Well, I have officially sold something on Etsy now even if it was to my sister Joy. She's also commissioning me to make her some things for her guest bathroom and I can't wait to get started! I also have another alchemy request for a large bowl so things are slowly happening on Etsy which is encouraging. Also, I will be doing another sale in the Orlando area the week before Christmas. Me and one of my studio mates Whitney will be at the Homegrown for the Holidays Artisan Market in Thorton Park (a trendy downtown area of Orlando). So needless to say, I'm pretty busy in the studio right now working on those things and testing a yellow slip color and experimenting with other colors of underglaze just to see how they look.

Here's my first "sold" Etsy item:



Voila! I think it's my best teapot so far!

So I had a pretty busy morning today photographing some sets of pieces for my new banner on Etsy and to apply to sell my work on Trunkt. We'll just have to see how that goes but hopefully I will be selected to sell from their site (which really just links buyers back to Etsy). I suppose as long as I'm getting my work out there it doesn't really matter to me where they decide to purchase my work from.

Two shots of my cup designs- mugs and juice glasses- I also make taller tumbler type glasses but haven't gotten any of those out of the kiln in awhile.
A few different bowls- again with my favorite that blushed orange!
This pitcher just came out of the kiln yesterday- have to say I am really pleased with how it came out! If only there wasn't a baby crack on the bottom....

It's late but I had to work late tonight ("day" job not ceramics) so I'm still pretty wound up. Hope I can get up in the morning...I wanted to get into the studio by 9am...but that's not what I got on here to talk about. Really, I wanted to post a few more pics of my pots before they end up on Etsy tomorrow. Just to forewarn you, the pictures are far from professional quality. What you are about to see is total improvisation (aka a piece of blue pastel paper thumb tacked to the wall that I took pictures in front of and then edited in a pseudo-shadow on top to give them the illusion of a bit more depth).




The last two pictures are the same mug, I just took a picture with each cup and my hand to try and show some scale. Otherwise, it's just too hard to visualize the actual size of an object in a picture. They really are dainty for mugs, especially compared to how large I usually make my mugs.

All things considered, I'm actually happy with how my pictures turned out. They make it clear how bad my camera is though. The backdrop was actually a bright light blue rather than a gray and the "white" areas of the pots really have a slight blueish ting to them. One of these days I will get the camera of my dreams and then just try to imagine the pictures I will take!

Thanks to the wonderful world of Etsty, I have found a few new ceramic artists that I love and would like to share with you. For more info about each artist and to see their Etsy store, click on their name.

Molly Hatch
"Molly was born on a small organic dairy farm in central Vermont. Raised to appreciate doing things from scratch and making with her hands, Molly strives for her work to express elegance and simplicity and her love of nature." (words written by Molly about Molly)





Jenni Brant
"Jenni Brant developed an appreciation for the simplicity of life and the beauty of natural materials that comes through in her elegant and carefully crafted pottery. Jenni is a maker of functional ceramic objects focusing on serving vessels and dinnerware made for celebratory occasions, often making the most mundane of activities a cause for merriment and remembrance." (a few words about her work written by Jenni)

*Something that I love about Jenni's work is the clean simple forms which are both fluid and refined at the same time. All the decoration reinforces this theme from the organic dimples and dots to the swirling patterns.




Naomi Cleary
"Dishes hold the potential for human connection through their tactile nature. Most of us have associations and memories connected to dishes. We look at dishes and can easily imagine using them. They live in our physical space, in our kitchen cabinets, are used every day. They have a relationship to our bodies. We pick them up and even touch them to our mouths. Dishes speak of history and lineage, passed down from mother to daughter, connected to family dinners, celebrations and sharing. They are a reminder of the warmth and comfort found in domestic spaces." (Naomi writing about her work)
*Let me say that I just love when things are on the bottom of dishes! Not only is it a nod to good design training (learning to think about the object in the round, as a full 3-D thing and not as something that has "sides" and "top" and "bottom") but also it's such a sweet surprise for the user!

Kirsten Bassion

"These are porcelain pieces that are wheel thrown and stamped with hand-carved stamps. The work is then decorated with a layer of underglaze and fired. All my glazes are made from scratch and painted on before the last firing." (Kirsten writing about her own work)*I really appreciate the way she uses repetitive patterns to define the separate areas of each piece as well as how the different colors bleed in one area and are clear in another depending on the glazes used.




Kristin Pavelka
"I think about many things when creating my candy-like coated functional earthenware pots. Forms are inspired from Midwestern architecture and the body, classical pots and contemporary containers ranging from 1950s kitsch to modern day fast food containers. Martha Stewart has been a great influence regarding my color palette, as well as candy and mid-20th century design. Patterns are inspired from my everyday surroundings." (Kristen writing about her own work)



*Love how she decorates the underside of the handle on this baking dish. Like I said before, it's so wonderful to discover little surprises like that as your using the dish!