Mama said there'd be days like this...

I was so pleased with myself for getting so much done this weekend, and then...

Yesterday, the glaze firing went perfectly. See the firing cone on the left, this is exactly how it is supposed to look at the end of the fire. Bent over lightly kissing the floor of the kiln. The items from this first firing came out gorgeous, a new glaze I used really surprised and delighted me on one little Sake set (will have proper pictures later), and pretty much everything else turned out just the way I wanted it to also.


Today's firing....the cone on the right completely melted to the kiln floor and even took off a layer of the actual kiln when I removed it! I have never seen anything like this, and can't imagine how I over-fired by this much. I am the "kiln sitter" for the small test kiln I use for the miniatures, and normally, I am watching/paying attention to the actual hours besides using a wind-up timer. Must have lost track of time some how...

Good firing...

Bad firing...

The bad news to me is, most of the best vases were in today's "bad" firing. The good news is...I think most of the pieces can be saved with new glaze and re-firing. Not sure though...because the clay itself turned into something else. The little trays I had with the melted glass warped, and the glaze on almost everything sort of melted off. Will be giving it a try tomorrow and hope for the best.

Miniature Cats and Their Afghans!

I am very slow getting this post up, because I've had it on my plans for weeks now! Earlier I showed my fabulous cat family that my friend Hanna made for me in miniature, but I hadn't shared that now these precious babies all have their own afghans (just like the real cat family does), made by Frieda of Willowscreations.

These pictures are not the best, and I will also be recovering the furniture in plain colors later, but this is the best I can do to simulate a real scene in my livingroom, (the real livingroom), as it often is with the cats and their own personal afghans.



You can click on these pictures to get a larger version! Just found that out right now, when I tried it :)


Frieda makes all sorts of lovely crocheted miniatures, and you can see a few from her shop in this Etsy mini:



Hanna makes all kinds of animals, and you can see in the Etsy mini for her here:

Dollhouse Project

A few weeks ago I decided to finally put together a dollhouse kit I've had sitting around gathering dust for several years. The kit is called The Buttercup, and looked really easy if you follow the instructions and put it together the way it's supposed to go.




Looks really cute, doesn't it? How about the inside...look how it could be! I wasn't planning to make a shop out of this kit, but it would be great this way.



Well...first I did start putting it together the proper way, with the instructions. I got it basically put together, then got out a dollhouse scale doll because a couple of things were bothering me about the shell of this house. First, she had no way to get upstairs, because there was no stairs, and even if there were a set of stairs (which I decided to steal from the other dollhouse kit I have still in the box), once she got there, she couldn't stand up! So even though I'm a complete novice on building a dollhouse, I was going for a remodeling job right away. This is the start of my changes...


I let it sit this way for a couple of days, kept looking and thinking about this, and finally decided my altering just wasn't going to work, so I took it apart. The mangled kit pieces are back in the box now, and I got a new plan :)

One night when I was browsing the miniature listings on eBay, I found this fabulous roombox/house!





Isn't it fabulous? I won! I have this little house now, and though it won't be a living room/kitchen/everything room....eventually I think it's the kitchen, it's a great way for a beginner to start! I will use this as my livingroom setting for now, and build on to it later.

Next post will be a long awaited picture of the cat family with their own afghans :)

Attitudes change, but it's still a thrill!

I used to say that you know you've made it as a potter (ceramic artist) when someone decides the piece you sold them is worth more than they paid for it, and they sell it at auction. My views on this have changed since I became a miniaturist, because now I don't want people to resell the things I make, I want all of the best doll houses in the world to feature a piece I made :)

This post is about my old view though, because while browsing the pottery category on eBay tonight, I saw a listing for pottery that I/we (husband and I) made. It was a thrill to see it for sale, and I had the "We have arrived!" moment ♥
Only that pottery line only lasted about a year, so we arrived long after we already "went" on that.

My husband had his own full size pottery business with many regular commissions. His style was sculpture on functional pieces. His main account was for the Indian Hills Trading Post in Indian Hills, Colorado. This is the sign going into Indian Hills, and most of the tourist trade items had some version of these Indians on them.



