Don't let your head swell...

This was blogger awards week. No one told me, and I didn't even buy a dress to wear to either party. Heck, I didn't even have time to wash my apron.

The first award bestowed to me was from Feedspot's Top 50 Pottery Blogs, where I ranked #16. A few days later, Pottery Making Info announced their list of Top Pottery Blogs of 2016, this year I moved up in the ranks from #11 to #9.

Award Acceptance Speech:

I would like to thank all my readers for hanging in with me through the exciting times, as well as the mundane and often boring times. Thank you to Feedspot and Pottery Making Info, for spreading the good word of pottery bloggers everywhere. Most of all I would like to thank Jeff Brown for all of his support and creative encouragement. You push me to the next level in creativity, and encourage me to continue with all this blogging stuff. 

and now it's back to work...

Jeff and I are planning to do a raku firing in the spring. In between making work for orders, we will be making things for raku. This week I worked on a tile with ginkgo leaves. I finished carving yesterday. It will get cleaned up once it's dry. Carving on this groggy clay is a little challenging. The carving tool doesn't flow easily through the clay. Next on the "making" list is orbs. We should have our new raku work available for the Celebration of Spring Studio Tour - April 22nd & 23rd.

Things that bring you joy...

I have been in a weird place this week. I have spent an inordinate amount of time trying to figure out what my focus needs to be in terms of making pots that sell. In between the thinking, I needed to keep moving forward. There were piggy bank orders to fill and more sponge holders to be made.

Sponge holders are a pain, but I do like throwing them. They are quick and don't require a whole of thinking. The pig are fun to assemble, as long as there aren't 30 of them!

We have had a lot of casserole inquiries, so I have been working on some designs that won't involve a lot of deco work and can be reasonably priced...

It will be really hard not to carve some leaves into those lids!

The real joy of being an artists came late in the day today. Two women came in after 4:00 pm. One  bought the obligatory sponge holder and a small cup... the other asked lots of questions about my raku wall tiles. She asked me to take down a few so she could look at them closely and see how they would look in a group.

She purchased three of them to hang in her newly redecorated living room! She told me that when she saw them she knew they had to go home with her.
It brought me great joy to see how much she appreciated my work and was willing to spend the money on them ($95- $100 a piece)  and I hope that having these tiles in her home will bring her joy everyday.