It’s certainly been a busy couple of weeks since last writing. The kiln has been glaze fired twice with a bunch of failed pieces, but also some success. Is it enough for a booth of work? Not even close! So I’m still in production mode for the next week to get a fully packed bisque firing.
Tall vase
Blue bird sculpture.
Raven mugs
Fish plates
The felting zone has seen a little activity. I did manage to get a landscape created twice. The below image was my second round. Clouds are very interesting to work on.
Last week was full of so many things, but I really enjoyed Tuesday. That day included two different artist group meetings. One is through Zoom and includes friends around the world! The sweetest part is that we all meet via our WordPress blogging. The second group meets every two months to discuss artistic endeavors and share a meal together. It always makes me feel good to be with this group of incredible women.
So, my time is now very limited in creating new ceramics for the show. Items need to dry fully before they can be bisqued. Basically this will be my final production week. It’s probably good that Dave is off visiting family. I need a quiet house for my sanity.
Hopefully I will be able to post next Saturday with good results!
It’s Tuesday and I’m glazing. I was glazing yesterday too. Will probably have a few more days of glazing to go before loading the kiln.
Removing the black underglaze.
Wiped back and ready for glaze
Several weeks ago I started preparing with a bit of sieving and water balancing of dipping glazes. This first act turned into a giant mess when my sieve of green glaze toppled off the bucket, spilling all over the floor and the nice clean kiln shelves. I went into clean up mode but didn’t have the energy to tackle the shelves until Monday. After 2 hrs, they and the floor below them, are finally clean. Now, I’m glazing bisque wares sitting around. Plates, colanders, small planters, juicers, mugs, tall vases, and eventually the 6 pumpkins.
Kiln shelves dried and waiting for kiln wash.
Today, I placed a rather spendy order for a product that I’ll show you in 4-5 weeks once it arrives. That one product was a difficult decision, but hopefully it will be a good investment for years to come. The reason it stumped my brain was that I’m actively choosing a route for selling my art. That choice is scary in my brain. I don’t make big decisions easily or quickly, and this one has been mulling around the brain for quite a while. Anyway, it’s done and I’m looking forward to seeing it arrive!
The other thing on my to-do list for the week is joining OPA (Oregon Potters Association). My amazing friend and potter had a good text chat and encouraged me to just join OPA. The benefits are incredible. Nuff said. It’s good to have ceramic art mentors in your life!
I thought it might be fun to track progress towards my first weekend art event in 2025. This will be my first solo 10ft x 10 ft booth. Art & Wine in the Garden will be held at Garland Nursery, a local independent small business between Albany and Corvallis . The event will be on July 26th and 27th, so mark your calendars if you’re able to attend!
I’ll be bringing ceramics, wool fiber art, prints, and other things I’ve created. Most of my focus has been on ceramics since last fall. The wool push stepped aside as I try to find my voice in that area.
Blue sky and clouds. An experiment in the works.
So, I have less than 8 weeks to go before setting up my space. Glazes are low, clay is low (50 lbs of clay plus 40 lbs of reclaimed), I need to get busy with my glazing and get a firing in this week. Since the local ceramics store closed their Eugene branch, we have to go to Portland for supplies. So organizing that is a different matter. Eugene was so darn easy! Anyway, I’ll be posting more as I work down the pathway to increasing stocking levels for the show.
It’s coming! Less than 10 days away to the start of the 19th season for Philomath Open Studio Tour! I’ve been fortunate to be part of now 5 tours to date. This year has 11 studios open with a total of 26+ artists participating. Please come visit me at Studio #8 with the beautiful jeweler Linda Herd. For additional information and maps, please visit the website: http://www.philomathopenstudios.com. We also have presence on Facebook and Instagram. Search for @ philomathopenstudios!
So, make plans to visit as many artists as possible. It’s such a fun tour with great diversity of work. Mark your calendars for October 21, 22 & 28, 29, Noon to 5 pm all 4 days! I hope to see you all soon!
We are finally shifting into warm weather. In fact, it should be a weekend for the low 90’s (over 32 C). The only plus side is that wet wool dries faster in heat.
I’m dipping my toes into uncharted territory of wet felting feathers for chicken sculptures. The first one is Miss Lavender who is already on hold for a friend.
Needle and wet felted chicken
Lavender started with a solid body of wool, plus sturdy wire legs and feet. Next step was creating two sheets of felt (colored and natural) via wet felting. After drying and a good ironing, the felt was cut and formed into a fluffy bum and body feathers. It was a fun experience and I look forward to creating more birds.
