Well? Well.

You don't know unless you try.
As you all know...
That's what I got out of the XFACTOR "experience".
Well, about a month ago, I submitted tea bowl photos for the
2011 Tea Bowl National at The Kansas City Clay Guild .
LO and BEHOLD. This blue puppy got in!

The KCCG is planning to give a portion of their percentage to the Earthquake/Tsunami relief in Japan. I am so pleased, I will give my entire portion to that relief effort.

In the mean time... I have been revamping My Etsy Shop .
I have decided the gradiated grey background with all of the knicks and scratches that occur, as well as the lack of pureness is on my nerves. So, I went white.
The work seems to pop. There is nothing else to focus on. I think it feels more current.
I am thinking if I need the other background for submissions and such, I will switch only then. I liked the burlap background but it seemed to distract more than I cared for. I am thinking if I do sales and shows, fresh white paper or other white material is the way I'd like to go.
So I changed my avatar too:





















AND I took all new photos of my existing listings:































































I have a bunch of work in the bisque kiln right now.

I have decided to focus on clays that do not have MANGANESE in them as everyone is FREAKING me out about the continued throwing of my speckled and chocolate brown clays.
SO... I am working with some red,the speckled tan without speckles and my white cone 6 porcelain(I still battle with that name). I am going to try to use the other stuff as slip as needed and be very careful mixing and with clean up and wear masks...etc...

A little background:
I have been really focused on the action painters and therefore, the abstract expressionists of the 40''s to 60's. This has been in my repertoire of interest after I left fashion behind and embarked on my own "self-study", continuing my art history education. I really focused on that time and the work. The life style and the war was interesting to me as well. I poured over books in the library at the time and then I read the 930 page book "Jackson Pollock:An American Saga". (To be fair, the book really ends on page 801...but I digress)The book sends you off on to "historical" tangents about any one and everyone who touched his life... including his ancestors, his parents, his teachers, the other artists right before and during his time... and of course his wife: Lee Krasner. Well... I have been reading about her NOW ,as I have always been intrigued by her and the "supporting role" that she played. She was a very "relevant" artist in her own right and it is very interesting how the times and society did and still does have a profound affect on women vs. men in the art world(actually in all professions). But again, I digress.
Well, not really.

My general focus with my work now is gesture and statement.

I am most interested in working with certain textures and layering but I don't want to be gratuitous.
You know?
I don't want to add "STUFF" just to add "STUFF".
Sometimes as I am working, I am carving or glazing and I just get what is like a writer's "run on sentence"...
This blog is an example of this sort of writing.
Sometimes that works for people.
In my art, it does not work for me.
I like layering and development of surface but it needs cohesion.
You know?
It can only be busy-busy if all of the busy-ness creates a depth instead of dizziness...
This is really important to me in my work.
It is hard at times to be happy with the end result.

These are my deeper issues with my art.
This is the struggle I have and will likely continue to have.
I have these issues within me whether I am creating a mug or a sculptural wall piece. Sometimes I have to let go and move to the next piece.
Sometimes I am satisfied and sometimes I am not.
Sometimes I can reach a more comfortable place with a piece I was not entirely comfortable with by choosing glazes and glaze applications that morph the piece into something I am happier with.
Sometimes I cannot.
Sometimes I am most happy at the leather hard to bone dry stage and I cringe at the future of the piece because I know I will lose how I feel about it in that moment.
So fleeting.
So hard.
But I continue.
Because I really can't stop....
I have to twist and turn and ponder and discuss and fret and frustrate and love and lose.
I often think I wish I did not have this.
This inner struggle.
This outer struggle.
And then I secretly(?) thank goodness this is who I am.
I do believe I need it as much as need air and water.
It is a conundrum.
I work hard to be present and focused and in the moment.
I will continue to attempt to have that as well as this.

Carry on.