I will drink to... INSPIRATION...

in 2014!
Here we go:

Grayson Perry... Not in Drag

Great nuggets of commiseration and he is quite entertaining.

TateShots: Grayson Perry, studio visit-Short Video

The coolest thing?

So...I get this email today from a friend from high school that I haven't seen in about 20 years....
That's cool.
BUT...
It gets BETTER!
She was Debbie Freedman in high school..
However, she is now this accomplished writer/play write and goes by (her middle name) Colette Freedman.
Pretty cool name...
Gets me thinking... Alayne Tavill.
I digress.
So, she basically tells me she was thinking about me because she had a dream I was in...
Well, get your head out of the gutter, it wasn't like that...
She blogged about me HERE.
I DO love the GHOST reference...













You can find out more about HER HERE!
But this give you a taste:
COLETTE FREEDMAN – An internationally produced playwright with over 15 produced plays, Colette was voted “One of 50 to Watch” by The Dramatist’s Guild. Her play Sister Cities was the hit of the 2008 Edinburgh Fringe and earned five star reviews: It has been produced around the country and internationally, including Paris (Une Ville, Une Soeur) and Rome (Le Quattro Sorelle). She has co-written, with International bestselling novelist Jackie Collins, the play Jackie Collins Hollywood Lies, which is gearing up for a National Tour. In collaboration with The New York Times best selling author Michael Scott, she has just sold the thriller The Thirteen Hallows, to Tor/Macmillan, which comes out Dec 6, 2011.

Needless to say, the whole description was lovely and flattering, I am over the moon.
I always thought of her as a really great person(who was pretty!!!)
She seemed to really have it together...
She played the cool sports and was academically really strong!
I was cheerleading (became CAPTAIN!) because I never made the cuts for sports ...
BECAUSE I SUCKED!
She was always a great friend and solid human being and I am so pleased for her success...
Of course NOW I want to see every show she wrote and read every book...
One of these days I will get back in the studio....

Happy Birthday Eva! 105!

What a life.
What an amazing woman.
What an amazing artist.
What an inspiration.
Wow.
Read more HERE!

Infatuated

So Jenny Mendez posted this in her blog this morning:
Title: Beauty
and captioned:
“The human heart stripped of fat and muscle, with just the angel veins exposed.”
















So I was obsessed with it...posted it to facebook and i kept feeling that it distinctly reminded me of nature....
Then I decided to rotate it and I was completely enamored with this HEART!
LOOK:



















Do you see it?
And the delicacy of the form is so wonderful AND strong.
ALSO
It beautifully demonstrates the fibonacci theory that
SIR Chris Gustin taught us in his workshop at Anderson Ranch 2+years ago...
that one did NOT fall on deaf ears!

And... after seeing my Dad's heart on a video screen when they were about to insert 7 stents...
I must say,
this is a truly beautiful thing.
It's fascinating to me.

"COME ON IRENE...."

Oh.. it's "EI-LEEN"...hurumpf.
Well ..Too Rye Ay...

We have been getting ready for that *BEEE-ATCH*...
Boarded up the house and
worried about a wind crashing through my second story studio:
























But before we lose electricity... I figured I'd BLOG!!!!
So here is what I have been working on..
Prepping for my first wood firing at Baltimore Clayworks in September with Laurie Erdman!




























This last one is red clay for my electric kiln at cone 6....


















And here are some inspiration photos from my walks outside...







































So lets pray for the best since we have pretty much prepared for the worst..

Sketchbook and Bisque Also "Little Images" and COLLAGE

Just thought I'd share some visuals of where my head has been... some sketch book pages...
with photos and quick sketches and then a shelf of bisque...




















































































Based on the above post, I should also tell you that I continue to read Lee Krasner's biography
and keep thinking about her "Little Images" and how in some way I am drawn to creating more of a collage effect in pieces both 3 dimensionally as well as regarding the surfaces... so the pieces that you are are seeing evolve now, feel like a jumping off point...

What's happing on this clay "trip".

I am still working and developing and playing with clays(with out MANGANESE) and throwing and carving and manipulating and texturing and glazing and not glazing...
but I have a few photos I feel like I can post....
The ones that have glaze on the outside creating a texture were re-fired after I was unhappy without something else making the inside and the outside of the pieces relate and create a cohesive unit.
I am moving back and forth between these ideas...
Glaze, no glaze, clear glaze texture, smoothness...
In the background are pieces that i have been working with wedging bits of clay in contrast colors into the mound and then throwing and carving... and also throwing and layering up other slips in other clay colors to carve through, reveal... etc...
My head is spinning... just like my wheel!
Trying to enjoy the trip as I am usually wired to focus on the very end result..
.

Ceramics Makers,etc... in Tuscany

OK... so we travelled from Florence to San Gimignano by car and we specifically hit IMPRUNETTA because of the TERRACOTTA KILNS it is known for.

This was the 1st stop:
The sculpture made out of terracotta across the "highway" definitely got our attention!





















































































































The "factory" has been in this guy's family 90 years BUT it is at least 500 years old...

They dig their clay out back!















The clay waiting to be worked with...















This is their current kiln but the owner showed us one that was 500 years old... they only use it for storage...



















Here are other shots of their work space:

















































































Wood is used for something here....maybe just heat...











































The guy gave us an amazing impromptu tour as they started to come back from the lunch break..
and I saw the people working...press molds...handbuilding/major coils etc...


The 2nd stop(and final since we had 2 children in tow...) was here... where they gave us a tour too...




























THIS KILN is the original one still being used for HUGE production... and it is hundreds of years old...

Later in our trip we visited the walled city of Volterra and went to the Etruscan museum....
REALLY AMAZING:
















































































Lastly was the City of San Gimignano recreated in terracotta as life was in 1300!!!!
We learned so very much about the history and the lifestyle and the purpose of various architectural elements...
So much IN FEED!!!! I just hope I retain everything I took in from this trip. It was so great.