Thursday’s felting experiment. Not showing is a solid sheet of natural white to become 2D art. Haystack rock at Pacific City, Oregon. Needle felted wool.
Along with the sculpture comes a round of trying 2D felting. I’m enjoying it, but it’s more challenging than I originally thought. Of course it really helps to actually plan everything out before one starts.
Above is a second rendition in larger scale (12”x 12”) of Haystack Rock by Pacific City, OR. It’s attached to a base of felt I created for the work (via wet felting). I’m still waiting to see if it needs more. The ocean is still not sitting right with me. Time will tell.
The Monarch butterfly is also waiting for more attention and actual design inspiration. We currently have loads of apple trees blooming and the flowers are stunning but not something that Monarchs would be experiencing in our area. Thank goodness for artistic inspiration and bending of rules! I might just pull out the flowers and let it exist on the sea of blue and green.
WIP: monarch butterfly. Needle felted.
I’m also working on duck forms, specifically Runner Ducks for their upright posture.
One duck with feet, one without. More work is needed to refine their heads before they are covered in colored wool.The crazy loopy fluffy chicken. I won’t be attempting this method again!
Before the ducks there was the first chicken experiment using alpaca wool. It certainly made for a very fluffy chicken, but it took about 7+ hours just to apply the loops, stabbing each one in place.
NC Cheviot and Alpaca blend
There’s also been a bit of spinning going on. I started blending alpaca wool with my base sheep wool. I only have one bobbin almost full but it takes at least two for a nice yarn. More spinning to come. Morning spinning with coffee on the deck are wonderful!
So that’s about it right now. I will probably escape from the heat into the studio and finish up a certain book bugging my brain. All the art is pushing towards the first show in July.
Measuring in at about 1 – 1.25 inches (25-32mm), the woodland skipper is certainly a small butterfly. During the summer months, theses cuties love to feed on multiple food sources in the yard. Below are two images as it progresses from ink drawing into watercolor. This will eventually become part of a book for my friend Karen.
I’ve not had the clearest brain this week so I started it off with a bit of play on Monday. Felting in 2D. The finished image is about 5.5 inches square (14cm).
And that moved on to another tutorial of lavender fields in Provence France.
Today, Friday, I’ve started laying out my own design using Haystack Rock on the Oregon Coast. More parts of Karen’s book page are waiting for watercolor attention and figuring out a different plan with the butterflies (yes, there’s two now!). My enthusiasm for the original catnip plants has gone out the door and I’m going to attempt a poppy flower instead with collage. A new bottle of pH neutral glue finally arrived with a 6 pack of 8″x 8″ wood panels. More experimenting to come with those!
I spent so much of my week sick and I’ve finally had enough. I’ve opted to reset everything with the auto immune diet. Last weekend I threw so many curve balls at my body with consumption of eggs, dairy, and chocolate that everything in my body was angry and not functioning well. Oh, the joys of living with multiple auto-immune diseases and many food allergies. Anyway, I’m hoping life will begin to feel better….eventually.
Moby had a great PT session on Thursday. He’s regaining strength and reopening neural links to his back legs. He doesn’t bend his right knee very well so I operated the laser therapy machine on the knee as Alyssa (pt assistant) helped feed him loads of treats. It’s so nice to be at a facility where he doesn’t have to be muzzled and the people actually fully understand how to work with reactive dogs. I’m really enjoying taking him in and learning more about what’s happening with his body. Absolutely fascinating how the body compensates for problems which causes further problems.
We hope to step outside and work on building garden boxes before the rain returns Sunday. Saturday is the opening for the Farmer’s Market! Looking forward to seeing some early veg. Positive things on the horizon!
I’ve finally completed one out of 5 pages! This probably makes absolutely no sense to anyone except for the 4 other participating artists. Lets step back a bit. In 2015, I joined an existing small group of artists to create special , one of a kind artist books. In 2018 we added another member for book #2. We met via WordPress blogs and have continued to support each other over the years. Last spring/summer 2022, we decided to create yet another round of books. This time we opted to just send completed pages to each recipient rather than sending around the full books. The page completed is winging it’s way to Stockholm Sweden. The theme of Rebecca’s book was First Bicycles. I drew my first favorite bike, a Schwinn World Sport. We lived in hills so multiple gears was a must!
book page in process
Next book page is for Karen in Castlemaine Australia. Her theme is insects and the additional fun of creating a pop-up page! I’m working through some bug images collected back in 2019. I’ll post progress next week here, but I have some up on Instagram:@gale.everett.studio
I took a little trip to visit my friend Heather (4 miles away) and her critters. Here are a few photos from the visit. Her sheep and llama are lovely, even if they don’t really want to spend time with me. Peppermint is the exception…
Mo the llama love those teeth!
