Good News/Bad News Makes For Even Steven

Susan Ellis of Artique was kind enough to meet me at the Gallery early yesterday morning so I could deliver my three sculpture pieces for the upcoming show. I was lucky to find a parking meter right in front of the Gallery downtown that still had over an hour on it! In my family, anytime we have a bit of good luck we say “I found a dime!” The other good news is that I was pleasantly surprised to find that Artique is featuring my “Spring Nest Topiary” on the promotional material and the poster looked lovely. A perfect grouping of artist’s works celebrating the coming of Spring and not too soon –this snow is getting old.

The bad news is I received a rejection e-mail from the Artful Home Call for Ornaments.

“Hello Cindy, Our ornament team has been frantically working to put together the 2010 Artful Home Ornament Collection, and it was wonderful to see your ornament. I am sorry to tell you that at this point, your ornament has not been selected. As we expand the non-glass offering for next year, we will have a much better idea of what possibilities are out there. (Huh?...) Thank you for submitting to the Ornament Jury.”

I suspected my copper, Good Fortune Pea Pod would not be included after I saw a Blog post on The Artful Life, the Artful Home Blog that included a photo of a table full of glass ball ornament submissions. I looked at the photo and didn’t see any copper pea pods anywhere in the heap of glass ornaments… oh well. Technically, my "Good Fortune Pea Pod" is not an “ornament” but the merchandising folks at Artful Home thought that’s where the pod would fit best -Not. It does save me from having to make over 100 of those suckers because even after making just two dozen of them my fingertips are raw!

The other bad news is that Gus’ 6^th grade play has been postponed yet again from this Friday to next Friday, April 9^th. Originally, the play was supposed to happen

in March but the class was not even close to being ready. The reason for the postponement this time is that a new rule within the Anchorage School District is that there can be no after school activities during certain religious holidays… As the volunteer parent coordinator and backdrop/set design artist, I really was hoping we could get this production over with but on the positive side, the additional rehearsal time will benefit the kids. The tough part for me was fielding the frustrated (angry) calls from parents who have had to change their already full calendars again –I didn't determine any of the dates for the play and I still don’t understand how parents think I can possibly be responsible for the Easter Holiday OR a new ASD policy. Now, the GOOD NEWS about the play being moved to NEXT Friday is now Daddy-O and I are free to attend all the First Friday art events this Friday night in Anchorage!! YAAAY! Hey, maybe I did subconsciously have something to do with the Easter Bunny not wanting to see “The Princess and the Pea” this Friday…

"Here Comes Spring!" to Artique

Finished up my sculptures for the Artique Gallery Group Show and I’ll be delivering the pieces to the them on Tuesday. I wasn’t feeling confident enough about a sculpture using the pods…yet. The commission to the Gallery is 50% and I’ll need to take that into consideration when I figure out the final pricing of the sculptures on Monday. Can you say “starving artist?!”

Multi-Media Group Show At Artique

314 G Street, Downtown Anchorage 907-277-1663

www.artiqueltd.com

“Here Comes Spring!” April 2-16, 2010

Opening Reception April 2, 5:00 – 7:00

“Spring Nest Topiary”

52” tall x 28” wide

Plasma cut and welded steel topiary, indoor or outdoor free standing sculpture. Reclaimed steel wire and painted enamel finish details.

The photo above shows the details of the inside of the nest.

“Sunflowers”

53” tall x 21” wide

Plasma cut and welded steel wall sculpture. Heat treated details with clear coat finish.

*this piece may also be hung horizontally

"Spring Garden Chime"

68” tall x 37” wide on 16” x 18” steel plate base.

Reclaimed copper chime with plasma cut copper leaf as clapper. Cold rolled round stock branch sculpture with wire and welded details. Faux spring eggs and nesting material in steel and wire formed nest atop steel chime branches.

WYSIWYG, or not?