A combination of things caused my husband to quit making his pottery. The main reason was when the Trading Post burned down and his biggest account was over. Around the same time, we closed the shop Mostly Art, and moving all the store fixtures home for storage took away any space for studio work. Still, I tried to get him interested in some kind of pottery work again, so thought of doing a line with him. For a brief time, about a year or so, we were going to be the Artus and Anna Van Briggle of our generation :) I was really into glazing with Arts & Crafts style matte glaze at the time, and figured his sculpture would transfer well into the style too. We never really got going with this pottery line though, only a few hundred pieces. His heart wasn't really in it, and I missed working in miniature.

This eBay listing has better pictures than I have of these vases, but I'm going to put my pictures in here too, because the listing won't be permanent.




The seller in the auction left off the "B" in his title of the listing, so he didn't know that "B" was really part of the name. The "B" stands for Barmore (me), and the actual bee is still my signature. My father-in-law had a hand in naming this pottery too. Van means "from" in Dutch, and Sterk (my husband's name) is also Dutch for "strong", I thought it was a great name for our business at the time :) a combination of our names that really said something too. Well, maybe the Barmore part doesn't really "say" something, it's Welsh, and I don't know what it means, but there is a place in Wales called Barmore ;)

Years later, I found out that I was copying someone else with a very similar name to mine with the bee signature. I had a mini-vacation at the Broadmoor Hotel (who also made Arts & Crafts pottery many years ago) and they had little fabric bees all over everything (bee for their "B" and Barmore and Broadmoor sound much the same). I think it's funny that I copied without even knowing I did, so kept my bee too ♥


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Next post on this poor neglected blog will be about miniatures again....probably about the doll house I started putting together a few days ago.

Fabulous Feline Family!

I finally have the answer! When I've filled out interview questions, or surveys that have the question, "what is your most treasured possession?", I never know what to say. I have usually just said photographs, but in this day and age, even photographs can be replaced. This cat family, (my family), is to be treasured as the most valuable possession I have, and I am still a little overwhelmed at the enormity of this gift ♥



This fabulous feline family was created for me by my friend Hanna. The thoughtfulness of this is just so huge, I cannot even express myself how touched I am. My human family never quite grasps how important my babies are to me, they all kind of joke and tease me about it. Well, maybe the baby books are a little over the top....but for Hanna to think of doing this for me, making everyone in miniature, is just beyond special. And she caught their personalities too! The miniature Isabella couldn't be more perfect, looks just like her, mini Valentino has the smile the real Valentino keeps on his face, Ingrid is oh so elegant, Leo has the same big eyes, Shirley with her short little tail that is almost manx like...

:::inserting a million smiles here:::

Hanna has recently opened a shop on Etsy with other miniature animals she is making, and "this and that" of other miniature items. You can see her shop here:
Hanna's Shop



She also has the most exciting blog talking about her life with miniatures, you can check it out here: Hanna's Blog

Featured Artist: MaidOfClay

I just read this fantastic blog interview with one of my all time favorite artisans, Felicia Nilson. (as I just wrote this sentence, I realized I may have spelled Felicia's name wrong earlier today, I'm so sorry if I did! will go see if I can edit my post)


Here's the link to the interview:
http://phydelle.blogspot.com/2009/06/handmade-artists-maid-of-clay.html

There is so much there! Even a video of Felicia working :) I have been a fan of MaidOfClay since my early days of Etsy, because she shares my love of Arts & Crafts pottery, and much of her body of work is in this style. Gave me an instant connection when I saw her shop.

We both belong to the Mud Team of Etsy, and have had many conversations over the past year or two about the pottery we love, and I thought of her shop first for a recent gift I needed.

Oh! I also own a very cute bunny dish that holds my paperclips on my work desk, and one of the gorgeous lady pendants that is hanging in front of me right at this moment. I am inspired by this lovely woman/artist, and was thrilled to read the fabulous interview.

You should read it too!

Ceramic Erin: Survey: potter John Bauman

Ceramic Erin: Survey: potter John Bauman

I just read this fantastic survey on the blog linked above. I just love this guy's words ♥ Wish I could express myself so well! I especially liked this part:

"We notice everything pottery. In the background scenery of a movie set, in a commercial on TV, we'll notice the pots.
If we walk into a strange place and there happens to be a hand-thrown piece in the room, little else occupies our mind – at least until we’ve had the chance to pick that piece up, feel its heft, and look beneath it. It calls our attention like an overheard conversation that sounds more interesting than the one in which we’re currently engaged...
"Oh, excuse me. Did you say something?”

So true! So true!

The whole article is worth reading. Good job, and what a great guy too!