Something Old, Something New

Heather:
Well, after hanging four years of shows in Macon, I am back to it here in Iowa. This week I am helping the Octagon's esteemed Gallery Curator, Heather Johnson hang the next show and I feel right at home. Heather J's style is different from mine (she likes to hang the paintings symmetrically like butterfly wings; each wall section is anchored by one large painting and then paintings of similar size are placed on either side until the section is full) which I think works better for this gallery space than my installation philosophy. The way I like to hang a show is to detract attention from the whole wall, pair paintings that compliment each other and make niches of theme or color that pull a viewer in close. Octagon's gallery is a lot larger than Macon Arts and is a less attractive room with gray carpets and uneven sheet rock walls. So the show has to make more of a statement from farther away.

Something new for me is I have been signed up to teach two workshops in the Octagon studios! One is a teapot workshop, hopefully occurring in January. It will be four weeks long, one two hour session per week. I'm hoping that on the fourth week I will have fired everyone's teapots and we can have a round table critique! (this may be a little ambitious). The second is harder - a children's earthday class with the goal of making a hand made version of a chia pet. I'm going to research chia pets tonight. I have never heard of making your own chia pet but I can sort of work out how to in my imagination. I'll have to try it out myself before subjecting a bunch of kids to possible disapointment.

Our Open House at CASA is in November and I've got some works in the pipeline for that. It takes me a long time to get from actually forming a piece to having it glaze fired. I started working with earthenware which you don't have to fire twice which will save time. But I'm still working with good ole porcelain too - something old and something new!