As the alarm clock rang 5:30am Monday morning I popped right up remembering I could peek at the ^6 load. No reading the newspaper in bed with my sweetie this morning. In my jammies I ran out to the shop and lifted the still warm lid… Truly, I said to myself “if this kiln load is a total disaster let it be big so at least it will make a good Blog post!” Well, no graphic explosion images or total glaze meltdown shots, just some mediocre results. At least my large Pod survived and actually turned out OK. Not FAB,

just OK. I intentionally rubbed off the glaze on the lower leaf areas on my large Pod. The big surprise was my “sure fire” Pods, the ones I’d already used the Galaxy glaze on, appeared this time like the glaze had settled out -Arrrggh! I was trying to have a set of at least 3 matching Pods for a sculpture. These were supposed to be fine because I’d already lovingly TESTED this glaze. In one of the photos the original Galaxy fired Pod is on the left and this latest Pod I'm holding is on the right. What the...?? Another set of Pods I used the Seamist glaze on really looked like the glaze settled out (they are the small ones on the right in the large photo at the top). I could see miniscule spots where if that glaze

had worked as I’d hoped it would, it would have been beautiful, but it was not to be. There could be a lot of explanations for the “settling out” considering that these glazes were purchased blindly used with no dates, instructions or firing details on the buckets. I’ve read about microbes destroying old glazes or freeze/thaw and heat temp issues negatively affecting the necessary “float” of glaze components. Or not(?) Who knows. It’s just that after the first firing using the Galaxy and Antique Iron I did have high hopes, especially considering I mixed the second batch even more slowly and evenly. I set the kiln controller to use a SLOW FIRE ^6 GLAZE schedule, HOLDING for another 25 minutes for good measure. Or not(?) I am learning not to plan a sculpture using my clay components until AFTER they are completed to satisfaction. WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) was a term we used in my graphic design business days of what appeared on your computer screen was not necessarily how the file would be printed at the printers. There were so many digital variables we were forced to check and recheck a file before it was sent off to the client, publisher or printer. I’m learning that even when I’m working with clay that “What You See, (is NOT necessarily) What You Get until after the LAST firing!”

Kristen sent me this picture of her sliding down the ice slide at the World Ice Art Park in Fairbanks! She was wearing her favorite Skhoop Skirt over her snow pants and she said she took off like a rocket! I noticed on the news last night that Fairbanks warmed up to a balmy 25 degrees ABOVE zero yesterday! Spring must be on the way.

Do Scientists Get Nervous?

Something changed this morning as I was getting ready to glaze my Pod forms. I didn’t approach the set-up and glazing as fearlessly I normally would have. There was a nervousness I felt as I was prepping the tools and Pods –I even cleaned the mixing tool on the drill TWICE! I’m afraid any foreign debris might cause some sort of failure in the glaze or my carelessness and un-cleanliness could lead to a total catastrophic kiln firing failure. I'm also a bit nervous using the mystery glazes because I've only "tested" two of the colors and want to try two more on this set of Pods. One mistake I think I’m already making is I’m in love with these Pod forms and I know I shouldn’t even start the affair until after they have finished their time in the kiln. I am learning that planning ahead is a good thing and patience and cleanliness are also just good clay practices –all things that don’t come naturally to me. I’ll probably need to come up with some new rules…

The new steel wall logo installation went well this week though that project also had me nervous. Dr. Murray’s office is a GREAT client and knew exactly what they wanted. I ended up changing my process when the first set of letters didn’t turn out as expected. Originally, I had an electronic eps file of their logo water-jet cut from of 18 gauge steel but the letters were way too rigid and mechanical looking. I was trying to replicate their calligrap

hic look in steel –it wasn’t easy. I ended up scrapping the first set of letters that I’d already paid for, and plasma cutting by hand the “M” and the “O” myself. This helped to better create the purposeful rough edges as in their calligraphy styled logo. One of the prerequisites of the wall sculpture made by their office manager, Jo Lynn pictured at the left in the photo with Dr. Murray, was that the “M” to be heat treated to the steel blue. This limited the materials I could use because I can

only get that heat treated look with the black iron, not aluminum. I was so nervous to deliver the piece right up until Jo Lynn and Dr. Murray both gave it the two thumbs up! WHEW. I swear, sometimes commissions can really get my stomach in knots.

