shoe laces and chocolates: new year celebration.

New Year's eve. Chocolates, shoe laces and some new 'friends'.  babbled. Unburdened.  Shared my thoughts.  2017 left me with one too many wake ups, one too many emergencies, and too much alone to fill with beer.

Holiday elf on terra cotta. Santa, I'm coming for you!

"Caveman's Bride" wip. oil on board, 24" x 12".

This one will have to improve before the march wedding, or Victor and Maddie will never speak to me again.

"Richardson Highway, Alaska Memory"  14" x 17" Oil on canvas panel.
One of my favorites

"Sacred Mountains" Alaska memory.  Oil on plywood.

Nearly complete. 

third hell and the elephant

Pared the open studio invite list down to familiar names and faces. Valued customers, friends and supporters. the right word is floating just out of reach.  Perhaps that is fourth hell, but I don't want to know.  One batch of fudge, some bottled water, a bit of cheese and crackers.  Wine or brandy with cider.  That is the hospitality that I had to give, but the weather was nice on saturday.

Anyway, I am trudging through third hell, resorting to routine, - and  -  monkeys are not the only ones who happen all over fatcityclay.  note the elephant passing through!

An abc, 123 pig for oliver townes.

Thank you to Kathleen for purchasing this painting at open studio.  It is from a day in February when we held a memorial service for my mom, who came to live in this "Pleasant" valley upon her marriage to my dad in the 1940's (?).  The road is County "M", Grant County, WI.

fall begins

I would like best to be known for my landscape paintings. 

Here are two recent paintings begun en plein aire on a recent visit to southwest wisconsin and finished in studio.  Thank you to Justin C. for purchasing these two six inch by 12 inch oil on board paintings.

Below, detail photos of a ceramic piece showing scenes from the old homestead located a few miles away.  it is included (if they decide to claim me) in an upcoming retrospective of the work of teacher Tom Manhart and his students at the University of Tulsa. Sold at Living Arts Gallery. October 2017.

today in the studio

Slab work for long narrow trays.  Palace Cafe likes them to present appetizers.

Watching paint dry.

morning rain on leaf

first day back in studio

Organizing celadon fired at Santa Fe Clay studio.  Humid conditions fogged the lens cover. The lighty gray were supposed to be blue but the studio manager is still learning the kilns.

I glazed the buffalo print mugs with the wrong glaze, but realized my mistake in time to save them for the next firing.

Tiles from the workshop after their glaze firing.  Also bisque firing for mugs thrown on sunday in santa fe studio and transported to tulsa as leather hard ware.

Visual sketching of dinner ware.  Saw some nice serving ware on the tables at Joseph's in the Railyard District.  Part of the experience.  How else to explain $16 bowl of chili verde.

Santa fe time

You can go to the Okeefe museum in santa fe.  you can go to ghost ranch.  You can stop at Bode's Store in Abiquiu.  But you can't see O'keefe's house at ghost ranch.  The museum owns it and does stuff with it.  Its just not on the tour.  I chose the Box Canyon trail and fried my oysters off!

Go up past the hogans and across the meadow (I think that historically it received irrigation for crops) and past the fence.

Afternoon clouds gather. No rain falls.

quick sketch of depot at railyard, santa fe

buffalo mugs won't you come out tonight

transfer prints on ceramic. my new skill

The Shalene Valenzuela workshop at santa fe clay has come and gone.  I learned some new things, though I was challenged with altitude sickness. I'm still trying to stay hydrated five days after the workshop ended.

4 Inch tile

Requiem to santa fe.  Too little air, too much sun, holding back the ants (a losing proposition) and a social slap down by the princess, her monkey and governing phlebotomist.  hint: see my nose pressed against the glass.