I got dessert on my mind!

OK so I made the soup tureen in the studio a few weeks ago, and now I really want to make a tiered dessert server or a tiered fruit bowl(?) Anyway I want to make something tiered. I love to look of have a lot of something especially at a party. I don't have many parties but whatever I still want to make one!

Coulda, Woulda, Shoulda...

I shoulda posted these pics a while ago but I didn't so get off my back! HAHA I wanted to show you some photos from the sale pre set up Enjoy!

 

  

The top three photos are from my friend Debra Fleury's studio. The next 2 are from Reme Gold's studio, then the display case and a few pics of my set up area. Sometime I fell like what I'm doing at the studio is just so different and unique at the studio that I'm either doing something great or something that repulses all the students there. I guess I'm just starting to feel self conscious about me and my work. I do take a hammer to my "SECONDS" because I realized that they just create bad news. Some people will only buy seconds for the deals and look at nothing else. Maybe its the economy that my etsy shop seems to be slow moving I don't know... What I do know is this, I'm happy doing what I'm doing and that is working in the studio. I love it and couldn't be happier. OH I'm sorry my Blog-a-boo's I forgot to show you pictures of the soup toureen I made in the studio! Hope you enjoy!

 

Work Day

 

     What I have been thinking about a lot lately is WORK. How would my ceramic work change if I had my own studio? What's going to happen this year when I go back to work because I'm dropping down to 3 days a week? Since I am applying to grad school in the fall I figure its time for me to concentrate on me, but with that comes stress of how I'm going to be able to pay the bills when I'm barely make it now as is. I have figured out that I need to go to grad school and more importantly my work needs me to go to grad school. I still consider the idea of function a pretty new concept to me, I mean just look at the rims of some of my cups! While at MECA I could do critiques on other students that were making functional objects and I always felt as though since I was doing sculpture, they couldn't really help the sculptors. I totally feel differently about this now making the switch from out to the other, that as a very cocky statement for me to be making while still in college and I regret ever saying it out loud too. But back to work... I wonder what time is the right time to make the total switch into just doing studio work and out sourcing to finally do my first wholesale show. When do people that have also been in my situation make that decision? I don't come from MONEY... haha far from it actually...so I don't have my Dad to fall back on. Everything I have, I have worked so hard for, and I have worked even harder for what I have accomplished with me and my work. I guess I hope/think the pieces would fall into place if I had my own studio. I don't know if all this really hinges on one thing like having my own studio or not, but from thinking about it a lot I have narrowed it down quite a bit.

Etsy Front Page

So I wanted to share the front page images from etsy. I went over to flickr and searched for arthurhalvorsen and both images popped up. I knew about my USS Constitution dish being featured on the front page, but not my platter! Hope you enjoy!

 

 

You gotta see this!

Artist : Lei Xue
I came across the above image when I Googled "china porcelain" and I'm so glad that I did. I think these are awesome! A new take on an old everyday item, both the can and the blue and white painting. I think everyone has a memory associated with blue and white porcelain. For me its my dads house. He has a set of thos dishes and when I was living at home we ate almost all of our meals off them. Now I eat off them at Thanksgiving and Christmas, but I know they are always in the corner cabinet where they always have been. 

Soup Tureen's

So I have decided that I need to make a soup tureen. I have been thinking about making one for a while now but have been afraid to because of the lid factor. I have been so scared to make anything with a lid because I'm not confident in my lid making ability. All that changed this summer when I was at Penland... Ayumi showed us an easy and consistent way on how to make lids, and I think I need to adapt this process into my vocab of tools used in the studio. Here's some soup tureens to drool over while I'm making mine in the studio... I'll be sure to post photos when mine is done! ENJOY!

