wire which is provided for all of them

I also brought in 5 older ornaments:

A seagull, displaying my new tags, and 2 fish.  These are $20 each

And finally, two Kevin O'Leary Christmas Tree Heads.  There will be another post coming up about these now that I have some nice pics of a bunch of them hanging in a hawthorn tree.

Same heads as above, front view

This has become the time of year when all I want to do is make ornaments, so I am working on another firing that will include some new whale and dolphin ornaments for the shop if all goes well!