November 2008, RAKU Glazed and Fired

My final pieces from my Raku class in the glazed phase.

The results after they were fired.

November 2008 - Ornaments in Bisque

I picked up my ornaments from their bisque fire

today on my lunch break.

I am excited because I got over a dozen new

colors of glazes to work with yesterday! :)

I started glazing them tonight!

November 2008 - Art Projects in Raku Class

These are the latest (and last) projects of my Raku class. The pieces above are shown in the bisque phase of the process. I am glazing them and will have them fired next Monday (the last day of class for the term.)

November 2008 - Magnet Craft Day @ Beth's

Beth, Krystal and I got together for Craft Day at Beth's house the day before Veteran's Day. Our theme was magnets. We used the flat glass "beads" from the craft store, and each had our own technique and focus.

Beth was extremely organized, and focused on using pictures of Juliette...Notice the perfect rows of pictures :)

Krystal wanted all of her magnets to have a consistent look for her fridge. She even came up with a creative way to use the transparent element of the "bead." Beth and I were impressed.

Admiring the fun results :)

I created magnets with pictures of Spence...

...and found fun pics in some of his old magazines :)

November 2008 - Raku Ceramics Class

This Fall I have been taking a Raku Ceramics class at the Willamette Art Center in Salem. I have really enjoyed working with clay again, and the Raku firing process has been fun to experiment with. There are so many variables that effect the outcome of a finished piece: temperature, glaze, what elements are burned in the process, what glaze is being used on the piece that is next to your piece, etc. The picture above is of me "throwing" on the wheel.

This is the part of the Raku firing process where you take the ceramic piece from the kiln and place it in a contained area to finalize the glaze surface. (Thanks for the class Karl! Thanks for the pics Jeannette!)

November 2008 - Studio Space, New Projects

This is my current studio space.

These are my current projects...Ceramic ornaments.

October 2008 - Lottery Creative Team

I can't even say how much I love this picture! This is my Creative Team at the Lottery. This picture was taken for our internal newsletter because we were the featured dept. this month. (Tim was out on vacation, but was included with the help of Beth's Photoshop magic.) ....and we do not actually work in Facility Dept.'s workshop :)

October 2008 - Girls Weekend @ Lincoln City

For our annual Girls Weekend at Lincoln City we all decided it would be fun to go to glass-blowing classes. Since we were in Lincoln City we decided to go to a local studio rather than travel to Newport to the last place that I had gone to. It was fun for me to experience a new place.

Here are a few of our masterpieces :)

August 2008 - Glass Blowing Class

For my birthday my husband signed me up for a glass-blowing class at the Edge Gallery & Studio in Newport to make a glass float. I was impressed with his idea and thrilled to try a new medium! The picture above is the artist/teacher, Jeff, helping me pick out the colors of glass that I wanted to use.


Here we are working together to make the rounded shape for the float.

Here I am with my very first glass-blown project. I loved the experience as much as the results. The teacher was very patient and thorough. He let Spence and Rob in the studio area to watch, and even addressed them when explaining the process. I can't wait to go back!

June/July 2008 - Olympic Trials Eugene 08

This summer I got to see my efforts come to life. The Lottery had a 30ft x 30ft tent at the Track Town Plaza at the Eugene 08 Olympic Trials. I got to design the layout and all of the signage. Combustible Media worked out the logistics and put everything together for us. Mahonia leased all the plants to us (all native plants to the NW). Patric, our props guy, created the State Park sign for us. It was a wonderfully sucessful collaboration between our teams inside the Lottery as well as our vendors.

This is the entry of the tent.

I designed the tent as an interactive "experience" for the people that came to the event. I broke the space of the tent up into 4 different quadrants, each a beneficiary of Lottery funds: Parks, Watersheds, Education and Economic Development. I created/designed a passport that would be stamped at 4 different stations throughout the experience. The passports included information about the funding and other specifics regarding each area.

Here is a picture of the table full of passports. I also design commemorative lanyards for people to wear their passports on.

Here is the Parks area leading to the Watershed area.


We were all thrilled at how well the pond and waterfall turned out. You can also see in this picture a variety of the background beauty shots. I had designed for them to start at the western coastal area of Oregon and span through to the eastern desert area of Oregon.

From Watersheds you move on to Education and Economic Development.

We were excited to be able to display an actual Biofuel pump to use in our Economic Development area.

For all along the path I had designed plant signs to be placed to identify the native plants.

At the end of the experience, people showed a Lottery representative that they had stamped their passports, to receive a recyclable poly shopping bag. They also had the opportunity to enter into a drawing to win Olympic Trials passes by filling out a portion of the last page of their passport. The upper part of the last page in the pastport was coupon for a Scratch-it ticket.

The intent of the entire event was to educate people about what the Lottery gives to Oregon, to put the Lottery in a good light with the people who attended the event, and gain exposure. Mission accomplished :)

May 24, 2008 - Sitka Encaustic Workshop

This is a picture of the entrance of Sitka. It is an incredible area for learning art and ecology nestled in a gorgeous area just before you reach Lincoln City. I had an amazing time during my workshop, and plan to return for more in the future. It is such an amazing setting to work on art. I also loved the subject that I was learning, Encaustic. I plan to explore that medium more on my own in the future.

Here are the results of the day-long workshop. In the flower/bird pieces I was able to try a challenging transfer method that I have yet to perfect. I look forward to playing around with that technique this fall/winter. I have more pictures of the day's experience here: http://flickr.com/photos/26930878@N07/ .