La-bor-atory Artmaking

Last week I was interviewed for an upcoming article/project on artists. The questions were e-mailed to me ahead of the interview, which gave me added time for hopefully, more thoughtful answers. The additional time had allowed me to better consider some of the questions such as “my first memory of making art” and “was art a part of

my childhood?” Lately, I’ve been working hard to “stay in the moment” after all of the grant writing proposal stuff and being forced to project what my artmaking could become should I be a grant recipient. Another self-analysis personality quirk that came up during the interview is that I’m a rule maker, an observation that Daddy-O keenly diagnosed years ago. Which by the way came in handy yesterday because one of my new rules is “don’t open the kiln until it has cooled to 150 degrees.” Having a rule is THE ONLY thing that keeps me from popping the top at 500 degrees to peek inside after the firing cycle is complete! The load of ^6 came out mostly OK –with the exception of my “Sedna Masks” which portions exploded due to air bubbles in my slabs. The good news

is my Pods all turned out wonderful and the test trays using the Duncan HF 583, Black Gloss High Fire Glaze onto the green ware came out great. Actually, better than I expected. This was the first time I applied a gloss glaze to the greenware without it being an underglaze. This Duncan glaze was part of the large lot of misc. glazes I bought second hand last year. I thought the gloss black really lent itself to doing some more Ravens. The extra large Pod that is over 18" even fired beautifully.

During the interview I was also asked about working and combining the two different mediums of steel and clay and their different processes. I made a comment about how steep the learning curve has been with clay and I thought I’d be farther along by now with the medium. The interviewer asked if I kept those detailed journals potters do on firing schedules, kiln temperatures etc.

“Ha!” I replied. Good intentions went by the weigh side on my second firing last year! I scribbled my outcomes on various box flaps, scraps of paper and whatever else I found lying around that are now, nowhere to be found. I dreamed early on that I would have a thick, leather-bound journal STUFFED with glaze recipes and secret firing schedules by now... Then the writer pointed out a very important observation and she said “well, isn’t clay more SCIENTIFIC?” Exactly, I thought. Good science practices are necessary for good outcomes and every phase of working in clay takes more measured practices than I’m used to. I love science, but I'm learning I'm not a very good clay scientist!

**So Many Trips That I Want To Take and Speaking of Ceramic Science, Look What I Just Read on Slipcast -The Ceramics Blog "It's Educational" by Matthew Katz

Ma'am Just Step Away From The Skis...

Some real artmaking actually happened yesterday in town and I finished up my Transformed Treasures. The idea behind the Salvation Army fundraiser is to find a “treasure” at the Salvation Army Thrift Store and “transform” it into a work of art that will be auctioned off at a May 1, luncheon. My Thrift Store finds were the small wooden bank and a foam/resin plaque of St. Francis, the patron saint of animals and ecology. Lacking a good solid grasp of Catholicism I had to google St. Francis because I first thought he was St. Peter but when I read

that there was no mention of animals associated with St. Peter I knew

it was another guy who was the patron saint of animals. You find a lot of garden sculptures depicting St. Francis holding small animals and gardening tools. My mom has a beautiful bird feeder statuary of St. Francis that offers bird seed from his hands that I especially enjoy. When I found this plaque I knew immediately that I wanted to “transform” it using plasma cut and welded steel vines to create an outdoor hung wall sculpture. My thought was that it would look great on the outside of a greenhouse or on the fence near a garden. It’s finished size is about 32” tall by 20" wide.

I need to add some enamel paint finishes to doctor up some wear and tear on the plaque and mend some burn holes… Yeah, almost set the whole thing on fire when I was welding the finishing leaves to the front! The hilarious part was when it first caught on fire, I panicked and was actually trying to blow out the stupid fame from INSIDE my welding helmet!! Duh. I finally got a spray bottle of water to weld the other leaves attaching the plaque and squirted out the mini flames right away. The little wooden bank is now a

5’ tall Topiary Bird house. Those little Red Cedar logs only caught fire once…

**Oh, and don't forget to vote for our daughter, Kristen's quilt! It's called "Fairbanks Birdhouse" entered in the Snowman Quilt Challenge at The Material Girls fabric store, in Fairbanks, Alaska. Kristen has started a Blog called Rosie Creek Quilts -in her "spare time" of doing her grad work in chemical oceanography at UAF. Vote by sending an email to materialgirls@alaska.net and vote for "A1"

-THANKS ahead of time to all my blog-buddies around the world!

