Wild Plum Studio

2010-11-10T21:38:00.000-08:00

Nov. 11, 2010 Getting help setting up a true website for my clay work. Name will be "Prayers for the Wild" in keeping with giving the proceeds of the work to the Whatcom Land Trust.

And........fotos here of a few new pieces.

2010-03-23T20:24:00.000-07:00

2009-10-13T20:41:00.000-07:00

The tour was fun this year. A few sales, & lots of appreciative visitors. Almost everyone said they'd never seen anything like these pieces, which I call "sculptural water colors".

Jayme

2009-10-05T22:16:00.000-07:00

Oh! How did Sophia find her way onto the Wild Plum blog?!

I'll try again to show the latest clay pieces.

The annual Whatcom Artists Studio Tour is NOW!

2009-10-05T22:10:00.000-07:00

October, 2009.........harvest moonlight bathing the hills & filling our living room cum gallery, & my studio cleaned up for showing off clay pieces with lovely silveriness.
This weekend almost 100 people found their ways to The Wild Plum Studio. The most common comment was that they'd never seen anything like my pieces (& they also seemed to like them!).
Many of the visitors were artists themselves........so fun to hear about their lives & work.
One small sale & lots of enthusiasm.

2009-08-26T20:52:00.000-07:00

2009-08-26T20:47:00.000-07:00

2009-08-26T20:45:00.000-07:00

Art Shows, August 2009

2009-08-26T20:37:00.000-07:00

2009-07-25T20:01:00.000-07:00

2009-07-25T19:57:00.000-07:00

Pieces almost ready for the Allied Arts show.......Aug. 2009

2009-07-25T09:57:00.001-07:00

July 25th, 2009
Mid summer.......ahhhh.
Music Festival is over, highlight for me being in the chorus for Brahms' "Requiem" + full professional orchestra. We rehearsed with Michael Palmer for 6 weeks, twice a week, plus a week stuffed with final & dress rehearsals right before. Wonderful!!
Now finishing up 10 clay pieces for a 4-woman art show at Allied Arts about landscape.
In a day or so I'll take fotos of the pieces & post them here.
Then our entire family up to Desolation Sound to hang out together in that paradise of
forest, inland sea, oysters, driftwood, & Grandpa Bob's amazing breakfasts!

2009-07-07T15:08:00.000-07:00

2009-07-07T14:57:00.000-07:00

I'm aware when working with clay, that I'm handling a small bit of this earth we all live in & on. And come to think of it, the minerals that make up the colors applied to the fired pieces are other, rarer bits of planet Earth.

Sometimes I make containers....a traditional role for clay. Their surfaces are usually clay/earth stressed by pulling, stretching, pushing, tearing: my own intimate versions of earthquakes, eruptions, foldings, sliding continental plates. Recently I've made tablets to go inside these vessels....that can be taken out, & replaced, too! What a fluid & dynamic world we inhabit!

I also love making clay landscapes.....chunks of land with things going on. Recently I've thought of these as stage sets, where you could imagine human characters entering & interacting with the scenery. Or sometimes, I feel like we are spectators looking from the outside at the clay event, wondering what it is we're seeing....things 1/2-hidden, suggested, suggestive, ambiguous.

And color: I've been sneaking up on color for a few years now. At first, I just used darks to bring out the contours & textures of the clay.....heightening the forms with layers of subtle color.
The result was pastel, shimmery.
I often lay skin-thin layers of clay over each other....so you can just make out that there are things going on underneath. Or make windows in those skins so you can really see part of what's below. It's like collaging with clay.
One day I began glueing actual pieces of colored paper onto the surface of the fired clay....traditional collaging on an unconventional surface. This suddenly introduced the fully-saturated color onto the pieces, that had been missing with the delicate coloring I'd used before.
COLOR!!
And the surprises in borrowed images!

Hours & hours of solitary time spent in the pursuit of the aha's:
when the wet clay takes its final shape;
when the layers & layers of color give life back to the fired clay;
when a body of work seems to add up to part of at least one person's experience of being of this earth.

2009-06-12T22:39:00.000-07:00

Today is June 12th, & all the musicians in that foto, minus the little boy, & plus a black labrador dog, met at Lorraine's house which is perched up in the forest above Lake Samish. We hiked beneath a wild rose arbor, down many switchbacks, to their dock carrying celebratory edibles, put up a large umbrella, & enjoyed ourselves for two hours in the sunshine by the water.
I hope we get to do another concert next spring!

2009-05-13T21:22:00.000-07:00

Music for 3 sticks (flutes) & a board (piano) at the Whatcom Museum...... Cinco de Maya!

And.....wonderful eggs from the county.

