Shop Update

Shop reopening? Who cares, you get the idea.

I closed my online shop last month in preparation for a little pop-up at Buffalo Street Books— I absolutely can’t stand keeping track of two points of sale and trying to make sure online inventory reflects what is actually available. Limited brain space and general sleepiness and whatnot. Instead, an in-person sale is a welcome opportunity to shut the digital doors, dust the digital shelves, and start fresh.

I’ll be updating the shop this Friday, at 5pm EST. There will be a mix of some previously listed pieces (hello, butter cloches), as well as a big pile of new work. Some new cups, a smattering of bud vases to hold your late spring flowers, and a few paper-cut & slip stenciled plates. Oh! And a few candleholders, of course.

I have been compulsively making work, so there is quite a backlog to get through. My aim is to do a monthly shop update, clearing out old objects and making way for new. I’ve continued teaching Intro to Handbuilding at West End Ceramics, which gifts me an accumulation of demonstration pieces, a re-remembering of simple handbuilding techniques that I then want to utilize myself, and ample time pinching cups and other bits and bobs while students are working. I try to give my students big chunks of work time where I am available for questions and feedback, but not hovering over anyone’s shoulders. And I am loathe to just stand there with my hands empty and idle. So, plenty of work to fuel at least a few monthly shop updates! Here’s some preview of what to expect in this coming update:

two slab-built bud vases using a stamping technique I taught last session

three pinched & carved bud vases, covered in all sorts of debris

a trio of cups, handles inspired by the cross-sections of walnuts & made from slip resist paper cut stencils

a solo worm cup, ringed with clouds. I plan on making many more of these, once I get my hands on underglaze pencils again.

three small bowls; gleaming white, with cobalt on the inside & iron dots outside.

a tea light goblet in a similar vein... iron dots on the outside, and bloomy copper dots inside.

a pair of wonderfully clacks wigglewire candle holders. I've also got many incense holders in this style, but that's for another shop update.

three black and white toast plates, made as demos for the paper cut stencil resist technique.

and of course, three pinched butter cloches. I'm a firm believer of a few highly impractical items in a kitchen. Countertop showstoppers, if you will.

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A studio goal is to actually slow down with this constant making of small objects and redirect my energy into larger, more sculptural objects again. I’ve got plenty of teacups saved up, and can always make more when I run out. But I miss the extended attention and material digestion that comes with building one object over multiple days, and the freedom of making something that does not need to function in daily life in a traditional sense of the word “function.” I feel a sort of nervousness about making non-functional work sometimes, maybe holdover stress from the need to intellectualize and justify work while in art school critiques. But I recently saw a snippet of an Art 21 interview with Kerry James Marshall in which he is talking about the phenomenological potential of artwork. Or perhaps, the purpose of the artist:

“It’s like a rock, in a sense. Well, rocks just are. Now they all can tell a story, but we don’t examine the story that all rocks tell, only certain rocks. And it’s that compelling component that I equate with being beautiful. One of the ways we earn our audience’s attention is to make things that are phenomenologically fascinating. When the moon comes up in the evening, and it’s full, it’s an amazing thing. And that’s a phenomena that we don’t need to explain.

When artists make things, I think we attempt to make things that have the same kind of existential authority. It’s interesting just because it is.”

I’ve been stewing on that remark. You can stew on it too. Let me know what you think.

And, if you feel like it, swing by the shop this Friday and get yourself a little gift. Or tell your wealthy friend. 5pm EST.

There are more things to tell you, but those can wait until the next newsletter.

xoxo.