Friday, March 7, 2008

Workshop

Yesterday was a fun day- it started with heading up to Concord, NC to deliver work to the Cabarrus Arts Council. I'll be the featured artist in their gift shop for the months of March/April. In May I'll give a demonstration/lecture to the council members.

After that, I headed to Davidson to have lunch with my good friend Alyssa and her sweet daughter Earle (who's probably the cleverist almost 4 year old I've ever met). It was fun to catch up and see what she's been up to in her studio. Alyssa's been focusing on some really cool collages/drawings at the time and in the fall she'll be heading up to Minnesota for the McKnight Fellowship at the Northern Clay Center. She's a rock star, basically.

This afternoon I'm excited to head down to Atlanta for a workshop with Kari Radasch. It's a short one, but I suspect I'll learn a lot. I've admired Kari's work for some time and have many questions for her. She recently had a major change in her body of work and I'm curious to see what kind of reactions she had during that process. I enjoy taking workshops for mainly 2 reasons: they inform my work and enhance my teaching.

As part of the workshop, Kari asked us students to look for things around the house that would be good to use to make molds. I don't really have many serving pieces that aren't handmade, so I headed to one of my favorite thrift stores- the Habitat Restore to look for some goodies. Here's what I came up with:
Aside from the little brass owls, I got all that great stuff for $8. What a deal.

These little guys actually came off my mantle. I've been wanting to make a mold or something out of these for some time because they have great sentimental value. My grandmother used to have a very large collection of brass critters that my sister and I would always rearrange whenever we went over to her house, just to tease her. These guys had their own shelf and we would turn them around to face the wall and she would act "mad" at us, and we thought it was so funny.

3 comments:

Becky said...

Grandmothers are great, aren't they? My Grandma Bee collected Early American pressed glass goblets and pewter creamers (the really nice, heavy pieces you used to find in restaurants.) Whenever we would fly from Omaha to Indiana for a visit, there were 2 pewter creamers filled with candies (by the Fairies of course) waiting for my sister and me at her farm house. She left us long ago, but "my" pewter pitcher is one of my prized possessions. (Still smells of candy to me.) And the half dozen + goblets I have from her collection come out every Christmas and at special occasions. Wine or water...whatever I serve in them...never tastes sweeter.

Anonymous said...

Thanks, Becky, for sharing your grandma memories!

Becky said...

Would love to hear more about the workshop in Atlanta? :) You brought so much to the class I took with you from your study at Penland. I see some really nice work from the folks in your current class too.