Stuff Out Of Things

This past weekend was yet another great time with the Crafty Wonderland folks!    The two day sale wasn’t quite as packed as the one day holiday sale last season, so I had a bit more freedom to talk with customers and meet a few more of the other vendors this time.  Special thanks go to my booth neighbors Squirrel Loves Nut and Bishop Art for their smiles and camaraderie, and once again to Torie and Cathy for putting together another great event.

For all those that I met at the show, please feel free to drop me an email if you would like to be on our mailing or just want to say hello.

Thanks again!

- Brian

So my mother said recently “I really like the hands, but I don’t know about all the blood”.  I don’t know what she is talking about, but I have to admit that Mother’s Day might go a little better if I don’t do too much of the drippy red thing.

My Dad is visiting for a week after I get back from adventures on Kauai.  He thinks we are going to be swinging hammers the whole time, but I think we are going to spend most of our time playing with dolls instead.

Today I finally had the chance to play with one of the ideas that led me down the path that inspired my butter dish experiments.

I have spent much of my time lately with my journal and a mechanical pencil.   Searching for new objects through drawing.  (It only took the smile of one pretty lady to launch me on a stint of drawing cake stands.   It is obvious that I am easily swayed with a swoon.)  Bouncing back and forth between found objects, classic forms, and shapes that are in my head.

Thank you to everyone that came out the Crafty Wonderland show this weekend! It was nice to see several months of planning and hard work result in so much excitement and so many friendly faces.

An added special thanks to Torie and Cathy, the organizers of Crafty Wonderland, and all the awesome vendors that I was surrounded with.

Today, after sleeping eleven hours and tending to the day-job, I have been going through all of our notes and answering emails. There is some firing to be done this week to clean up a some loose ends and answer a few special requests, but when that is all said and done I will be pushing to crank out a few Christmas present of my own. Mother already has a butter dish, so I can’t get away with that idea.

Please feel free to drop me an email if you would like to be on our mailing or just want to say hello.

Thanks again!

- Brian

It’s a good thing that the weather in Portland has been much milder than that which we experienced during the Snowpocalypse a year ago.  I finished the last of any important casting last weekend, but I was still pouring some of my cup molds just to fill the gaps yesterday afternoon when temperatures finally dipped below freezing.  I now know what happens to slip cast items when they are left to freeze in their mold.. the mold freezes together and the clay item develops fissures of lightning shaped ice. 

I am curious to see what the frozen items look  like after they thaw and are fired, but it’s obvious that if I won’t be doing  any more casting this season until after the Crafty Wonderland show this Sunday when I will have the chance to move some of the casting operation into the second basement for a couple weeks.

Crafty Wonderland 2009

My recent adventures with cast items, the completion of my new studio setup, acquisition of a fifty-gallon slip mixer, and nine months of gathering a LOT of new molds to play with has made it clear that this was going to be a productive Fall and Winter.    Some new cups and butter dishes are already taking shape, but I am still working on patterns for a few new things like the Mary-on-donkey Melitta style coffee funnel or the Butter Jesus and Jeaster Bunny toothbrush holder.

You can come see some of my stuff in person at the 2009 Crafty Wonderland Super Colossal Holiday Sale this year on December 13th, 2009, or at one of the other sales that I will announce when the time is a bit closer and I have an idea of what other sales my work will fit into.

Send me an email if you would like to on the mailing list for show announcements.

– Brian

I often pause when answering the question “what do you do?”.  It’s just every time I hear it I have to consider the audience and intention.  But when pressed for time, or simply to be as concise as possible I sometimes find myself just saying “I make things out of stuff”.

As annoying or elusive as this answer may seem, it’s true.  To pin myself down to one mode, medium, or occupation would be like saying every day was Tuesday or every month is November.  Now that I live in the Pacific Northwest, the introduction of seasons has not only made my yearly cycles more distinct, but I have learned that what I create flows with the seasons and this cycle cannot be stopped any easier than it would be to make the sun shine in Portland, OR on a dark January afternoon.