Cups

I came across this photo in on the Clay Studio's fan page and I just love it! To me it sort of represents my family... or if I were going to breakfast at a diner and they served coffee in the standard diner mug, I would be yearning for a handmade mug I had at home. I just think of that all the time and what I would do to have my cup/mug to eat with all the time. Obviously I can't cart around a ceramic mug because of the fragility factor and what not, but I do wish I can across more restaurants that served food on handmade pots. I know and have figured out that in a restaurant your there for the food and not for the dishes your eating it off. Also they must go through so many dishes that they have to be cheap enough to replace easily, then what about decaled dishes? White dishes do it, they just accentuate the food, but wouldn't it be cool if there was a restaurant that had handmade white ware? Does anyone know of any places that serve food off handmade pots?

You NEVER would guess...

You never would guess that Joan Rivers of all people has a house like this in Connecticut. I espicially love her kitchen shot... very regal and high class, would you expect anything less?

You can see the original New York Times article HERE

Did you know...

     Did you know that Crayola's colors DOUBLE every 28 years? Crazy right? I found evidence right HERE to back it up. Check it out for yourself its actually a pretty cool article.

Vote Arthur Halvorsen Ceramics!

     I have been nominated for a Poppie Award in the category Favourite Handmade Ceramics Artist  (It's a Canadian blog what can I say?!) from a very noted Canadian Design blog. I would just like to thank who ever nominated me for it, I am included among other ceramic artists. A truly STELLAR group of artists. I almost feel not worthy of this... On the other hand I would appreciate your vote for "aurthur halvorsen" (I forgive them for misspelling my name, and not capitalizing it either) you can vote for me HERE. Again thanks for the nomination, and thanks in advance for your vote!

VOTE TUESDAY!

Brooke Noble

If you don't know the work of Brooke Noble, then you do now! I love her combination (Of what it looks like to me) of drawings, screen printed images and stamping. They are so great! I wish I could find her website that's IF she has one! But never fear our friends over at AKAR have a, uno, one piece of hers left and I really want it! you can check it out HERE! I'll be doing a studio update on the platters I showed you earlier tomorrow when I get home from the studio as well!

How Cool!

AIDS Walk Boston

So I am doing AIDS Walk Boston this coming June, and if you can my awesome readers of my blog, twitter followers and facebook friends please donate to this amazing cause! I also have a team going and you are more then welcome to join my team and fundraise with us! Or you could just donate online by clicking HERE. I thank you in advance for your donation or for your involvement and walking with me and joining my team Beantown Betty!

New Work... In Progress

     These are new in progress pieces that I made tonight... (well last night thanks insomnia!)

I just LOVE them! I made molds of those architectural thingies that go over door ways. Sorry about the last photo don't know why it soooooooo ORANGE. And just in the nick of time... I have been thinking A LOT maybe over thinking things lately. I realized that I just needed to get back into the studio and just let the clay speak to me. Paulus Berensohn speaks about this in his book Finding one's way with clay and I bring this up because we were just talking about this in my beginning handbuilding class this past Monday. He speaks of not having a predetermined result for the clay. And I feel as though that's so true. (I want to quote to book but don't have it in front of me) Something to the effect of a lot of clay people that are doing craft shows and trying to make a living off their work, but they are the ones that have lost the passion and the vision to just let the clay speak to them. Before even starting out one has to look for the cha-ching that the finished product results in. Paulus believes this is the wrong way to go about it. And I am guilty of doing this as well. I know I just need to go into the studio with a clear head and just make what the clay wants to be made into, letting the clay speak to me. Clay people usually working is series and sets and I'm not saying that that's not how to work, but if you calculated every single more of your day, let alone the day in the studio then you have no freedom to let other things happen, and grow out organically. I know I need to revisit this every time I get ready to go into the stdio and from time to time I'll refer back to this post to remember to do just that as well.

Can't sleep... what else is new?

