I can't seem to stop!!!

I'm not OCD, really. But sometimes I get into this rut of making things over and over. And once I got the hang of it, I found I really enjoy making button clasps. This one is for a very simple necklace with picasso finish beads, that I also have a little obsession with.

To get it to lay right, I angled the clasp and eye pin ends upwards. It works pretty well. It just photographs ugly.

This necklace is heading off with me to art market tonight. We don't normally have a night market. But our first annivesary of this market opening last year happened to coincide with First Friday Art trail. So it's a bit of a celebration. I have loved this market and all of the wonderful people I've met there. It's kept me from being a complete and total hermit. So I'm off!

Have a great weekend!!!!

The idea

This is not my idea at all. Doing a button clasp in this style is completely inspired by Lorelei who did a kick butt video tutorial on making a button clasp. Unfortunately, I can' t for the life of me find the link to it right now. Anyways, when I was at the San Antonio bead show people asked me how to use buttons. Well describing it is a whole different ball game than doing it! I needed examples, I needed to do it, and really, truly humility kicks in. I have been so spoiled by all of you out there that have had such lovely vision of what my humble pieces can become.

One of the things I struggled with was that my clasp attempts wobbled in the button. I really wanted to have the eye and shephards hook to be very stable in the clasp. No wiggling, no wobbling. And that's where the light bulb flashed on. Wind a bit of small gauge wire back through the clasp and voila the clasp became very stable!

And the result is that this clasp looks a little like it has been sewn on. At least it does to me.

Bottom line is that for my next bead show, I am definitely going with examples of ways to work with my pieces. And I am very grateful to all of you who've shown me inspired ways to use my pieces.

Thank you!

Here it is! The link to Lorelei's button clasp tutorial.

Another Little Jizo

I was very excited late yesterday when my friend Petra showed me this little Jizo that she had made using my button. It's a little cotton mobile with a piece of Tibetan prayer flag for the back of the doll. The face of little Jizo is her own water colour painting.

Some of you may recall from my previous post that little Jizo is a Zen bodhisattva usually protrayed as a child monk. He is thought of as a protector of children, women and travellers. It just seems so appropriate that this child bodhisattva would have a playfull button belly button. I love this and I am quite taken with little Jizzo.

You can see more of Petra's work on Etsy and more of the stories on her blog.

Thank you, Petra, for using the button in such a special way and introducing me to Little Jizo.

The winner is....

Mellisa at Chinook Jewelry who correctly guessed that there were 208 pieces in the bowl of little bisque pieces! Yep 208. I know. I counted each and every little piece in there and then put them all away in a neatly organized set of drawers. This is a first for me ( the neatly organized part). So congratulations Mellisa! Email your address to me at SummersStudioPottery@yahoo.com Pick any set of things from the pic and I'll mail it out to you straight away.

Thanks everyone for playing the guessing game. I had fun and I hope you did too. You'll get another chance soon. I promise.

Cheers, LeAnn

Isn't this pretty?

I found this beautiful ruffled neckwarmer by Janice Rosema on Etsy this morning (read procrastinating with random searching). Janice bought buttons from me earlier and this neckwarmer is sporting one of my royal blue dotty buttons. I’m just as pleased as can be. And I don’t often get to see my little creations in action.

Janice is a designer, spinner, knitter, crocheter, and all around fabulous fibre artist. She’s been creating wearable accessories and garments in natural fibres for more than 35 years. Her work is absolutely superb and she uses some of the most innovative techniques I’ve seen. For those of you who knit you should check her Etsy shop for her designs which she sells as PDF patterns. For those you who shop, and who doesn’t do that, she’s got a range of lovely knit items listed. You can even keep track of what she’s up to on her blog. Really, truly, I love this woman’s work!

Don't forget to check back Tuesday to find who wins the mystery prize from my give-away.

Give-Away!

Have you ever tried to guess how many jelly beans were in a jar? Well now is your chance to win a fabulous prize from Summers Studio by guessing how many pieces of little bisque buttons, connectors and pendants came out of the kiln this morning!

Clues? You want clues? OK then, the size of the pieces in this bowl range from 1" (2.5 cm) to 2" (5 cm) in diameter. 10% of the pieces are 2" (5 cm) in diameter. All of them are about 1/8" (3 mm) thick. The size of the container is 8.5" (21.5 cm) by 3" (7.5 cm) tall. That is about 0.10 cubic feet or 0.0028 cubic meters. Alright then, it's a wee bit bigger container then those short bread cookie tins at Christmas time.

Would any of this information actually help me to narrow down how many things are in this bowl? Of course not. My brain is just not configured that way. But this might help. There are between 150 and 250 pieces in there. The number of pieces in there is an even number.

Rules of the game:

You have until midnight (CST) on Monday to submit your number.
You may enlist any of your math geeky friends to help you out.
Enter your guess as a comment.
You may not choose a number that has been previously submitted.

And just what is that fabulous prize? It is a mystery! It is a mystery even to me. But I can tell you that it will be the final glazed version of a set of things in this bowl. And that there are several brand spanking new designs in there and that you will have a choice of jewelry components or buttons or both!

Just why am I doing this now. Well I just made 151 sales in my Etsy shop. And at least 1 number in 151 is common to both my age, birth month, and birth year. No, you do not get bonus points for guessing my age. In fact I'm thinking you will get penalty points for that.

Let the contest begin......

What a surprise!