Mo and his flock of Jacob sheep
Peppermint coming for a scritch.
That’s about it for the week. I’ve been trying to get back into swimming, having taken the past 2 weeks off from spring break and extra. Maybe my body will agree with it this time. 18 miles down, 82 to go.
I just have to start with this cutie. We were returning home from a walk and across the main road, near a couple Suffolk sheep, was the piebald leucistic doe. She’s a yearling and still hanging out with mom. Not a common thing to run across, but recessive color mutations happen. She is not albino, but partially leucistic. We hope she continues to thrive and maybe next year we will see a little one with her.
Haystack Rock, Pacific City Oregon
Cape Meares Lighthouse, Oregon Coast
Hazel and Moby on the beach, Oregon Coast
We took a short vacation to Pacific City, home of Haystack Rock and the Dory fleet. It was the week prior to our spring break and relatively quiet (with exception to those on other spring breaks like Idaho and Montana).
Art About Ag update: I didn’t make the cut. Not surprising since it was a giant outpouring! Now I can move on and frame the sheep under glass and enjoy.
Saturday I made a trip to Ewethful Fiber Farm & Mill in Halsey Oregon. The shop was open! I petted the beautiful wool and brought home a bit for a weaving project. The purchase was Vintage Pendleton Yarn spun in 2005 but hand-dyed by the owner this year. Somehow I refrained from another spinning project but did get a good idea for using Alpaca and the North Country Cheviot (20/80 blend is really good!).
Part of the reason I didn’t purchase any wool for spinning is due to future fleece to come. I’ve put in a request for the 6 fleece at my friends farm. I’ll actually turn the whole lot over to the fiber mill in Lebanon. In the garage I have stashed 5 x 5 gallon buckets of cleaned wool. They are marked 2020 on the side (one has a 2019 fleece). They will be my backup supply once the shop cleaned wool is done. There’s only 3 lbs remaining.
A rabbit commission has started , but it will be slow to get off the ground. No worries. She doesn’t seem rushed and I have quite a few items on my plate before starting. We’re still in negotiations over coat style and I need a few more photos, but it’s one cute Netherland Dwarf I’ll be recreating! More photos to come.
I’ve now received 2 pages from the art book exchange and I have two pages in process for those artists. Below are images of the work in progress:
Bike Page in progress
Pattern Page in progress
Looks like I’ll be participating in the 2023 Philomath Open Studio Tour! I’ll be at Compton Winery with Linda Herd and hopefully another artist. October dates to come.
Dave is in Washington State this week and another trip next week to a conference at Scripps Institute of Oceanography in California. I’ll be home with the critter crew trying to appease the cat gods, keep up with Moby’s home PT, Hazel’s ongoing digestive track issues and time for Barnaby. The garden is calling, but I don’t think I’ll be getting at it quite yet. It’s always something around here.
View from hillside over the Willamette Valley towards to the Cascade foothills. Lots of grey-green lichens in the oak trees. Finley Wildlife Refuge
After inventory, and more inventory, and a bit more inventory, I think everything has been dropped off/ emailed to the tax accountant. One giant thing is off my shoulders until next year and I really hope to keep better track of everything from here forward. Of course, I recall saying that last year too. It’s now Friday afternoon, the Tarta Santiago almond cake is cooling on the kitchen counter, and the cup of black tea seems to have perked up my energy for the rest of the day. With the final tax push I’ve not accomplished anything else except swimming on Wednesday & Friday. Dave’s work should be closing their doors next week. He will officially be working from home or at the Belleview WA site (one week per month). No more Philomath. It’s been an emotional ride to get here (at least on my side) as a thriving science/environmental business consolidates and moves away from a small town. The business felt like family where people cared about each other. The Belleview site has none of that feeling. Cold and corporate. I’m just really happy we don’t have to move north. There’s a handful of employees allowed to remain in Oregon. Numerous people were laid off, some were able to shift to the WA site. It’s been a messy situation and I suspect it will take a few more months to smooth things out (if that’s even possible). Whew! Next week will be better!
As a follow up from last week: I did submit the Ewe 183 image to be juried at the end of March. I didn’t take the best image so I’m not expecting to receive anything positive. It was a good exercise to make myself enter a show.
I hope to get a few items uploaded to the Etsy site possibly this weekend. Things are looking rather sparse with only two items available.
Hellebores waiting for planting.
Spring is really coming! The Turkey Vultures started returning this week! They are a bit off schedule, but made it. I wonder if the California snow slowed their return?
