Happy Halloween!

Alicia Tormey encaustics at Pacini Lubel Gallery

I've recently been reintroduced to Alicia Tormey's work. I loved it before and her recent evolution is very exciting. Her new show, opening at Pacini Lubel Gallery November 5th, is called "Second Nature". A great title as her encaustics on wood are nature enhanced to a higher power. Her abstractions are landscape reminiscent but on varying planes of existence, simultaneously macro and micro. And simultaneously above and below water and sky and earth. Scale and place are wonderfully nebulous and I find myself hungrily searching each image for additional mind bending. And this is just from dropping into her studio while she was in progress. I'm eager to see the full body of work at the opening. Pacini Lubel Gallery, November 5th 2008.

Cloth Frisbee contains lead pellets!

We found a cloth frisbee in the park and threw it around for a bit for our dog. It didn't take him long to start chewing it. He tore open the weighted hem and out came a string of little pellets. They looked suspicious so I used a lead testing kit to see if they contained lead. The testing pack says: "If it's read, it's lead!"

This is the frisbee after a few minutes of chewing. To the right are the string of pellets and the lead testing kit.


This is one pellet peeking out of the hem after that chewing.


This is a string of pellets still sheathed in the plastic hem. I can't tell if at any time the pellets are fully covered by plastic. The seam wasn't closing on this one.


My trusty lead testing kit prior to use and the string of pellets.



Following instructions I break the capsule inside the kit to let the yellow fluid flow into the brush at the end.


It then instructs, "rub 30 seconds onto item".




"If it's red, it's lead"
After only 4 seconds, the brush is bright red. The pellets contain lead. The test only indicates a presence of lead, not how much. We will be disposing of the toy. The brand name was unreadable when we found it.

EJP Creations Blog -writing beautiful things

EJP Creations has featured my "Steampunk Monk" sculpture on her blog. That's what inititally brought me to read about "Her Work and Her Musings". Once there I feasted on her visual selections and verbally delish enticements of other artists' works. Equally intriguing is her own work, delicate and dangerous wearables. Explore!

A "Stroll in Fall" Etsy Treasury

The link to this treasury of Etsy artists is active till this Sunday around noon. Do visit these shops, there's so much to love!

Raven Meets Crow now on Etsy!

Mosaic and installation artist Jennevieve has created small sculptural works and made them available on Etsy at Raven Meets Crow, as of yesterday!
I was there for the photoshoot of this wired, buttoned, screwed crow sculpture and it's fantastic. It's beautifully balanced on its wire feet and has so much life. It's the embodiment of the raven and all we love about them.

Plate setters

Potters are often searching for good plate setters. I'm very pleased with mine so thought I'd share. They are Gimson VB V1 and I got them from Clay Art Center in Tacoma, WA.

These are the discs that you place the plate on. See the radial lines? Those allow air to circulate under the plate.



These are the discs stacked with the legs.



This is one of the legs. They come in various heights.


I use mine at cone 6, but I've heard of them firing higher. Again, Clay Art Center in Tacoma, WA is where I got mine. I plan to get a few more of the stilts so I can be efficient with space usage when firing lots of plates. Not that I want to fire lots of plates, but sometime....you just have to.