Earth Laughs in Flowers

'Earth Laughs in Flowers' --Ralph Waldo Emerson

Heather and I had the privilege to visit the studio of Syd--Heather's artist friend, and now mine. She holds clay sculpting classes, and we were lucky enough to have Syd and her studio all to our selves last night.

It's always magical to be trusted enough to visit the inner workings of a functioning artist studio, and Syd's in particular, is brimming with treasures at every turn. Notes, sketches, sculptures, broken bits, mis-happen sculptures, student pieces, supplies, and inspiration are just a few of the bits scattered about the space. *One of my favorite parts of her studio are her the notes to herself; many artists keep these private, but Syd displays her ink scratched thoughts all about her space.

Here are some of Syd's tools and supplies, which by the way, she has endearing terms for, like the 'pokeholio'--a sculpting device that is round on one end and pencil-like on the other. The instruments in her studio are more like friendly productive conduits, rather than tools, and my thought is, because she respects her materials and gives them unique descriptive names, they give back to her.

One of my favorite areas in her studio--lots of notes and thoughts.

An architectural functional box, and probably my favorite piece of Syd's. She's even had requests for these pieces as urns.

One of her elephants, adorned with texture created from stamps from India. Syd actually has a shelved wall dedicated to rows of textile stamps from India.

This is one of her beautiful flower sculptures; she has more of these, along with other works, currently showing at Ombu Salon in Edmonds.

This is what we were creating last night--this type of sculpture--although ours will be dipped in white glaze [and I look forward to returning in a couple of weeks to dip].

This is my flower in progress...

...and here is Heather's.

This is the beginning of the center to my flower. Notice the holes at each intersection, and the 'pokeholio' that created said holes.

Here's Heather creating the center of her flower.

And here are our pieces as we left them [they're upside down, by the way]. Eventually they'll visit Syd's kiln room; Syd has 2 kilns (lucky).
I look forward to seeing these pieces complete, and I'm so appreciative to Syd for opening her studio to us and allowing us the therapeutic time we took in creating these beauties.

(jen)

Turned the Mother Out

foxy funk disco cds created by jen for book club friends

So book club was a smashing success this past weekend. Our meetings are generally themed in food and whatever else according to the literary choice, and this time round' it was Tim's choice of Armistead Maupin's Tales of the City. Disco, costumes (good sports Mary, Jonas & Scooter [of course]), and fondue (and some fon-don't when Scooter thought the bread would turn out yummy/crispy after several minutes soaking in the broth???).

We also watched the first chapter of the mini-series, as well as danced the night away while the disco ball spun overhead.
As a special treat, I thought it fun to create cds of hand picked disco funk songs--in which I like to call foxy funk disco. It seems I was not the only book club member with the idea to bring a gift...Jason brought the chocolate bars pictured below. They feature my friend Van Gogh (and his art) and come from Amsterdam. They are a throw back to the book I chose for book club, Irving Stone's Lust for Life, which happens to be one of my top 5 books ever (so far)--and I know my friend Jason loves it too.

I'd like to give a special shout out to my friends: Keith--who does a mean sprinkler, Jodi--hoola hoopin with a bumb to it, Mary--mariposa of the disco, Jonas--a great swirly twirly leader, Tim-- the front car in our roller coaster [of love], Scooter--dj extraordinaire, Jason--with his John Travolta moves, and of course my friend Heather--dancing queen.

hand-made cd sleeves from 1970s Ice Capade program paper

the lovely chocolate bars Jason brought back for us

(jen)