That little skeleton foot is actually a Shrinky Dink earring that I made about two years ago.
That strange little star was an experiment with some new "satin" glazes at the studio. I made it about a year and a half ago. (It has an identical partner as I had planned to make earrings, but I didn't like the way they came out.)
That little brown skully is about nine years old, one of my first forays into calaveras in clay. (You can also see the garland behind it, a string of seashells that I think came from either a garage sale or from my mother's stash of crafting materials.)
That little ducky, a gift on Christmas day from Kelly and Kevin, is the newest thing on the tree.
And Etc.
Dave is on vacation right now and so after dealing with the day's plumbing issues and its accompanying plumbers, we went and spent some money at New Mexico Clay. (Dave bought some pyrometric cones and I bought some appendages to make hummingbird feeders. "Appendages" is not the right word, I don't think. They're the little rubber stoppers and feeding element. "Elements"? "Doo-dads"? God. My vocabulary used to be so large! But that was back when I was a reader and not an internet surfer. The internet has shrunk my vocabulary something awful, I'm convinced.)
After we went shopping, we went to the studio. Dave worked on his ocarinas and I continued with Glaze-a-palooza 2011. Tonight I glazed, lessee, ten pieces. Is that right? Two platters and two vases for the soda kiln, that's four. Three bowls, a mask, and two vases for the electric kiln. That's ten, no? And the best part? There's only one piece left. Yes, there's only one little piece standing between me and my goal to have every piece of bisque glazed by December 31.
Okay, that's a lie. I guess I'm not counting the calavera vases I made a couple of weeks ago. Those always seem to slip my mind, possibly because they're so new, unlike some of the pieces that I'm glazing now that are a year or more old. You laugh, but it's easy to get a piece to the bisque stage and then let it sit somewhat indefinitely, just gathering dust. Several months ago, one of the potters at the studio heard me lamenting about the amount of old bisque that I had and she went to her cubicle and pulled out a bisqued piece that was over ten years old. I'm not nearly to that stage yet--although that's a lie, too. I have pieces that I know are at least eight or nine years old, bits and pieces in boxes that are exempt from Glaze-a-palooza 2011 simply because they'd require me to produce more new work in order to get them through the glazing stage. It's confusing I know, so let's just say that those bits and pieces were grandfathered in as exceptions to this year's glaze fest.)
Anyway, what will I do after I'm done glazing all this stuff? Well, I'm determined to return to handbuilding, so I'm going to be doing a lot more calavera pieces. Dave bought me a slew of Day of the Dead-themed books for my birthday in August and I've been thumbing through those for ideas. He also bought me several botanical-themed books and I'm going to try my hand at some botanical carvings. I'd also like to make some large pots to put plants in come spring. So there's a list of things to do already.
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