What do you do when you turn 4? Wear a pink bathing suit, go up to an Orygun lake and visit your friend who lives in a van...a dear friend who makes a Happy Birthday sign for you by writing on a old paper bag with a burned stick of wood. Because she couldn't find a pen. Continue reading

Seventeen years ago today and yet it feels like you just left us... "Give me time enough in this place, and I will surely make a beautiful thing." Continue reading

It's a beautiful dream, man. The only kind of dream that a six-year-old boy can articulate as he works in a pottery studio trying to literally make lego bricks out of clay. He made the bricks. He patterned them with real lego bricks. And then he stuck them together to make a robot, which would have fallen apart had I not introduced the ceramic term "crosshatching." He just looked at me with hooded eyes and gave a big sigh. And yet....it was he, the dreamer of all things lego, who gave me the idea to not only print in the... Continue reading

This is what my Josephine looks like in the morning. And, yes, the hair stays that way most of the day. It brings to mind Jimmy Fallon as Neil Young singing Willow Smith's hip hop song. (Watch here.) This has slayed me for a few weeks now. But here is our JBJ being interviewed by Diane. Diane: What do you like to eat? Josephine: Cilantro. Diane: Is there anything you don't like to eat? Josephine: Broccoli. I'm not a meat eater. I'm not a soup eater. Diane: What is your favorite kind of ice cream? Josephine: Vanilla. Diane: Where do... Continue reading

I have been doing a major deep cleaning of the studio today and I came across this: a clay "tile" with a chicken scratched into it and the words "Why make one when you can make two?" Who did this? I suspect it was some passing through studentfriend (and, yes, that is a good word. Think "manchild.") Was it you, Eric Boven, commenting on the allure of multiples? Was it you, Jessica Dekker, making fun of me for being pregnant when I could hardly handle one? Was it you, Liz Lucas, right after Josephine was born? Both my children are... Continue reading

Here are the raw giraffe platters I've been making, freshly carved. I actually did them as a custom order for an etsy customer who has bought a couple of my pieces. They were a fun challenge, particularly trying to fit them on a platter without making them too small (are we seeing a giraffe far off in the tundra?) or too boring given the elongated shape of the platter. Note the cool tree and grass "handles." And here's how I've been carving them first and painting in the engobe. These beauties will be fired once, covered in a clear glaze... Continue reading

And how did those cow plates turn out? Well, all I have to say is....Mooooo Moo! Moooooooooo... Moo! Moo! Moo! Wait a minute! What the #@!! is that rooster doing in here? Oh, we're gonna have fun this summer! Continue reading

Last week, all these things happened: it rained monsoon-style for a whole week, my best friend from college visited, Gus went out of town, the kindergarten-end-of-year madness continued, I went to the the police station to be fingerprinted (more on that later...), and I frantically hired a babysitter so I could take another printing workshop with local artist Denise Kester. The last workshop I took from Denise was monoprinting. This one was centered around drawing on tracing paper with conte crayon and then using your drawing with layers of waterbased ink. It had been such a harried week that I... Continue reading

pillows by Djenya It is ironic that I am up at 6 a.m. on a gloomy, rainy morning, obsessed with ceramic pillows. You have probably seen ceramic pillows in museums and thought, "How can anyone get a good night's sleep on that?" Or "This piece of pottery is so lovingly made and so intricately decorated it shouldn't be used for a pillow!" But let me tell you, even a cursory research brings up a whole wealth of information-- like how ceramic pillows are still used in some parts of the world or how ancient Chinese pillows were often decorated as... Continue reading

In typical fashion, I couldn't wait until my new cow plates were fired to show them off. Here they are. Cows are hard to draw for me. Kind of like owls, which are also difficult. What's going on? Is it the noses? Is it the weird shaped heads? Anyway, most of these are from photos of local cows that were peering through a fence at me one day. I think their tags are hilarious; I know they are for marking the cows, but I got to thinking how they might be little bumper stickers of who they are. Then I... Continue reading

Monday. But two things are making me smile....Princess Beatrice's hat (did you see THAT?) and the thought of chipmunks drinking cappuccinos. Dude, you're holding the mug the wrong way. Continue reading

It was a Katie Morag kind of day today. The hills overlooking the Rogue Valley reminded me of Scotland. Dark blue glowering rainclouds but the dazzling green of spring. I call today a "Katie Morag" day because it reminds me of the excellent books by Mairi Hedderwick that my Scottish pal has been sending the children. They love the stories-- even the poems (!)-- but I think I am the one who truly wants to be little red-haired Katie, living in her quaint village on an island off the coast of Scotland. Watching the rainclouds and the rainbows afterward. Continue reading

Here are the duckies in the stall of the bathroom tub caddy. It was the day they had waited for all year-- Theo's birthday--for they knew they would be put through their paces on the irrigation ditch above Liberty Street here in Ashland. Here is the invitation. Crown was the favored winner from last year. But, in a surprising turn, it was the listing Cowboy who won! And then Cap in the second race! (That mild mannered guy-- you think he's Ritchie Cunningham but he's really Eddie Haskel.) Continue reading

