Denice

My husband is starting his fourth year of retirement and I think everything that could go wrong did.  He had health problems right away,  in the middle of his colon surgery his mother was brought by a ambulance to the same hospital.   We spent two years handling things for his mom,  she died last November,  still settling the will a year later.  In middle of all this  Covid shutdown,  I had both wrists and a finger operated on and I have arthritis in my fingers.   I haven't given up,  I am reorganizing my shop this week,  even hanging new blinds.   I started on a alternative plan to keep me in my studio ten years ago.  I started growing gourds,  I know they are not clay but they are shaped like pots and are light weight.  There are many ways to get designs on them with light weight tools.  If you not into growing them you can buy them in bulk on-line.   I have seen finished pieces in galleries and have bought a dozed pieces for inspiration. I bought one that was from a gallery on 5th avenue at a estate sale.  My big project this winter is 3'x4' mural.   I guess I'd better get to work.   Denice

My husband is starting his fourth year of retirement and I think everything that could go wrong did.  He had health problems right away,  in the middle of his colon surgery his mother was brought by a ambulance to the same hospital.   We spent two years handling things for his mom,  she died last November,  still settling the will a year later.  In middle of all this  Covid shutdown,  I had both wrists and a finger operated on and I have arthritis in my fingers.   I haven't given up,  I am reorganizing my shop this week,  even hanging new blinds.   I started on a alternative plan to keep me in my studio ten years ago.  I started growing gourds,  I know they are not clay but they are shaped like pots and are light weight.  There are many ways to get designs on them with light weight tools.  If you not into growing them you can buy them in bulk on-line.   I have seen finished pieces in galleries and have bought a dozed pieces for inspiration. I bought one that was from a gallery on 5th avenue at a estate sale.  My big project this winter is 3'x4' mural.   I guess I'd better get to work.   Denice

My husband is starting his fourth year of retirement and I think everything that could go wrong did.  He had health problems right away,  in the middle of his colon surgery his mother was brought by a ambulance to the same hospital.   We spent two years handling things for his mom,  she died last November,  still settling the will a year later.  In middle of all this  Covid shutdown,  I had both wrists and a finger operated on and I have arthritis in my fingers.   I haven't given up,  I am reorganizing my shop this week,  even hanging new blinds.   I started on a alternative plan to keep me in my studio ten years ago.  I started growing gourds,  I know they are not clay but they are shaped like pots and are light weight.  There are many ways to get designs on them with light weight tools.  If you not into growing them you can buy them in bulk on-line.   I have seen finished pieces in galleries and have bought a dozed pieces for inspiration. I bought one that was from a gallery on 5th avenue at a estate sale.  My big project this winter is 3'x4' mural.   I guess I'd better get to work.   Denice

Marcia Selsor

Marcia Selsor

Glazing a large jar or vase I spray,  if I am making a set of dishes I dip.   The last few years I was making coiled, smoothed pots with Mimbres designs on them with a lot of naked clay on the pots.  I brushed the designs on with very small brushes.   I am starting on a sculptural mural,  I am planning on using under glaze, clear glaze, mat glaze and naked areas.  I haven't got that part totally put together,  the glaze will be brushed on.    Denice

Make sure you have enough lighting, everything looks good in the dark.    Denice

Make sure you have enough lighting, everything looks good in the dark.    Denice

Make sure you have enough lighting, everything looks good in the dark.    Denice

Make sure you have enough lighting, everything looks good in the dark.    Denice

Make sure you have enough lighting, everything looks good in the dark.    Denice

Make sure you have enough lighting, everything looks good in the dark.    Denice

Make sure you have enough lighting, everything looks good in the dark.    Denice

Make sure you have enough lighting, everything looks good in the dark.    Denice

I would have to say no,  I have seen to many disasters where a low fire piece was stuck in a high fire.  The person swore it was high fire clay,  I have fired a few pots made with my clay  by friends and neighbors,  but I am usually unhappy with glaze applications and do some clean up before I fire them.   Denice

No no no no no no no no no no. In addition to all the issues for potential damage to my kilns and kiln furniture, there are the problems of storing the work before and after it's fired, and conflicts over the results of the firing. It's too easy for people to blame the kiln owner for something not coming out like they expected- "it didn't look like that when I had it fired at another studio"- or to blame the firing for the glaze running and damaging a shelf/kiln- "it never ran like that at the other studio". Chances are if they don't have a kiln they don't understand the variation that exists from kiln to kiln. Too much potential for arguments and unhappy people and unpaid invoices. My opinion is that if you want to work in clay then you need to either invest in being part of a community studio or invest in your own equipment. Both are costly, but most hobbies are.
That said, I do have two people for whom I fire. One is a very good sculptor I have known for years who makes unglazed figurative forms, so no firing trouble there. The other is a former student whom I totally trust, and who understands that she has to work around my schedule. She brings stuff in on the day I can load the kiln, and picks it up on the day it comes out.