Heaps O' Snow With a Side of Guilt

We were supposed to have dinner with Katie Sevigny and her family tonight, in town. Instead, we are still in Girdwood taking advantage of the incredible Spring Break snow. Gus and I went into town after the highway avalanche was cleared and instead of me spending the time finishing up my Transformed Treasures, working in the studio making more pieces for Katie’s Gallery, we picked up Gus’ best buddy also named Katie and high tailed it back to Girdwood for a couple more days of skiing! Daddy-O got the day off from the Mountain Learning Center and we all had a family ski day. I’m feeling a tad bit guilty, not only because we are missing Katie’s dinner BUT she was also working and selling the heck out of my work at her Gallery while I was on the mountain. At one point (as we agreed) she called me on my cell phone because one of her customers had some questions on one of my sculptures –which I gladly was able to answer WHILE I WAS RIDING UP THE CHAIRLIFT –I swear I felt like I was in a bad cell phone commercial! Thank you Katie for working hard to sell my work while I’ve been playing and I promise we’ll let you make us your homemade enchiladas again SOON and I also promise to get you some more of my work to sell!

Gus and his best buddy Katie stand in front of the debris trail that the Max's Mountain avalanche left. Pieces of a shed are in the brush behind the kids. The slide took out several resort storage sheds, unused snowboard terrain park equipment stopping in the upper level parking lot. The resort had large front end loaders cleaning up the snow and debris today. The good news is that the slide wasn't near any of the main runs or commonly used public areas.

OK, Enough is Enough

Even for us hearty Alaskan souls, I think we've had about as much snow as we need for Spring Break! The Seward Highway into Anchorage is closed for a few hours due to an avalanche at Bird Point and DOT will be doing more avalanche mitigation. The Mountain has a delayed opening until 1:00 pm for snow load control and the Spring Break Silvertip School Groups Camp cancelled morning sessions. We can hear the safety crew with the avalanche guns blasting the mountain and can see where Max's Mountain actually had a slide all the way down to the upper parking lot -holy cow! The skies are clearing though and it seems the only one having more fun than first-tracks skiers is Tauzer's buddy, Isis!

Day 3 Spring Break in Girdwood, Alaska

Yesterday truly was the calm before the storm. I was going to head into town today and weld up my Transformed Treasure pieces... but a winter storm warning will keep us bundled up indoors with movies, cocoa, left-over chili and wrapping up the taxes. The Tram and Chair 6 are down today due to blizzard conditions and high winds. Daddy-O is on the Mountain to help with the Mountain Learning Center's school groups- Ahhhh, Spring Break in Alaska!

Day 2 Spring Break in Girdwood, Alaska

Crazy beautiful, blue-bird day! The weather is a complete 180 from yesterday! This is the view from our front deck. We can hear people hootin' and a hollerin' having FUN on the Mountain in all of the new snow!

No lessons today and absolutely NO papers for Daddy-O to grade this week! He's on the Mountain with his offspring having a little mini-me, dude time today.

Checked out a couple movies at the Scott and Wesley Gerrish Girdwood Library. The new location opened here a couple years ago, it used to be located in the Girdwood Elementary school. Isn't it a lovely building? On the menu tonight is homemade chili that's is slow cooking on the stove. Gus and I have ours over spaghetti noodles, Daddy-O thinks that's a bit weird but we love it!

Day 1 Spring Break in Girdwood, Alaska

There will be a delay this morning in the opening of the Mountain due to the snow load. The Alyeska Ski Report is announcing 3' feet of un-skied snow at the top for a total of 585 inches so far this season! Yeah Baby, that's right it's Spring Break in ALASKA!

xOx

Postscript;

I’m only posting this because of it’s timely topic… I didn’t get a letter of rejection, this one was e-mailed to me yesterday. My first "Rejection E-mail" from the Fairbanks Airport project I applied for on January 4. Somehow an e-mail doesn't seem as bad, not as tangible as a letter coming in the mail with all of the anxiety of opening and reading the bad news. Getting a "Rejection E-mail" makes it easy to just hit delete! BTW the rejection e-mail didn’t throw me into a funk –how could it with the start of Spring Break and all of this FRESH snow?!

