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 Catfish Moon Folk Art and Craft, July 22, 2016

This past Wednesday I dropped of some work at Catfish Moon in scenic, historic Annapolis Royal and am very excited to now have items available at this venue.  Catfish Moon is a very lovely shop/gallery/studio specializing in folk art while offering a variety of work by a number of artisans.  The owners are a couple who are retired from their successful studio pottery practice of the same name, although Angela continues to create beautiful felted landscapes which are available for sale.  

The gallery is open May - October, every day from 10am - 5pm, at 170 Saint George Street.  It is located downtown, close to the historic Farmers and Traders market; a fabulous huge outdoor market which runs on  Saturdays from 8am - 1pm, late May - early October, with a smaller version on Wednesdays in July and August from 10am - 2pm.

I brought in a selection of pieces from the most recent firing.  First, the farm animals:

Farm animal group shop; most were similar in size except for one larger sheep

Pig and horse

Two chickens and a mouse

Goat and cow

 

Side view of that larger sheep

Next, a four new wildlife pieces.  Annapolis Royal is less than an hour from the main, inland part of  Kejimkujik National Park, which is home to all sorts of animals endemic to Canada. 

group shot: crow, moose, robin, beaver

beaver and moose

robin and crow

 Also from the most recent firing, three fish:

fish group shot

large blue fish side view

two small fish

As well, the shop also now has these pieces from previous firings:

Three fox figurines

A beaver bowl, beaver sculpture, black bear and beaver figurines

interior of above beaver bowl.  note all of my functional ware is food safe, dishwasher safe cone 6 stoneware, however handwashing is recommended

front of beaver bowl

horse sculpture

spotted horse sculpture

ox figurine

wolf bowl, seen with the sheep sculpture

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!