QOTW What other creative things are you involved with?

[Pres]

Hi folks, yesterday, @Minposted in the Question of the Week pool. . . .a suggestion for QOTW would be what other creative things are you involved with? This in response to a posting by @Hyn Patty where she says I have a million other things I do. 

QOTW  What other creative things are you involved with?

Myself, being retired, I have quite a bit more time on my hands than many of you. Because of this my regular activities changed and expanded. Where I used to bowl 1 night a week, now I bowl 3-4 afternoons a week depending on what week it is. I also exercise quite a bit, kayak when the weather is good, paint, draw, and other artistic venues. I often work in the HS Ceramics studio in the Winter aiding the Art teacher with the adult Ceramics class I started when I was teaching. We travel, next trip a cruise at ports in Japan with excursions, and then one later in the year to Greece. Yeah, I stay busy.

 

best,

Pres

[Hulk]

Clay is a major creative activity for me.

The first thing that came to mind (yesterday) was problem solving.
My last full time working gig (and the two full time working gigs afore the last, similar) was all about problem solving - software, configuration, communication protocols analysis, et cetera - I miss it, somewhat.
Immersion in detail, research, analysis, application, testing, documentation - the time just flew by.
...and, every once in a while, someone appreciated the work.
I'm posing that defining "the problem" and "problem space" - where we believe the problem exists - is a creative exercise, where imagination, flexibility, and plastic points of view can be as/more important than grinding through all the possibilities.
Grinding is, however, required.
Grind.

Retirement is nice.
Now my main "others" include home construction/maintenance/improvement projects at our and our son's houses, biking, swimming, reading, and volunteer gigs.
...not so much "creative" in the typical sense.

What I'm going to take with me when (aaah, in a half hour or so...) I get up (from this recliner, heh) to face the current home improvement project, we're creating all the time. Our lives.

[Hyn Patty]

Oooh, I thanks for the clarification of what QOTW means!  Nice thread I'll look forward to reading as others post.  Well... I'll keep this brief because I'm trying to get a sculpture finished up and shipped off today to be 3D scanned and then off to one of my casting services.

I am mostly an equine sculptor and do equine sculpture finish work in both ceramics and resin editions.  It's my full time job.  I own my LLC and am the sole proprietor.  In two years I'll hit my studio's 50th anniversary since I started doing this kind of work even though I'm only in my mid 50's - I started very young back in 1976!  My family was very encouraging!  Anyway, I got a degree in Illustration with double minors in Art History and Jewelry, then a Master's in Painting.   I mostly sculpt in oil clay but sometimes I work with epoxy for a hard original, or I work with wax.  I have tried to pick up 3D modeling but so far that's just not looking like my thing yet.

I'm also a landscape and wildlife painter working in oils, chalk pastels, watercolors, etc and do plein air as well as working from photo references, and I'm an amateur photographer.   I grew up with a dark room in one of our bathrooms so that's my father's fault!   I shoot all of my own work and I maintain my own website, newsletter, blog, articles, Facebook pages, etc.

I am also a class instructor and frequently asked to do seminars, workshops, judge juried and non-juried events all over the country.   This year I'm trying to pick up video editing so I can offer online courses - and I publish articles, so someday I'd like to work on a book.   I also dabble in jewelry but I don't have a lot of time for it.  I DO farm out my big projects but in studio I also do my own waste molds and solid resin casting (I don't have a roto caster for hollow casting resins but I do 3D print in house), make my own plaster molds and rubber masters for slip casting in earthenware, stoneware, porcelain, and I'm now experimenting with making my own English fine bone china slip.  3D printing in particular has been a steep learning curve the past two years but I got the hang of it!

I suppose I'm all over the place but because I do my art studio full time, I really like to switch things up and jump from project to project often to combat burnout.   I am cutting back hard on some distractions so I can focus down more on my own sculpting and casting, which means less custom glazing.  I am  however accounted as one of the finest custom glazers of equine ceramics in the world so that's not nothing!  I would also like to sculpt more dogs but I just haven't had time to do any in years.  I own two electric kilns, both about 20 years old. 

Oh!  And I ALSO do ceramics restoration!  I used to do it on the side for others but these days I only offer it to my own clients.  If they invest in a piece of my ceramics work I have a life time guarantee for FREE repairs in studio for most things if they pay the shipping.  So once in a while I also teach how to do that, or am doing it in between other projects.  I do both 'cold' repairs with epoxy and paint, as well as 'kiln repairs' and reglazing.  I have two pieces here I'm just finishing up and shipping out this week.  Sometimes I don't sleep much, hahaha!

