Home again, Home again...

Hi There!! It's Sara here and I just got back this weekend to Ole Miss to start cleaning up my studio space and getting ready for the semester that begins August 23rd. Gold Star Pottery will be on a collaborative hiatus for a few weeks, but we will each be creating and continue updating the blog to show you the journey after Odyssey, and perhaps back! (We will see...) Naomi will soon be on her way up to the corn! At the University of Nebraska Lincoln she will be a post-bacc for the fall!

First here are a few pics from the last rush of things we finished for our big exit! We did a set of dishes you can find at Crimson Laurel Gallery, and here is Naomi trying to finish getting them glazed with me!

Want a finished shot? Go by the gallery and check it out! ;) Tell David and John we sent you! No that won't get you a discount, but they will be happy to show you around!

We also enjoyed the very famous bar-b-que from 12 Bones! Apparently it's our President's favorite, and we got to learn why. ;) There is a line around the building M-F from starting before 11 when they open until almost 4 when they close and finally gave into the heat and tried it. Man were we mad we waited to try it! They have misters on the overhang to keep you cool while you wait to get in as well as a cooler of water out front to beat the heat in the hot August days.

Here is Naomi with her BLT, it has a fried green tomato on it for the tomato! Brilliant!!

And my pulled pork with cheesy jalepeno grits and baked beans. Wonderful!

Also before we left we got to run by our good friend and fellow Resident Artist Patty Bilbro's reception at Clingman Cafe. Her three person show, "Imaginary Friends" is up until the end of the month! And is well worth the trip down to the RiverArts District to check out! And Clingman Cafe is one of our favorite places to have lunch as well!

Here is Patty adjusting some of the work at her openning! Her decorative reduction fired pieces have a fun addition to the traditional surface of shinos. As well as a mix of the shinos used that allow for outlines on the rims and feet of the pieces that break up the space nicely.

Here is a look at some more of her work from that exhibition. A nice size vase, along with a large plate, and some stackable jars.

More images from the show...

This piece was at the end of the room and I really feel like it says, "That's all folks!" More images of a revamped studio for year number two to come! As well as (hopefully) Naomi's packing extravaganza!

See you soon!

-Sara

And so it is time...

And so the weeks have flown by!! We are finishing our last week of kids camps here at Odyssey, finishing glaze firings for a load of pots that hopefully this week will have a new home, and beginning to clean up and pack it up!

:( We are sad that it is time to go but MAN did we EVER have a good time! Here are some recent pics from the kids camps!

Decorating the "big pot" they make each week in Gabe Kline's class!

Here is the finished product with the girls adding their names to the back! Each kiddo gets to add their name to the back of the piece. Gabe is awaiting grant response to have a children's show in Asheville and get them all fired and displayed!

The weekend before last we enjoyed an afternoon off when my friend Kristina Arnold came to visit. There was a derby bout that night and went to see the Blue Ridge Roller Derby Girls. Before we headed out to the Civic Center we had lunch at the Clingman Cafe and enjoyed the work displayed on the wall. Below are some images from that! The Cafe rotates work out every month, so we've gotten to see three different collections.

Most of the work featured here is by the Clayspace Co-op right here in the River Arts district. Clayspace is one of our favorite places to visit when we want to look at great pots and get out of the studio for a while!

Kristina decided to not let her ironing get in the way of getting to the next gallery!

Because we were on to Blue Spiral to check out the new shows we had yet to see! The last time we were there Matt Keheller and Shoko Teryuma were in the front! Here are some images from that! (Since they are absolutely OUR FAVORITE collaborative ceramic pair!)

Love this piece! Completely ceramic!

Beautifully decorated piece by Shoko!

Wall tile by Shoko! I was so inspired by seeing these again I just started another set of wall tiles myself! But more on that later...

Matt's slab built pitcher, soda fired. This piece was really large and had a big presence when viewing it.

Bird form on top of one of the larger jars. I absolutely love this piece! Every inch covered with decorative design!

One of the other artists featured in this area that I found intriguing. I couldn't stop looking at these fish that were made out of wire and suspended hanging. When you looked at them from this angle they are truly floating.

So when we went into Blue Spiral weekend before last we were pleasantly greeted with some large wood sculpture as well as some figurative ceramics by Lisa Clague.

There is something extremely comforting about this piece... It really drew me in and I had to stay a while and stare.

These smaller pieces grouped together I felt really "went" as a group. I wanted to snuggle them all up and listen. Each to me looks like they have a good secret to tell.

There were way more amazing pieces than just these, some sculptural pots in the down stairs show, as well as some very interesting sculpture in the back. But we will have to do part two for that! As well as the DERBY!! YAY! It was awesome!

That's all for now! Another post of our continued journey soon!

-Sara

A little work in progress...

Hi All! This time it's Sara and I am adding some photos today showing some finished pots throughout the summer as well as some green ware to show where things begin. One very fortunate thing for us this summer here is that the studio has full access to all the clays at Highwater Clays, which is right down the road, as well as a full range of glazes for every temperature that are in the glazing area! So it gave us a jump start to testing things without having to do all the mixing that goes along with it. The hard part was deciding where to start!

We stayed at Cone 6 most of the summer, since that is what we are firing to here at Odyssey, and began with a Speckled Brownstone clay Naomi had picked out. Here are some cups in it, but it was NOT my favorite.

Here is a butter dish Naomi made with it that I feel is MUCH more successful!

From there we went to Buncombe White, which when fired is a cool grey tone. I enjoyed this much more and felt that the colors looked much better both with the slips we are using underneath the glaze, as well as the glazes on the pieces themselves. These cups I threw, Naomi altered, and then I decorated. So they are collaborative.

These are the green ware shots of some slabbed and slump molded serving dishes. These knob forms are Naomi's specialty. She throws them, then cuts and alters them like paper to make these voluminous forms and attaches them to the pieces. She gave a demonstration on how to do this here at one of the workshops, as well as on a critique night to the other full year residents!

And here are some finished products that Naomi glazed.

And here are some that we did together! She made the forms, and then I decorated and glazed them!

Unfortunately this last platter I threw, Naomi trimmed and altered, and then I decorated. It was almost 20 inches across. And then we lost it in the glaze firing to the kiln gods! Sometimes you just gotta lose a few!

This last one I threw, and Naomi trimmed and altered and then glazed and turned out beautifully. It measures about 20 inches across.

So... we are down to our second to last Thursday here at Odyssey Center for Ceramic Arts! This week we are trying our best to finish wet work by tomorrow! (Yeah, right!) And hoping that all of a sudden there will magically be extra hours in our days! I will try my best to upload the table full of green ware we are altering and decorating now, as well as the tables this weekend with our glaze-a-thon! It's a rush to the finish to get all the kids' work fired and our own stuff done before we take off next week back to the real world and out of the beautiful Western North Carolina Mountains!

Before I am done today I just want to wish my DAD a happy 60th Birthday today! He is going on an Air Boat ride to celebrate in central Florida where he lives and I wish I could be there with him! So HAPPY BIRTHDAY DAD!

Here is a pic of us at my undergraduate graduation a few years back!

-Sara