I woke up this morning to a message on Etsy that my buttons had been included in a Treasury called Cool Colors. The treasury is chockers full of teals, tans, creams, and soft colours. Very pretty. Go have a look and give it some love!

This just doesn't happen very often to me. Actually I don't think it has ever happened to any of my buttons. So I'm just the tiniest bit over the moon. Thanks, erdart.

Have a lovely day all, LeAnn

Tray full of kiln goodies

As usual, I have mixed feelings about the results when I fire new pieces. But over a few hours, days, I find new things in the pieces. There is always something that can be tweaked. Maybe that's why of all the things I've done over time, I always come back to ceramics.

Dissapointments in this lot? Yep, absolutley. My favourite old pigment "peacock" is no longer my favourite. It is too dark, too intense. It looked much better when I was working in a beautiful red terracotta. It does not translate to well to porcelain.

Success? Some. I've been working on tweaking a clear base glaze that, to date, I've only used on stoneware. Yippy Skippy!!!! It is working! It is a bit glossy but with just the most wonderful satin feel. I wish I could it into your hand. Very touchable. And it takes colours well. I am in love and have all sorts of ideas of where to go with this one.

And the Morris inspired pieces are coming along. I'm not sure that they look a whole like an acanthus leaf. But I'm starting to like the blue and green glaze effects. And as usual, I have a few more ideas of what to do with these. I've got a couple of ideas for pendants and buttons and......

So just check back soon. I'll start listing some of these next week and give you a wee preview.

Happy weekend! Cheers, LeAnn

Where did my table go?

For that matter where did my day go?



Beneath that mess somewhere is my dining room table. Eating at the table is over rated isn't it? Lots and lots of new things were made today. None of them had anything to do with the orders I have to get out. But there are a whole lot of new pendants, links, and bead type things in there. I just found myself obsessed with making little things. Tinier and tinier, and well one thing just led to another and whoops the day was pretty much gone. Does this ever happen to you?

Pooped!

Four little clay models later, one nights sleep, and I am still pooped. I spent yesterday making more models for buttons and pendants. They are small 1-2" size and take forever and a day to make, about 2-3 hours each, a lot of squinting, hunching of shoulders. It is tedious work, mind numbing, but still I really love the process of bringing a little sketch to life.

I've made a few smaller sizes of the daisy buttons, thinking I might turn some of them into pendants or charms. I've also followed up on the William Morris acanthus wallpaper fragments. I'm not sure about those models. It seemed like a good idea at the time.

Meanwhile this is Alice, my studio assistant with the non-opposable thumbs. She is doing her best to model how I felt after yesterday's marathon model carving extravaganza. I actually think I'd like to crawl back into bed and strike that pose for a few hours.

But there is work to be done, models to be cast, coffee to be drunk!

Have a good day all, LeAnn

Morris on my mind

I confess. I have a never ending fascination with William Morris (1834-1896), particularly Morris & Co wall paper and textile design. He led an extraordinary life as an architect, writer, poet, publisher, artist, designer, and founder of the British Arts and Crafts movement. Through out his life, Morris sought to unify art and craftsmanship and railed against what he perceived as a loss of this ideal in the industrial revolution. Morris believed that the creative labour that went into producing beautiful things had the power to improve the lives of individuals. At a very deep level this appeals to me as a designer and maker of quite utilitarian things.

My work yesterday is a direct extension of my love of Morris & Co and Arts and Crafts design. I was absolutely obsessed with the acanthus leaf and all its design possibilities. The acanthus leaf is seen in many examples of Morris design as a background, border scrolls around text, wallpaper. The use of the acanthus leaf as a design motif date way back to Greek and Roman architecture. I just happen to really like the Morris versions. I found myself repeatedly isolating fragments of these designs in sketches and some of my scribbles are making their way into clay models for buttons and pendants.

I’m pretty excited. I’ve been scribbling these leaves for years and just didn’t know what to do with them. And that Morris philosophy of designer and creator justified an otherwise pretty slow day. Maybe even improved my life a little….certainly justified staying swaddled up on the sofa on a bitter cold icy day.

If you’d like a bit more info on Morris, the William Morris Society is a great start.

Happy day to you all, LeAnn

Why Blog?

I’ve been struggling with this for a while. I follow a few blogs and enjoy the experience but often feel like I’m lurking in the shadows. I make a few comments, when I feel moved to do so. I offer my goods for sale on Etsy and follow the forums about using blogging to market your goods but it all just feels so empty and, well, just commercial. Why not just take out an ad here and there?

But then I read Lorelei’s post this morning on friendship and it all just clicked. She talks about the community of ‘us’ out there and the challenges of making meaningful friendships as adults who’ve moved beyond our childhood and college year social circles. And, yeah the older you get, the harder it is to forge those new relationships. And she is grateful to those of us who read her blog. As if it weren’t a true pleasure just to get up in the morning and see what she’s been up to!

Blogging has become one of those wonderful ways that we can reach out to kindred spirits. Thanks Lorelei. You’ve inspired me to share just a wee bit of myself!

Oh and Lorelei makes just the most wonderful jewelry! Here’s one of my current fav pieces. You should hop on over to her Etsy shop and buy at least one piece of her beautiful work.

OK, so assuming I’m not just talking to myself, here’s just a little teaser of what I’m going to post about next (sometime soon?) This blog is intended to be a bit about my studio life, which tends to spill over onto my dining room table and other things personal. So as I get to know you better I’ll share more and more secrets, and we'll chat like old friends.




Cheers and see you later!