Edited January 22 by Hyn Patty

[Denice]

Not much into sports,  but I can walk around in my house and from my car to the scooters in the store.   I know this doesn't sound like much activity but my neuro is surprised I can still walk.  Most of our remodeling is finished and my sewing room has almost all of the junk stored in it gone.   I have already finished up some work and thinking about another project.   I am more of a upholstery seamstress  than clothing.    I am planning on planting some gourds this summer for qourd art.   Clay is my main focus,  I am starting to feel a little anxious  I haven't been out in my studio for three weeks because of bad weather.   Denice

[GEP]

I like to say “even potters need a hobby,” and mine is bookbinding! I make hand-bound notebooks, sketchbooks, and journals. I love paper, cloth, adhesives, and sewing. My graphic design training taught me about pages/sheets/signatures, so I get to use my previous career’s knowledge. 

[Kelly in AK]

What a delight to hear more about the lives of people I interact with regularly but don’t really know at all.

I’m an art teacher at a public school (22+ years). It’s unusual in that it’s a k-12 school. I have to explore all sorts of creative endeavors just to be good at my job. A few of them drew me in far beyond what I needed to teach the subject.

Clay is where my heart is, I got a BFA and MFA in ceramics before my teacher life. A significant part of “extracurricular” creative activity still revolves around it. I like to make the tools I use and I want them to be as beautiful as my pots. The wood for handles and ribs comes from what I collect and I will use a branch or plank or block I harvested over lumber from the store at every turn.

The students got me into paper making, poor things didn’t know I was going to make them chop apart plants, boil them in alkali, then spend hours beating them to a literal pulp. I’ve made a lot of paper of my own since then. Coptic stitched a few journals too, @GEP. 

A serious creative anomaly happened when I decided it shouldn’t be so hard to distill essential oils from plants. I was wrong, but the process relies on third world technology and I’m pretty fluent in that. A couple years later I had an efficiently working still and system and obtained essential oils from the most interesting plants growing locally.

When I learn about something I get more interested in it. It’s a blessing, and a curse. I’m always up to something.

[Min]

1 hour ago, Kelly in AK said:

When I learn about something I get more interested in it. It’s a blessing, and a curse. I’m always up to something.

That's how I feel too and probably why I have stuck with ceramics for so long. So much too learn and experiment with, one lifetime is barely enough time to scratch the surface. I am especially interested in the chem side of ceramics because I always want to know the why of things or what happens if ...

Ever since I can remember I have had my hands in something. Started with textiles (batik, weaving, sewing) then wood (furniture) then clay. 

Thanks for posting my question Pres.

[Mark C.]

Diving,.taking underwater photos,tuna fishing,building, electrical work, solar ,Topside photos, gardening ,Nature,Outback camping. Travel . Lifes short

[grackle]

Mosaics, and I just realized I should be glazing and firing scraps of slabs with all my colors to use in mosaics, duh..  Kayaking, especially on rivers, we love the Rio Grande and other Texas rivers.  Have also spent a good many fall weeks on Lake Powell in Kayaks, and the San Juan river, plus the Missouri River in Montana.  Which is to say, we love to travel, especially in the west, getting off road and into the back country.  My husband works in wood, and I help him design boxes and clocks.  The clocks are my favorites.

Now that spring is in sight, I am starting seeds and even planting some things, .like swiss chard and lettuce and other greens.

[JohnnyK]

Over the past 8 years my wife and I have contributed to our local PBS TV Art Auction. My contributions have been photography and Raku pottery, while hers was a "Wine lover's Birdhouse" which was a birdhouse whose walls were covered with wine labels and the roof with corks, the perch was a corkscrew. This year we are going to collaborate. I'm going to make a Horsehair Raku lamp base and she is going to do a lampshade covered with wine labels. We've done this in the past with a very large wine bottle as the base and her label covered shade. it will be interesting to see what kind of reaction we get to the project.

 

[akilpots]

i've been getting into spoon carving slowly...i also love to camp and spend time in the outdoors.

[Denice]

Hobbies can keep your mind and body active.   Growing gourds is preparing for my next hobby,  one of these years my MS will prevent me from working with clay.  Gourds can be the shape of pots and are light weight.   You can varnish,  paint, dremel, stain and cut designs out,   I already have 3 big lawn bags filled with a nice variety of dried gourds.   I have started a small collection of gourd art for inspiration,  two of them are from Peru and one is from a gift shop on 5th avenue.   Denice

[Chilly]

Creative activities?  Oh, there's a list.

Gardening is my outdoor creation, placing leaves and colours together to combine and contrast.  The challenge of getting seeds to germinate, cuttings to strike, flowers to flower, veg to eat.

Sewing, mainly household stuff like curtains, but lots of dressmaking too.

Fibre stuff - spinning, dyeing, weaving, knitting and crochet, mainly with sheep wool, but also silk, flax and alpaca. 

Glass - fusing and copper foiling and leading.

[LeeU]

 "Climate Change" : Goldfinch,  budding lilac tree, & post-snow/freezing rain iced branches 1/24/24, in NH. I do some photography.  

[Roberta12]

Sewing, crocheting, jewelry making (with pieces I have made from clay) swimming, and I am teaching myself Tarot cards right now.  Always something.