A Small Whine at Holiday Time

Yesterday our new Berkeley High Intern, Jackson, stripped all the old work out of fourth & clay, mopped and waxed the floor, moved the furniture, changed the burnt out light bulbs (he's 6'7" and that really helps with the light bulb changing)and polished the pedestals. Our studio is is now a blank slate ready to be filled today and Friday with wonderful new work.

Forgive my whine for a minute .... Getting set up for the Holiday Open Studios involves so much work for everybody...starting with making the work, designing and printing the post cards, setting up the studio, mailing the post cards, reprinting the post cards, emailing our announcement, being open every weekend until Christmas. Our email list is a mess... Why it is SO UNFORGIVING...one mis-placed period, or letter and BAM we get an error message....UGH..it has NO HEART.

Now that we are almost set up the anticipation of what is going to happen sets in. Will people show up or are we going to be sitting in our beautiful studio drinking hot cider and eating all the yummy cookies by ourselves?
Help! We need to keep our girlish figures...Please come by for a visit.

fourth & clay
2370 4th st (at Channing Way)
Berkeley.
open every weekend until Dec 20
11 - 5 pm

Black & White

Lately my work has been all about black and white.... the user supplies the color.
My friend Lynn who owns several of my new inlaid clay pieces told me that a bright orange tangerine or several acid green olives look fabulous in the black and white bowls.
This gives me a whole new thought process on my work ...trying to integrate the shape, color,texture of what will be put inside the pieces as part of the overall composition.
Seems elementary but really it trips off light bulbs in my head.

If you are in the area please come by and visit fourth & clay and see my new work as well as the fabulous new work by my studio mates, Christa Assad and rae dunn and our guest artists, Susannah Schnick, linea carta and Circadian Studios. We are participating in the Berkeley Artisan Holiday Open Studios. We will be open every weekend after Thanksgiving from 11 -5pm and during the week while we are there working. We'll have cookies and you can see first hand how good they look on my new black and white plates.

Friday at the "Flea"

Technically what we attended today is called Brocante de Antiquites. It
Is the massive 10 day antique faire held in Paris every November. I
feel so happy we were here for it. It flanks both sides of the canal
near the Bastille. You can find everything from old egg cups to Louis
XIV divan chairs, plastic cupids to marble busts of laughing French
maidens.
The food is in a league of it's own. Booths are scattered through out
where you can taste wine, eat oysters, sample sausage. There is a
stall that serves the most delicious vin chaud brewed in huge copper
vats on a small gas stove.
We ate in a beautiful little tent that was serving wonderful food on
china plates with real silver and glassware and ofcourse quantities of
good red wine.
My beloved Alameda Flea can never live up to this.