So I decided that I'm going to England in April to attend my friend Liz's wedding! Very excited... and for the first time going over to England I will not be flying alone! My sister is coming with me, and then we are going on to visit family we have either met a long time ago or never met in NORWAY! I'm getting in touch with my inner viking. And that's why I can't sleep. We are going to be frying from London to Oslo on Ryanair, and doing my research on wikipedia and twitter... they don't have the best customer service in the world. Great. The other thing that is keeping me up tonight is that I cant figure out how to get from Heathrow to Ashford, then Ashford to Standsted. It boggles my mind that I can't find this out there in the internet! It has to be out there, and furthermore I want to find out hom much dough I'm going to be forking over for a ticket on the train. I know of the Heathrow Express and its expensive, but what are the times?  And then how the hell do I get to Standsted? ANDDDD is Ryanair really as bad as I have heard it is? I heard about the emergency landing they had to do in Liverpool on twitter and people were wondering if Ryanair chraged for people to use the emergency slides... are they realy that bad/cheap??? But seriously that is what's eeping me up at night tonight and that's great cause I just got my sleep cycle back on track this past weekend when I pulled 2 all nighters last week UGH!!!

DIY Christmas Card Ornament

First gather all your Christmas cards that you want to recycle into an ornament.
I have made it a tradition for my partner and I to do this each year when I want to take the card down. I did it earlier this year because I wanted it on the tree for New Years, and also to be able to go back into the ornament box to be stored for the year till next year. Last years ornament was made after the tree came down, so I had to store it on the shelf in the closet for the year in hopes that it didn't wander into the depths of the closet and never be seen again.

My favorite card of the season from my partners Mom... Thanks MOM!

Next draw and cut 20 of the same sized circle out of the cards, you made need to repeat a card or two, I had to this year and last year had to repeat two cards! But the image will always be different and you won't be able to tell! I have always thought that an ornament like this made of the same card but different positions of the circle cut out would be really cool to do too! Now is the time to buy the Christmas cards because I bet they are more then 50% off!

The cut circles!

Next you want to fold up 3 sides of the circle making a triangle shape... Seen stacked above. I then like to spread them out and pick them out randomly. I don't want there to be any mixing and matching other then the sides meet up. I then use simple white glue... only a dot is needed, and holding each for 30 seconds. If you get impatient little clips where your pinching fingers would be are great to use too! I like to do the top and bottom first 5 sides going around. Then glueing 5 more onto each of the flattened sides, and then glueing the ball together. A loop of gold string, and a last dot of glue and your Christmas Card Ball is ready to hang! See the finished result below! Hope you enjoy!

Christmas Ornaments

I want to use one of these images for new years Christmas card for Cary and I. I don't know which one? What do you think? Also I need to find out where I can send the images and get an assortment of like 5 of them I think. I like them all, and my camera takes really great close up pictures of the ornaments!

**See Martha the last image is of my ornament from last year that I made!**

EMILY!

So I just did a craft sale in New Bedford this past weekend with my friend Emily Norton from college, and DAMN can you say this girl needs a day job? To make these to me look painful! But AMAZING to see and enjoy!

http://emilydiaznorton.wordpress.com/

Busy Busy Busy...

I have been so bust so of late, and I just can;t wrap my mind around all that has to be done, in the amount of time that I have left to do it! Yesterday I loaded and fired off my decal firing, I get to unload that as soon as I get into the studio today. and my list is as follows...
-Set up Holiday Sale items
-Unload a studio bisque full of students work
-go to gallery and get all items that's in storage, and into my possession for the holiday sale
-Teach my high schoolers
-Guest DJ BU's radio show Sass-a-Frass (You'll be able to stream it live online)
-Holiday Sale Opening!
-NYC for a marathon visit
-Studio Sale shift
- Bazaar Bizarre in Boston for my shopping needs
-Sale shift on Wed
-Holiday sale in New Bedford (Banner on top of this post)
Could I add something more cause I don't think I have enough to do in the next week!

and to top it all off, I can't sleep tonight! I finished the season with Duck Tours and now I feel like I have way more to do then before! And I'm already looking forward to next year and want to do another craft fair in Boston, maybe Bazaar Bizarre if I like what I see when I go on Sunday! How do people do this?