When we began homeschooling (more on that here, here and here), one of the things Emma told us she wanted to do was take pottery classes. I found a pottery studio with a wonderful teacher who, upon seeing my obvious interest, suggested I join my daughter in learning. We began with pinch pots and working with slabs of clay that we learned to mold into various shapes.
This is one of my favorite early dishes that my daughter made. It was screaming for a pair of my earrings. Okay, not literally, her hope dish is perfect all by itself…
As with anything, gaining any degree of confidence and skill requires practice. So there were lots and lots of pots being made, many of them returned to the great clay graveyard to be recycled. I decided to begin painting on the pots I was throwing and started playing with underglazes, which is a whole art in and of itself.
The first pot I painted was a collaborative effort with my talented son whose taste definitely nudges the macabre, much like his father!
As a child I was surrounded by art. My parents collected modern, pre-columbian and African art. I was used to seeing seemingly opposites side by side, so when I saw this piece, by Picasso in the Museum of Modern Art, I was particularly struck by it. It felt like home.
Picasso’s Les Demoiselles d’Avignon
This piece reminded me of another artist my husband and I love, Alexandra Huber.
Alexandra Huber
I began a series called “Faces.” As you can see, the underglaze can look quite different than the finished product! I found that by diluting the underglaze with water I could achieve a kind of water color look, which I like.
I love the Faces series…
While I was starting the Faces series I was also falling in love with all things quilted and began drawing little sketches of things I liked, which gave me the idea to draw them on my pots too.
And then I’d go back to my Faces…
My daughter even allowed me to paint on her pots.
A few more…
A few of these are already in My Etsy Shop and many more will be added as they come out of the kiln. However, at the moment, I’m here…
So all of this will have to wait until the end of the week!
Remember those “If You Give a Mouse a Cookie” books?
This is my version of that…
If you show a girl a quilt, she’s going to wonder how it’s made. When she wonders how it’s made, she’s going to take a Block of the Month class to see how it’s done. Once she’s signed up for the class, she’s going to begin making a quilt herself.
Center Block from the Flower Pots Quilt Designed By Kim McLean
When she starts to make a quilt herself, she’s going to think about how she can make it uniquely hers.
Detail of one of the Center Blocks
When she begins to make it uniquely hers, she’s going to incorporate all the stitches she learned in the Craftsy class given by Sue Spargo that she wrote about a few weeks ago on the post, Change.
Detail from Flower Pots side panel
Once she begins adding all those stitches she learned…
Almost finished Flower Pots Quilt!
she’s going to want to start designing her own blocks…
Rhino Block designed and stitched by Ariane Zurcher
The artist’s retreat will be life transforming and will give her all kinds of ideas for new pieces that she wants to design and create…
Manhole Cover at Onondaga Community College
While she marvels at all the things she’s seeing and learning she will be reminded of other things she’s already working on…
Detail from Flower Pot Quilt Border
One of those things will be manhole covers! Who doesn’t love manhole covers and if you love manhole covers, wouldn’t a quilt inspired by them be even more fabulous?!
So it’s probably best to give a girl her first quilt while she’s still very young so she has plenty of time to learn and do all of this!
Merlin overseeing the work.
Coming next week: pots! Not flower pots as in the quilt, but real pots, thrown pots, hand painted pots… gotta love pots!
Last May we pulled our daughter, Emma from school and began homeschooling or non-schooling or… I’ve written more about all of this on the other blog, the one I share with my daughter: Emma’s Hope Book. One of the many benefits of homeschooling, aside from the huge relief and plummeting stress level, is that we get to explore, together and separately. The beauty in exploring is that the goal is to be curious and discover. There’s no right or wrong and there’s tremendous comfort in that. The entire process of learning becomes one of joy and experimentation without the burden or stress of feeling one should know something before having learned it.
So it was, some eight months ago when I sat down with Emma and asked her what she was interested in learning about. She typed that she wanted to learn German and take a ceramics class among a number of other things. So we bought Rosetta Stone for German and Emma began taking pottery lessons at a nearby ceramics studio. Her teacher, seeing my obvious excitement and interest, asked if I might like to make some things too. I eagerly said, “Yes, please!”
Learning anything new is full of experimenting, exploring, tweaking, practicing and refining techniques learned. To dive into something you’ve never done before can be daunting, but only if you are comparing your work to another’s. Particularly crushing is if you expect you will be able to produce something that is of similar expertise as someone who has been studying and refining their technique for decades. The exhilaration comes with the process of learning, practicing and improving. But so often we are not taught that this process is wonderful at all. In fact, we are taught that it is hard work and the end product, only produced after years of practice and toil, is all that is of value. Everything else pales in comparison.
I disagree.
This cereal bowl that Emma made for me is perfect for walking while eating. It has an indentation that perfectly fits one’s thumb while cupping the bowl in your palm. Why hasn’t anyone designed a bowl like this? I’ve never seen one before, but oh, how I love it. This is my new, favorite bowl.
My favorite cereal bowl made for me by Emma.
The platter below? “It matches” was what Emma typed in reply to my exclamation that I thought it perfect for serving cheese and crackers or maybe a brioche en croute with fresh baguette.
Emma’s Platter
This bowl that Emma made used cookie cutters and then she painted after joining all the shapes.
An Autumnal Bowl
A few months ago, or maybe it was years, (this is an aspect of getting older, the years feel like months, yet another example of that saying people tell you when you first become a parent – the days are long, the years are short) I asked Emma if she had any interest in learning to knit. She said she did, and as I love knitting (I wrote about some of that “here“) and used to design knitwear, I thought we’d start with something simple, like a scarf. Emma chose a light blue yarn. After a couple of tries, she lost interest and so I began making a long scarf using an alternating knit 2, purl 2 pattern. I rarely use knitting patterns or cooking recipes for that matter, but that’s another post. Anyway the scarf began like this.
Light blue scarf in alternating Knit 2, Purl 2 pattern with the beginning of a navy blue chenille infinity scarf in the background.
The finished scarf ended up measuring 87 inches in length and 11 inches wide. What you don’t see is the other side where I changed my mind after an inch or so and decided to make the pattern more elongated.
The Finished Scarf
This is the edge where I began knitting and decided to change the stitch. Three times. The final stitch pattern is a Knit 2, Purl 2 for three rows and then Purl 2, Knit 2 for 3 rows and repeating for the remainder of the scarf.
The I-Changed-My-Mind-Edge
I’m hoping Emma will try knitting again sometime, but in the meantime, I’ve started a couple of other projects, one is this deep blue chenille yarn that I’m knitting, using a newly learned brioche stitch, into an infinity scarf for a friend.
The makings of an infinity scarf using a brioche stitch
And finally this is one of my ceramics projects.
Pebbles in a Plate
For those familiar with my jewelry, this may remind you of something else…
Often an idea comes in the form of a doodle, literally! Which is why having a sketch book around is so important. Doodles are like little dreams… they seem to come out of nowhere and if I’m lucky I catch them as they appear. Not all sketches are pretty, sometimes I’m in the subway or on my way somewhere and so pretty isn’t the goal. Capturing the idea, the image and getting it down so I won’t forget it, is. So something that begins as this….
Silver Models for Earrings
Turns into this… silver models for what will eventually become 18 Kt Gold earrings.
From the model a silicone mold is made… like this one…
So all of this will have to wait until the end of the week!
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