I have to admit that February wasn’t a very productive month for me. It is such a short month, but man does it drag on. I know I’m not alone in my desire for warmer days… at the same time I love the snow that we’ve had the past week. I spent a lot of time at Zizziba House early on in February, then in the middle of the month, had a very busy social week. It was a blast, but I sure didn’t get anything done that week! I guess breaking away from work is a good thing… we all need that from time to time.

I’m slowly but surely building up inventory when I have time to work in the studio. I’m continuing along the line of my clay day inspired cups and snack plates, expanding into other large pieces.

Trimming a platter.	Flower platter ready for the drying shelf.

I’ve also been working on some things which I hope to eventually sell through the CSA, items made specifically for the wonderful local food products offered by the CSA store.

We are finally getting some much-needed moisture from a Pacific storm that could drop up to two feet of the white stuff over the weekend. Hooray! Do I see a day of skiing in my near future?

Paul and I had planned to work at Zizziba House this weekend removing old flooring, but we’ve decided to hold off until we have the new flooring in hand. When we redid the flooring in our house, delivery of the new hardwood was delayed by a couple of weeks. We don’t want that to happen at Z House for several reasons… so we’ve decided to leave the old wood and carpeting in for a couple more weeks.

This works out well for me because it means I get to spend two snowy days working in my home studio! I’m working hard to have a kiln-load of bisque ready by mid-March. I’d better get busy! In the meantime, say hello to my newest frog variety, the red-eyed tree frog.

I finally got some new items listed in my Etsy shop! More to come. Click on the Shop! link to the right to check out the store.

Inspiration can come from anywhere - nature, other peoples’ artwork, architecture, dreams… or a creation from a least-expected source. This is the case with my newest design, inspired by the outcome of last summer’s Clay Day with my family.

Clay Day is my way of sharing a piece of myself with my family. We’ve done it three years and I’ll continue until people stop showing up. Each year I try to come up with a fun project that fulfills two criteria: First, the project has to be able to span ages from youngsters to oldsters. It has to be simple enough for the young children, yet complex and interesting enough for the adults. Second, there has to be a reasonable chance of success that the pieces will turn out intact and looking good. In a nutshell, I want a project that is fun for everybody and results in pots they will be proud to say they made.

Last year was a huge success. I was so pleased with the pieces, and people who have seen the pots or pictures of the pots just love them. I have become inspired by my family’s creations and have started playing with some ideas for a new design based on their pots. I thought I’d share the “first draft” here.

Here’s a picture of one of the Clay Day pots, made by my nieces. My inspiration:

Here’s the new design I’m trying out. I think I will add some color to the raised flowers in addition to the stain:

I can’t wait to see where this takes me!