Are you coming to my Open Studio Event?

 Saturday (tomorrow) Dec. 13th I'm having my first annual Open Studio Event. 10 - 5 drop in at my studio. Food, beverages, some clay to play with and plenty of pottery. Three of my art friends will also be joining me: Steve Boykin, painter, Noel Gilliam, painter & mixed media-ite, and Helena Marette, jeweler.

Luckily the weather is supposed to be beautiful! It will be sunny and reach 60 degrees. The studio has heat and the tent we're putting up will also be heated so it'll be toasty in the morning, too.

I have a kiln load I'm waiting to open...I did sneak a peek yesterday and all that I could see looked good. I can't wait to see all my friends and maybe make a few new friends. 

The photos are a kinda-sorta "before" of the inside of my studio. I cleaned it up recently for our annual Southern Hands Artist Studio Tour (SHAST), messed it up a bit (but not much) to make and finish a few pieces, then cleaned it up again for you. It went into shock the first time, now it's in total denial. I'm going to have to have a therapist stop by and talk with the studio. 

If you'd like to see a view of the outside of my cute little studio you can either find me on Facebook (Janet McGregor Dunn Hummingbird - friend OR Janet McGregor Dunn LLC - fan). or you can come by tomorrow.

I've run out of things to write to fill up the space. I could ramble some more but it would be meaningless drivel and I know you are already pumped about coming to see me tomorrow so there's no point in dragging this on any longer.

Let me know you read this tomorrow (only) and I'll give you 10% off your purchase of my art.

Details:
Janet McGregor Dunn Studio
10 a.m. - 5 p.m.
614 Lester Road
Fayetteville, GA 30215
(Open by appointment only on other days)

Art Studio Tour 2013

A group of ten artists in my county have teamed up for an "Art Studio Tour". We're going to open the doors of our respective studios and let the public come in.

The Tour will be held on Saturday, Nov. 16th, 9 a.m. - 5 p.m. We'll have food, beverages, plenty of art and we'll be on hand to answer questions. Some of the artists are going to do demonstrations.

There is more info and a list of the artists, locations, at www.design29.com/tour2013

We're hoping it will become an annual event and that we'll add more artists. We're dreaming big! 

When my friend Andrea Boswell first proposed it I jumped on board enthusiastically. I'm still enthusiastic. However, it's a bit daunting at the moment!

I walked outside today and tried to see my yard, the outside and the inside of my studio with "new" eyes. Yikes! I have a LOT of work to do before the 16th. 

I just finished up my last outdoor show of the year and everything is still stacked in the garage. I broke some bones in my foot. My shop-vac broke (of course).

I have this long list of things I want to do before weekend after this one comes around. I want to put up some signs, organize, clean up the yard, trim some trees, set up my tent, figure out which pottery I want to put on sale, advertise the event... that's just a broad overview. I'm figuring I'll get maybe a tenth of the list done.

Oh, yep, there's some pieces I want to finish up, too.

And I'm taking a painting class so I want to set up a corner for my paints.

I thought I'd show you some "before" pictures today. 

Truthfully, those pictures were taken after I'd done a bit of cleaning. They aren't current. You can see the now-broken shop-vac in some of the pictures...

The studio needs to be pressure washed.

I keep adding to the list.

I won't bore you with all the things that have popped into my mind.

Come see my cleaned up, spruced up, prettified, studio on Nov. 16th. I will even wear my non-clay-stained clothes for you. 

Strange day in the studio...

OK, not THAT strange! Probably more of an eye-opening, reflective type day.

I went out yesterday to check on my completed kiln load and to do some glazing or maybe even creating.

Kiln was at 420, too hot to open still, but where it should have been. Hot enough to keep me from being tempted to open the lid and peek!

Walked over and looked at things to glaze. Nah, not feelin' it.

Went to my glass, finishing table, dorked around a bit with some things. Nah, not feelin' it.

Moved over to the creating area, took one look and said "yikes" in my mind. Definitely not able to feel it...

When I go through my creative whirlwinds nothing goes back where it belongs. Stuff piles up, stacks up, lands wherever and stays there. I make a huge mess. I was looking a super huge mess.

Soooo, spent the day cleaning up just that one corner.

I realized something about myself during the process --- I do need organization. I've always considered myself a pack-rat type, fine with stacks and messes. I can't even claim to know where things are like some messy people!

However, I have a breaking point.

When I'm in the "zone" nothing matters, I just go full tilt. When I stop, I must clean and organize before I can start again.

I feel cleansed or something along those lines... kind of like cleansing the palate after tasting a good wine! It's energizing to create in an area that is organized.

Today, just as soon as I complete this and put on my messy clay clothes, I'm heading out to my clean corner to start the process again. Ideas were tumbling through my mind as I cleaned up and I'm going to go MESS UP MY STUDIO!!! (Oh, first, I'm going to unload the kiln ;-)

Glazed...

Today was a glaze day. Lately a lot of my pieces have been multi-step processes. I've been putting one or more glaze colors on the pieces, letting it dry overnight, then wiping the excess off getting the piece totally soaked, of course. Then letting it dry again overnight... Then adding my final colors. Sometimes I do that last glaze coat and decide it needs some touching up so I let it dry overnight, then touch up. It's a long process, but I love the results when I layer up a variety of colors.

I finished up the piece on the left today, will be starting on the one below tomorrow. First I covered the entire piece in a dark brownish glaze, let it dry, wiped off the excess. Then I glazed the tile patterns using blues, aquas and other colors. I let them dry then wiped off the excess. Then I glazed the entire piece with a tan-ish glaze, making sure to leave some of the browns and as much as possible of the tile colors showing. Well, guess I'm not quite finished --- tomorrow I'm going to touch up some of the tile colors to make sure they pop a little.

I haven't quite settled in on the colors I'll use for the piece to the right. Usually I have a good picture in my head when I start making the piece but that one has been evolving. I keep thinking blacks, tan, brown but then my mind shoots over to red, yellow, blue, primary colors. I may fire the one above and let the one below sit for a while until the right colors "speak" to me...

The studio is a mess! I go like crazy for a while, then have to take a break and neaten up so I can start the messing up process again.

Playing around with a lot of glazes and using more than one kind of clay means I have a whole lotta test tiles floating around! I used to leave them laying out, grouped by color type (blues, etc.) but now have one of those plastic drawer sets where I keep them. For starters at least! By the time I've been out there in the studio glazing for a few days it looks like someone took the test tiles and threw them up in the air, let them land wherever!