So last year Theo caught me hiding the eggs outside and asked, "Mom, are you the Easter Bunny?" To which I could tell no lie. This year, when Theo told Josephine that the Easter Bunny was really "just Mom," I said, "Ah, but you don't know the Golden Hippo of Easter." They perked up. "The Golden Hippo comes on Easter night and lays eggs in the woods filled with prizes for you to find." Easter morning, needless to say, they were up at the crack of dawn. Want to make your small kids go on a brisk hike, uphill? Just... Continue reading

"In Portland, you can put a bird on anything and call it art!" says one character to another in the new TV series Portlandia. Watch them make fun of the City of Roses (and etsy) here. I doff my hat and bird to Portlandia with my new series of plates. It might not be art, but at least it's funny... Continue reading

On Saturday, we went down to see the bunnies at the Northwest Nature Shop here in Ashland. And Josephine was, well, a bit dubious about it. So she sat on my lap. I held the beasts and she shyly petted them. Guinea Pigs...not so scary but still not the type of animals you want to hold yourself. I had a great day planned: all of us meet friends Fred and Fiona and Baby Benjamin for the bunnies, have lunch, go meet some teenager dressed as the Easter Bunny at another store and decorate some cookies. What could go wrong? Well,... Continue reading

Here are my new plates, which would be good for any time of the year, but which are great easter gifts for your pals with a sense of humor. It all started with a drawing I made of a jackrabbit, which has the same gleeket look as my dog Hamish. I know I shouldn't laugh at my own jokes. Anyway. I made these plates and other work because I was gearing up for the Oregon Potter's Association show, which is the last weekend in April, up in Portland. Alas, I'm not going. Why? Because last Saturday I stood on one... Continue reading

This started out as three red dots. I know because the artist, Denise Kester, was doing a demo of her monoprint method at a two-day workshop I went to at her studio a couple months ago. Denise is a printmaker here in Ashland, Oregon. And she not only is an amazing artist, but an insightful teacher as well. I am going to save my ravings about Denise and printmaking for another post. In the meantime I wanted to share her perspective of the class (and creativity and printmaking.) This is from her monthly email newsletter, Monthly Musings: Last weekend I... Continue reading

Well, I had another birthday today. And here is another photo of me that I like. Isn't it interesting that all the photos I will accept to be put on the internet are of me as a child? This rhubarb one I particularly like because I so vividly remember that day. My best friend, Andrea Hurd (aka Teeny) and I were living it up. It was summer and we were in the high country of Colorado near Steamboat Springs. It was the late 70s. We had dressed as Indians (note food coloring war paint on my face and, yes, I... Continue reading

Long ago, before the new studio, I worked in a pumphouse. A 6' X6' pumphouse, uninsulated, with the pump still in it. When I decided I'd like it for a studio, I spent countless hours removing the junk piled up inside and putting in a couple salvaged windows for cross ventilation. The door wouldn't shut, so I found another one with a window in it, and painted the door bright red. With blue-green dragonflies. I traded some of my initial lopsided bowls for the work of a carpenter friend, who boarded up the ceiling. Then I had a lean-to shed... Continue reading

After two weeks of "Influenza A," mention must be made of the snow day. In Oregon, the snow is usually sparse and wet, but this snowfall was light and deep, canceling schools and making us seize the moment and play. (We knew it was ephemeral.) It lasted two days... And then of course the sun came out and the bathtub was a little too warm... Continue reading

(source) Last Tuesday was a day of great highs and lows for me. High because I sold two of my platters through etsy-- one going to California and the other to Massachusetts. Low because I realized I had no appropriate boxes. When I first started etsy, I learned about shipping the hard way. Blithely, I thought that every time I got an order, I could just saunter down to our local co-op and find a great box. I also thought foam peanuts were the way to go. Then the very first dish I sold through etsy broke in transit. And... Continue reading

I try to make some variation, I really do. So why did I just produce a whole bunch of goldfinch dishes in which almost all the goldfinch are facing the same way? Except for that ONE on the poppy stem. He's the rebel. Continue reading

Of course I only had time to make one. But isn't it a beauty? This is something to work on for next Valentine's Day, although hearts really never go out of style. It's a sad and happy Valentine's Day here. Sad because Theo woke up with a 101 fever and is lounging about in his pjs while I dash back and forth to the studio. I joked with him that, well, he was literally red for Valentine's Day. I'm so excited, though, about today-- most of all because I finally got into this super cool online marketplace-- Poppytalk Handmade. I'm... Continue reading

I know I've written about the robins before, but they truly are wonderful to see in the Oregon winter. What cracks me up is that a whole flock usually shows up on a cloudy day, and they stand around our land as if someone had placed them there, like a carefully arranged sculpture garden. Anyway, I enjoy common robins a lot. I've done them on bowls.... Now tiles.... And I can't get all metaphorical about them-- like making them into "the return of hope" OR "the promise of spring" OR "a time to renew..." No, no. A big flock of... Continue reading