Saturday, January 8, 2011

Garden Party

We finally started work on our garden. We built it out of old railroad ties (only $5 apiece). As you can see we layered them two high, because the area we built it on was full of gravel and we needed enough space for soil. So next is to get dirt and plants. We will be getting manure from a friend, compost from the city (both for free), and top soil (from a store I guess). It only cost us $46 for the railroad ties, and shouldn't cost more than that for the soil. So only about $100 investment for fresh veggies. Next step is to learn how to preserve it all for the winter months.


This next photo is where we will be planting zucchini, squash, cucumbers, and melons. We will plant them next to the fence so that they climb up instead of out. We are also planning to grow sunflowers down father where the fence is higher.


On the pottery front, we’re selling our motorcycles so that we can really get our studio up and running the way we wanted. We figured that if we were really serious about doing it we wouldn’t let anything hold us back (i.e. Money), so we posted our bikes on Craigslist today. So hopefully we will sell them and can start buying pottery equipment (like a pottery wheel and clay).

Saturday, November 27, 2010

Beanie for Your Thoughts

It’s been awhile since the last post. Having non art related jobs will do that to a couple of artists. Anyway Keturah has made me a beanie out of fishermen’s wool (this wool still has the natural oil in it, so it is water resistant). She also knitted a nine pointed star into the top. Here are a couple of photos, you can also see the beard I have been working on (it seems to be the only semi artistic thing I have been able to do). We also have plans to get an electric potters wheel so I can start making work again in my spare time.



Sunday, September 26, 2010

Grave Treadle Wheel

I just wanted to give an update on the treadle wheel adventure we have been on. As you know we moved house (from Texas to Oklahoma). Because of this I had to disassemble the treadle wheel so that we could move it (it was rather bulky). A few days ago I decided to reassemble the wheel, and after an hour of confusion and silent curses (the wheel was not cooperating with me) I had the wheel reassembled. I now have the pleasure of reporting that the wheel is dead. Once it was put back together I realized that the fly wheel was no longer level, and no matter what I did I could not get it to level out. So we have decided to look for a kick wheel to buy for the time being. We plan on re-purposing the wood from the wheel to make another table. So if anyone sees a kick wheel (or a treadle wheel) for sale let us know.
Also my wife has finished (a long time ago, just haven’t mentioned it yet) the Greatest Name she was working on. So here’s a picture of it. It now hangs over the front door of her sister’s house.

Saturday, September 18, 2010

Moved House

We have successfully moved from Texas to Oklahoma. No more apartments for us, we now can grow our own garden (pictures of that project soon to come), and have a studio space and office space in our own home. I am converting our one car garage into my pottery studio (pictures of that soon to come as well), and we are making one of our spare bedrooms into an office/studio for my wife. We also have unpacked all of our pottery and will be photographing it soon so that we can start putting them up on our Etsy account. We are currently looking for jobs to support our art habit until our art starts to support us. Now that we have settled in I hope to post more often, so keep your eyes out for our new posts. Here are some topics that I will be talking about in the near future: garage studio, vegetable/herb garden, treadle wheel (hopefully finishing it), kiln firing, and hopefully my wife will have some things she wants to talk about as well. I almost forgot we have made some new business cards, here they are; let us know what you think.


Monday, August 9, 2010

Done and done

I finished firing the kiln Saturday afternoon, let if cool all of Sunday and then unloaded it this afternoon. Here is a shot of the kiln with all of the finished work (well not all, I started unloading then remembered to take a photo. So there are a few shelves missing).



Here is a picture of all of the work sorted and ready for packing (shortly after this photo everything was wrapped and packed away for easy transport to Oklahoma).



Here are some close up photos of some berry bowls and some Milton mugs (I thought they turned out quite nicely).




Also I have been asked to make some bean pots/casseroles for someone. So here are a couple of shots of those.




Once we get settled in Oklahoma we will unpack all this work and take individual photos of everything (or group shots of stuff that belongs in a set) and start posting things on Etsy. There might be another long silence from us while we do the final packing these next two weeks, but we will start posting as soon as we start setting up our new studio.

Friday, August 6, 2010

A long time gone...

Haven’t posted anything for a while. We’ve been busy with work and trying to pack up everything so we can move. I have been able to glaze all that work from the last couple of posts. As you can see here in this photo it is quite a bit of stuff (this isn’t all of it either, the big platter/bowls are not on this cart (they haven’t been glazed yet either)).



I have also loaded all of this stuff into the big gas kiln and will fire it tomorrow. Hopefully everything will go well and I will have some pictures of finished work to share by Monday evening. Until then I need to get some sleep so I can be attentive to the kiln tomorrow.