"CaFÉ login: cshake

Cindy Shake:

Dear Artist,

Thank you for your application and your interest in the Fairbanks Airport project. The jury viewed many exciting and innovative applications, and found the online and in-person CaFE process easy even though it was a first for ASCA.

I am sorry to inform you that the Public Art Selection Committee did not choose your application for further development. I hope you will continue to visit our website www.eed.state.ak.us/aksca and www.callforentry.org for future artist opportunity announcements.

Sincerely, Andrea Noble

------------------------------------------------------------------------

Do not reply to this email, it is not monitored.

Psyching Out Rejection

I’m hoping I haven’t set myself up for the rejection trifecta. The good news is my feeling of accomplishment is pushing all of my self-doubt and negative thoughts aside for the time being –well at least until the end of March. I submitted my Individual Artist Project Grant proposal on Monday, my four submissions (the maximum) to the Anchorage Museum All Alaska Juried Show on Tuesday and my “Good Fortune Pea Pod” design to the The Guild and Artful Home 2010 Call for Ornaments Tuesday night. Whew! Notification for grant recipients won’t be for a couple of months. The artists are notified if they’ve been considered for the All Alaska Show on April 1 and The Guild will notify artists by March 29. As many of you know I don’t take rejection well. The All Alaska Juried Show can even be a bit of a psyche out, due to the fact you can be asked to submit the ACTUAL art based on the digital images you first

submitted, but the juror (this year it is Michael Darling of the Seattle Art Museum) may still reject your work. This has happened to three of my friends, which I find even worse than the “thanks, but no thanks” rejection letter. Rejection seems to put me in a funk that cuts into my artmaking time, so the last couple of years I’ve limited my exposure to the possibility of rejection. What’s different this time is I have many other positive things going on. Sounds simple, but it’s true. For me, artmaking is very emotional and I’m not an artist who makes her best art when she’s angry or sad –well at least the type of art that will pay the bills. I’m saving making art that expresses anger, sadness and lots of black for some future solo exhibition at an obscure New York or Eastern Block European Gallery. I actually have a lot of vivid imagery and ideas

I’ve stowed away and am waiting for all of the kids to be out of the house, graduated and to be self sufficient so I don’t embarrass or cause potential employment problems for them.

Helping me to stay happily busy is knowing my work found a new home at my friend Katie Sevigny’s Studio in downtown Anchorage. The photo is one I took this fall of her storefront. It’s not that I didn’t have anywhere to go after Half Moon closed in Anchorage, I just wasn’t feeling the love anywhere like I do with Katie, she’s tallented, energetic and super friendly with all of her customers. I even have a commission (after day two in the Gallery!) from one of Katie’s customers for some Ravens. Rather than painting the Ravens as I normally do, the customer requested that the Ravens be heat treated, and I have to say I like the effect. I made two different wall sculptures, each about 4', one horizontal and one vertical that the customer can choose from. I’m also working on 3 pieces for the Artique Gallery “Here Comes Spring” garden themed group show, opening April 2. I’d like to have some of my pods turn out FAB so I can mix them with a little welded steel for that Show. We’ll see, I should be able to fire a ^6 load next week –I’m being really, really patient and letting the new round of pods and “Sedna” masks dry nice and s-l-o-o-o-w. The other fun projects I have on the production schedule are two pieces for the 3^rd Annual Salvation Army "Transformed Treasures" event. This is a fundraiser where we “transform” items

we find at the Thrift Store into works of Art. The "Transformed Treasures" luncheon, silent and live auction will be May 1^st 11:30 - 1:30. Tickets sell out quickly and are $30.00 per person or $300 for a table of ten. If your in town and interested, please call Diane at The Salvation Army 907-276-2515.

What’s fun about this event is the camaraderie and seeing all of the “before” pictures and “after” works of art. I'm easily inspired by the very ingenious people who participate. I’m showing you my “before” pictures of a wooden bank and a wonderful relief of St. Peter I bought at the Thrift Store for under $3. The wooden bank will become a bird house with welded steel topiary frame and St. Peter is going to be Transformed into an outdoor garden shed wall sculpture with welded vines and leaves and a rust patina. The best part about donating to this cause is there’s no chance of rejection!