Monmouth Festival of the Arts, OOPS!, and Taxes.

So here is the work I took in today for the show I am in...
This is my 4th year...It's an interesting venue...It's actually a juried show but I have pasted below how they describe it... The nice thing is that you bring in your work...and walk away! You can visit...etc... but you don't have to stay and be tortured by the selling process...you know what I mean???

Check it out:
The 39th Annual Monmouth Festival of the Arts, New Jersey's largest art invitational, will take place March 28 through April 1 at Monmouth Reform Temple, 332 Hance Avenue, Tinton Falls. It begins with the Artists Reception on Saturday March 28 at 7:30 p.m. The reception is a great opportunity to meet the artists, enjoy a catered cocktail party, and browse the works in all media by more than 200 artists.

Visitors to the Opening Night Reception will also receive a ticket to attend other Festival activities, including artist demonstrations, children's workshops, and evening series art lectures and music from Sunday through Wednesday. Cost for the Gala is $60 advance, $65 at the door. Reservations can be made by calling 732-747-8278 or 732-747-9365.

Now the "OOPS":










Ugly site right.... one of the worst feelings I think...
Well... I had my 8 1/2 year old son Sam in the car as I turned out first corner the boxes shifted and we heard it happen.... I wasn't sure but when I opened the box....but... It's a pretty clean break... So this will probably become a Tavill Household item if I can glaze glue it back together...Mike, however, is tired of the rejects...Hmmmpf.

Which brings me to may last ugly photo:











The TAX RETURN NIGHTMARE...
He's so mad at me 'cause I've blown this off until now...
It sucks.
You know what sucks the most for me...
I look at the numbers from my "business" and think, "WHAT IS THE POINT????"
Look. I know... I don't approach this business in a very efficient manner...
It's my art...But... It is RATHER frustrating. I'll get over it...I always do.
AND CERTAINLY this upcoming year AIN'T gonna be the big fortune maker... so... laying low... Once I'm dead.... TOTALLY COLLECTIBLE!

I Can't WAIT ANY LONGER!

I received my book that I was waiting for on Wednesday(The day I was supposed to head off to Colorado....had I gone, well... I wouldn't have had it with me... See- making lemonade out or lemons here...!!).
Apparently you have to buy it from England... BUT... It involves 2 Americans. A potter, Christa Assad, and a collector, Richard Jacobs.
It is called: Searching for Beauty: Letters from a Collector to a Studio Potter.
It's amazing and any potter or collector must read it.
I prefer to read each letter or 2 at a time and let the concepts sink in...
It's sort of intense. But great. Rich...
It cost a lot for shipping... I couldn't wait 8 weeks!!!

That was then...This is now...

So That was me circa 1995... I was the head designer/design director for Lilly Pulitzer... I worked my but off... I designed the garments, the prints, the sweaters... fit them...did specs... drew pictures of what an in store shop would look like, illustrated the line...smiled and spoke at little retail things...even painted windows in the "lilly " spirit... Being the independent spirit that I was... I branched off.. leaving Lilly to start my own line... well... that was double the craziness and then I got pregnant with Jake at the same time and closed it... continued to freelance for Lilly amongst others... moved to NJ... and then...longer story...eventually found clay.












I love clay.... I love putting my hands in... creating something from virtually nothing. It is totally different than fashion design and I NEVER thought I would end up here... my whole adolescence and early adulthood...that was it for me... and I had success with it. I was not a starving artist like many who go into these fields... I was able to get good jobs with benefits and met lovely people along the way...(well... I met un-lovely people too) I worked hard at what I did and when I was done, well...I was done . I have no desire to go back to it... I feel like I could instinctively, jump back in if I needed to. Lucky for me, I don't.

The reason I bring this up is that I got an email Sunday night(I think...) from my friend Ro Schuler... who is now a Vice President at Lilly... she was customer service when we worked together...she stayed, I did not... she wanted me to know that today(Wednesday) The Martha Stewart Show was doing an entire Lilly show... All Lilly, All the time. Also,they were having a big "party" in NYC after and I should come. I thought I'd be in Crested Butte, Colorado with my husband snowboarding so I told her we'd have to catch up another time...I also knew I'd miss the show...

BUT... as luck(?) would have it... Sam got strep throat and so did I and I sent my husband off early this A.M. with our friends... without me... so when the show came on.. at 11 A.M. I watched it.

It was FREAKY for me to watch... You can see the lead in to it HERE. Would that have been me on the show if I stayed with the company? It wasn't meant to be... We moved almost 2 hours away...but closer to NYC(Lilly is outside of Philadelphia)... Especially afer 9/11 I would have had a really hard time with all of the travel away from my 2 kids... (I went to Hong Kong and other places about 3 times a year) Just not meant to be...Not to mention... I don't really "LOOK" like the Lilly customer... their current design director is blond, bubbly and perfect for the part. Don't get me wrong... I'm a lot of fun but now I am me... just me... much truer to myself and I wouldn't have it any other way... I am really happy for Ro and the owners as I always felt they were good guys... and they came to my wedding in Baltimore...the men wearing Lilly bow ties and cummerbunds !!! They worked hard for this recognition... They built the brand... we planted the seed together and I am proud that I was a part of it... but I let go a long time ago.

Now.. I plant new seeds...MY SEEDS...not Lilly's.

Tick Tock. Drying and Monmouth Festival of the Arts

These are drying...another batch is in the kiln... need to get these bisque fired(I have 25 pieces going into Monmouth Festival of the ARTs which opens March 28th.... and closes April 1).
Check it out if you are in the area!!!

Of course we have our last little snowboarding jaunt happening... SMACK in the middle of getting the work done...
We are off to Crested Butte,Co on Wednesday EARLY and come home LATE Saturday night... Just the adults this time... staying with our good friends who built a gorgeous home there!
I'm excited... but have the usual stresses of how to get it all done...
It's gorgeous and peaceful there so... it's worth it!

I am a bit of a spastic perfectionist....and creative dichotomy.

So... I have these place settings ready to glaze and fire but I am a bit of a spaz when it comes to deciding what a customer will consider "part of the hand-made process" and what is shoddy workmanship...Now, mind you, there is no "CRANKING OUT" of work hapening here... I'd love to say I can do that but truthfully, I cannot. I have a very hard time looking at the pieces of the set as a whole as opposed to inspecting each piece as though it would be sold on it's own.(which is actually easier as it doesn't have to MATCH the other pieces). It reminds me of the struggle developing a line of clothing....back to my "fashion design days of old"...only different.... Each piece/style needed to stand on it's own as something someone would buy off the rack just because they wanted that piece...However...It needed to make sense as part of an outfit, as well as part of the story being told in the collection...

I digress.

Meanwhile... on a slightly different note...Rachel Power who wrote the awesome book The Divided Heart: Art and Motherhood WHICH I LOVED and any mother artist(writer,dancer,visual,creative type...) should read,
posted a link to this talk on TED (but I was able to access the same talk on my blackberry through You Tube...)
I thought it was great. YOU can see it HERE.

A while ago I read Eat Pray Love by Elizabeth Gilbert...Loved it... some love it...some don't. I loved it... What's not to love?
Someone told me they thought she was whining through out the book...I have no problem with whining(I whine all of the time, I guess)...I don't think it's really whining... It's struggling... struggling with our place in this world in our body that we have on loan until we leave it...
For those of us possessed by a "creative drive", the road can be a bit tough... Not that it's necessarily tougher than other human existance...just,well, different.
She gave a great talk and didn't sound like WHINING at all.
Leave that for me to do, Elizabeth.