I would have to say no,  I have seen to many disasters where a low fire piece was stuck in a high fire.  The person swore it was high fire clay,  I have fired a few pots made with my clay  by friends and neighbors,  but I am usually unhappy with glaze applications and do some clean up before I fire them.   Denice

I would have to say no,  I have seen to many disasters where a low fire piece was stuck in a high fire.  The person swore it was high fire clay,  I have fired a few pots made with my clay  by friends and neighbors,  but I am usually unhappy with glaze applications and do some clean up before I fire them.   Denice

I started out very focused, learned the basics quite well--got a good comprehensive ceramics education (and a BFA in crafts). Then I  became engaged with experimental techniques/more sculptural work, while still in VCU art school. (I was going to out-Voulkus Voulkus, don'tcha know).  It became a moot point when I took a detour into a 25 Y career in the addiction treatment field. I thought it would be short lived, because voc rehab was willing to bankroll my Master's if I committed to working in public service for a few years. I turned out to be very good at specialized program design & getting federal grant funding, so ceramics went into the attic to gather dust. After I retired (State Planner in Behavioral Health for NH DHHS) I constructed my little studio in my trailer (bedroom & back porch). However, I have lost so much ability (physical/cognitive) that I can't get back to where I once was. So, my present place is some  "other direction".  At the moment, I'm  just looking to satisfy myself and make enough (local smalls of the home decor variety)  to break even, which I am finally doing. Probably the most consistent thread from then to now is I am continuing my Hidden Mask series, which I started back in '81. 

I feel like any diagram or 2D representation of my career path should involve crayons, lol!
To say it was indirect for a good long time is an understatement.I did start off being pretty focused, and got a whole BFA in ceramics, but when I graduated, I had what I know now to be the crash that every gifted kid with case of undiagnosed ADHD seems to wind up with. So I worked a bunch of wildly unrelated retail or reception jobs for the next 14 years, and made pots on the side while Life Happened and Was Not-pretty (TM).
After having a couple of kids and coming to the conclusions that 1)I make a terrible employee but an awesome boss, 2) since I can predictably earn a couple hundred bucks every time I resupplied the one gallery I was in, maybe I just needed to consistently get my work in front of people to earn some adult money. 
Once I had relaxed and begun to see opportunities and possibilities again, my work did some pretty rapid growth and development. I built a TON of new forms, I went from cone 10 reduction to cone 6 ox, and went from using a white porcelaneous stoneware to a red stoneware with white slip deco. I challenged myself to keep the qualities of the cone 10 work that I really enjoyed while incorporating some of the easy turnover and colourful elements that cone 6 offers.  
I don’t think I know of an artist that has had direct, linear path. We all seem to incorporate bits of our lives and our loves and our experiences into the work we make.

We take a show car to car shows all summer unless it is  miserably hot.   A  few years ago the temps really went up and it was 105 in no time,  people were lined up at the food truck.  We thought it was to hot to eat and had a  couple of bottles of water for lunch.  The next day we heard that everyone who ate at the food truck got food poisoning.    Denice

I have never done a art festival but I did  Home Shows for 15 years when I owned a wallpaper store.   We couldn't have coolers at the show so I would stick a couple of bottles of water,  banana,  granola bar and a yogurt in a big purse.   We weren't suppose to bring food into the booths,  they  wanted  you to buy everything from the snack bar.   I would buy a bottle of water and eat my lunch at one of the snack tables.  No one ever said anything to me,  you can't eat snack bar food for three days.    Denice

Great product,  it has inspired me to try a  idea that has been rattling around in my head.   I have a electric rotating disc from a window display when I owned  a store.  It will spin at the pace you set it at for years.   I have  a old banding wheel that doesn't spin anymore,  I am going to try taping them together and see how it works.   If it works I will anchor them together permanently.   I love putting together old junky items and making them use able again.  The older I get the less I want to buy and the madder I get about companies making junk products that have to go directly in the landfill.   Old hippie venting!    Denice

Great product,  it has inspired me to try a  idea that has been rattling around in my head.   I have a electric rotating disc from a window display when I owned  a store.  It will spin at the pace you set it at for years.   I have  a old banding wheel that doesn't spin anymore,  I am going to try taping them together and see how it works.   If it works I will anchor them together permanently.   I love putting together old junky items and making them use able again.  The older I get the less I want to buy and the madder I get about companies making junk products that have to go directly in the landfill.   Old hippie venting!    Denice

Great product,  it has inspired me to try a  idea that has been rattling around in my head.   I have a electric rotating disc from a window display when I owned  a store.  It will spin at the pace you set it at for years.   I have  a old banding wheel that doesn't spin anymore,  I am going to try taping them together and see how it works.   If it works I will anchor them together permanently.   I love putting together old junky items and making them use able again.  The older I get the less I want to buy and the madder I get about companies making junk products that have to go directly in the landfill.   Old hippie venting!    Denice