Tree Lichens
Immature Bald Eagle in a Cottonwood Tree, Finley Wildlife Refuge
Looking up at Oak Tree canopy March 2023, Finley Wildlife Refuge
Looking up at Douglas Fir tree canopy, March 2023, Finley Wildlife Refuge
Moss and Ferns, Finley Wildlife Refuge
We took a muddy hike at the local wildlife refuge last weekend. Beautiful but we slid all over the trail. The oak trees have not even started thinking about leafing out but the LICHENS and moss were stunning. So many different types (or at least seemed to be multiples) in different colors and textures. We really enjoyed our time there.
Natural dark brown Rambouillet, 4 oz, 2 ply spun on an Ashford wheel.
One more skein of yarn came off the bobbin Thursday. This was the Rambley (Rambouillet?) wool from Promised Land Sheep Co. Next up is the Merino that might be blended with alpaca or something else.
Next week will be focused on book pages. I’ve even been contemplating the pop-up page of bugs!
That’s about it from here. I hope everyone has a good weekend wherever you live. Get out and enjoy the shift in seasons.
Happy March to you all! Plus a Happy Anniversary to the blog. They say I’ve been going for 14 years?! How can that be? Sooooo…..
I’ve been letting the blog languish for far too long. Life keeps moving along and I never seem to make time in my schedule to sit an write. Yes, I should just put it on my weekly calendar…. but the brain/body has been challenged enough of late. The hip pain has finally forced me back into the pool for strengthening and it seems to be working. Swimming now takes up 4 days a week for my exercise. Daily dog walks help to round things out a bit if the hip can take it. On the plus side, nightly doses of pain relievers are on the decline! The pool is sponsoring a swim challenge (100 miles in 2023), which I joined. Goals / deadlines are excellent motivation. It would be nice to finally feel like a strong swimmer and for my body to revive quicker. I’ve read that after 6 months of swimming I’ll see a difference. At only 1.5 months in and 12.5 miles under my cap, I have a while before it’s easy going.
Cathe’s book page started in watercolor but will soon shift to colored pencil.
Goals and deadlines seem to be a theme for the year. I’ve put off and misplaced pages for a collaborative book project started last year. This past weekend I finally found the pages tucked safely away and started on my first spread with the theme of patterns. The page did receive marks and an idea last summer, but I wanted to just focus on cyclamen leaves. The other page themes include : first bicycle, pop-up bugs (yes, actually getting an insert to pop up like a children’s book), and a garden theme. My book theme: birds that you enjoy. More to come as the pages are completed.
Internal/mental boundaries were pushed as I applied to an outdoor venue for July. “Art and Wine in the Garden” will be happening on Saturday & Sunday July 29th & 30th, 2023 (10-4 each day). Location is the beautiful Garland Nursery and I was accepted! This means I have to get a wiggle on and produce felted wool items. I actually own a 10ft x 10ft tent thanks to another crafter who donated it to me when she shifted to food production. I do need a banner and gridwall, but that will get figured out in the coming months. The grids I used during POST last fall were way too heavy for me to manipulate. Regarding POST: I’ll probably be notified if that will be part of my income generating source in May. Maybe. I’m not holding my breath.
Dave the sheep made some beautiful yarn. Columbia/Rambouillet cross.
Spinning has popped back up on the interest level. I worked through a beautiful Columbia/Rambouillet cross that was a dream! I purchased it (4oz) along with a Merino (4oz) and a Rambely (not a breed or mix I’m familiar with) (4oz) from Promised Land Sheep Company in Washington. In small doses, hand spinning is doable without damage to hands and feet.
The clock is ticking for submitting to the Art About Agriculture show. I’ve not completed my sheep drawing nor taken a decent photo of it to submit. I have until the 5th of March….. I just need to cinch myself down and finish the darn thing. My brain is saying “why submit when it’s only going to be rejected?” . “Why torture yourself and screw up the drawing even further?”. That darn brain really gets in the way!
Two felted creatures left the studio in February. One is living in Corvallis, the other in Arlington, TX! Always fun to see things leave!
I can’t even believe that two other shows have come and gone: Philomath Open Studio Tour had artwork for 2+ months at the Benton County Museum in Philomath. I was also part of the Big Ink print show at Western Oregon University in January/February. It was great to see prints from our weekend in 2022, plus previous year Big Ink participants.
I think that’s enough for now. Time to pull out the sheep drawing a focus. Next week I’ll fill you in on if I submitted to the Ag show or not, fill you in on the critters, and Dave’s final days at the Philomath Wetlabs site before it closes for good.
Sticks, Stones, and Paper Stew Blog 