2009-05-13T21:19:00.000-07:00

Proof of Spring in Bellingham!

Trilliums nibbled by slugs.

2009-05-13T21:18:00.001-07:00

The story-telling piece & the receptacle piece just got accepted to be shown at Bham's City Hall in a revolving show of local artists. Yay!

5.13.09

3 new pieces April, 2009

2009-04-15T20:47:00.000-07:00

2009-04-03T22:24:00.000-07:00

Just looked at all the new fotos & stories on Kate's & Jonx's blog. If you like gardens & bees, you should go look for yourself: www.blogspot.com/thedailyharvest.

Soon I'll post fotos of those new pieces with color!
I'm hustling to get them done so I can take fotos of them for the Whatcom Artists Studio Tour brochure.

Still cold here. Almost-snow this a.m. But there are so many hours of sunlight that all the plants are putting out little leaves, buds, color. A hummingbird passes through every day or so. The birds are noisy, pairing up, chasing each other. Chickadees have now tried out 3 of the 5 bird houses in our yard.

2009-03-21T12:07:00.000-07:00

Indoor Wildlife.

Sideways......how to upright him?

2009-03-21T12:05:00.001-07:00

Landscape also awaiting color.
Notice bare branches & wintery look of yard behind. When will spring arrive?????

2009-03-21T12:04:00.000-07:00

YinYang out of the kiln, pure white, yet to have color applied.

2009-03-21T12:02:00.000-07:00

A scouting party of 3 women from Childrens Hospital in Seattle came to view "Oceania" this week. They're looking for art for 3 new buildings. Maybe "Oceania" will find a home in one of them & intrigue young patients & their families?!!

2009-03-21T11:58:00.000-07:00

Look closely to the right of the birdbath for Ms.

BunRabbit who is building a nest under the heather!

Pottery from Acton St

2009-03-14T23:01:00.000-07:00

I have recently been really interested in pod shapes with holes in them.

I have been using a spoon to burnish them.

I'm finally getting a sheen on them that I am happy with.

Thanks Jonathan for the pictures!

2009-03-14T15:13:00.000-07:00

Another interactive idea: a landscape with unattached "pebbles". It also invites slipping thin things in between the verticals.

2009-03-14T15:10:00.000-07:00

An interactive idea: clay tablets that can be slid in & out of a clay receptacle. It felt very soft while the clay was still wet like this.

Now it's fired & pure white (until I apply color).

It feels gritchy.....wish it felt smooth.

Feels satisfyingly archaic.

Last YinYang in wet clay view

2009-03-14T15:09:00.002-07:00

Hmmm........how to rotate this one???

2009-03-14T15:09:00.001-07:00

2009-03-14T15:08:00.000-07:00

New View YinYang

2009-03-14T15:07:00.001-07:00

Snow & Clay, Feb. 2009

2009-03-14T15:04:00.000-07:00

YinYang piece.........still wet clay.

2009-03-07T11:57:00.000-08:00

It's March 7th, & snowed abit this a.m. in Bellingham, WA.
I am very ready for spring. The birds appear to be, too. Much yodelling, chasing, looking beautiful, checking out of nest boxes. Hellebores are unfurling outside my window....blossoms just opening. They're the first after the tiny crocuses & snowdrops.
Soon I'll post fotos of the new clay pieces I'm building, with August show at Allied Arts Gallery in mind.
Today..........off to Seattle to see the Jodhpur Miniatures exhibit at the Asian Art Museum.........
& to the Opera: Bluebeard's Castle!
J.

Related to Whatcom Creek piece

2009-02-26T13:57:00.000-08:00

Smaller pieces, related to "Whatcom Creek"

More Clay

2009-02-26T13:50:00.000-08:00

Here "Whatcom Creek" is in its final location, the office of the Wade King Recreation Center at WWU. The building was built with $$ from the family of one of the young boys who was killed in the explosion & resulting enormous gas fire.

A Clay Piece

2009-02-26T13:46:00.001-08:00

"Whatcom Creek", a 3-part landscape about the pipeline explosion in Bellingham.
This piece has a permanent home on the campus of Western Washington University.

Learning Pics

2009-02-26T13:29:00.000-08:00

Meet my Blog Guru, Jonathan.

2009-02-25T19:35:00.000-08:00

More Snow.
How to get fotos onto this spot???
Left clicking on the image icon does zip; right clicking gives list of options none of which I know how to use..........hmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.

Snowing in Bellingham, WA

2009-02-25T15:49:00.000-08:00

My first post, I think.
Celebrating SNOW coming down just when I was expecting Sprrrrrrrring to arrive!
How's the weather where you are?

2009-02-15T12:01:00.000-08:00

New Blog! To add images, go to "New Post".