Congrats to both of my friends for having shows with their wonderful art.
Saturday, July 31, 2010
New cups
Congrats to both of my friends for having shows with their wonderful art.
Friday, July 30, 2010
Lonely boy
Monday, July 26, 2010
Rant du jour
How's the heat out there for everyone?(except for those of you on the other side of the globe) I personally think having 100 degree days just sucks, but then I was complaining about the 20 degree days not to very long ago. I'm less than motivated with the heat like it is, economy in the toilet and the rich just getting richer. Brandon's post today just pisses me off. He is such a great potter as many of you are out there, and like many of you, is struggling with sales. Those that can afford to buy art are just not supporting it. It seems to me that artists are mostly supporting each other. We will buy a pot or a painting or another piece of art when we barely have grocery money. Come on people, SUPPORT YOUR ARTISTS!! Do you want to live in a gray world with no beauty?!?!? I think I might have woke up on the wrong side of the bed. Last night we watched the last of the Lord of the Rings trilogy again and I knew I would be like this when I woke up. It is such a social commentary on the times we are living in and I just get so annoyed with it all! Here's a little flash back to colder days to get us all through August. Can't you just feel that cold air! Let's all put a smile on our faces and get some great art made, if for no other reason than some great blog posts, haha! Happy Monday all!
Saturday, July 24, 2010
Farmers Market Saturday
Wednesday, July 21, 2010
Published twice!

Our first issue is online now!

I have been less than motivated to make anything since these bites came along. I feel like I have been poisoned, and I guess I have in a way, with all that nasty venom inside me. Then yesterday another not pleasant dental visit, so I feel pretty beat up and it's over 100 degrees here, all my stuff is outside, whine whine..... I think it's a studio cleaning day, my wheel has red clay all over it and I am feeling an itch to throw some vases for Raku, so I need my white Raku clay. I also made a little test bowl with some clay I found in my yard. I mixed half raku clay and half the clay from my yard which was a very similar color oddly enough. I'm going to test this and see how it goes. If I could use half clay from my yard and half Raku clay I could really stretch the amount of clay I have. Plus I like the craggy feel of the clay from my yard. Thanks everyone for your comments about Wes, I passed them on to her and she said "awwwww....." :)
Tuesday, July 20, 2010
Rain Fell No More
Wesley played the song she wrote for the first time last night at the Local 506. The quality is awful, it was dark and crowded. It was much better live and I'm really proud of her!Thanks to everyone that was there! It's a week for proud moms, check out the video of June Perry's daughter singing Janis Joplin over at her blog. Boy we all have some great kids don't we!
Monday, July 19, 2010
Mamas
Thanks all for the chigger bite suggestions and thoughts, still itching but nothing a cold one won't help in a minute :)
Saturday, July 17, 2010
Kick ass girls
Sunday, July 11, 2010
sofa blob
We have been absolute blobs today, watched the Tour de France all morning- poor 'ol Lance Armstrong" as Phil Liggett would say! and congrats to Spain, although I thought the game was a bit boring for a final world cup game. I'll be away from the blog for a few days, have a great week everyone.
Historic Stagville
So Braima and I talked about my pottery and the possibilities of taking me to his village to help the women there bring back the traditional pottery making that was lost during the war. Many of the potters were killed and the rebels cut off many limbs of the villagers. I have been reading a lot since I got home and the UN has designated Sierra Leone as the poorest country in the world. Braima and others are doing their best to help rebuild the communities and teach new skills to the people so that they can be a sustainable village.
We are going to get together next week and put together a grant through the International Labor Organization (ILO) and talk about putting together a workshop for about 36 women to get them started with the skills they would need to bring back pottery to the village. This seems so huge, and I don't know how,as one little person, I can do anything, but I truly feel called to do this.When I think about it seriously, I can't really breathe, and I don't know if I can really do it, but I'm thinking about the possibility... I would have to help them dig their clay and prepare it, I don't really know how to do this, teach them coil building techniques, I can do that, and then we would have to fire the pots using traditional pit fire techniques, I can do that. Ironically, I had checked out some books at the library a couple of weeks ago about African pottery making, and have been reading a lot about traditional methods. I'm going to try and make some work as close as possible to how it is done in primitive cultures and see how that goes. I don't know if I will really do this, but it could be an amazing opportunity. Would love to hear some opinions and get a reality check. What do you think?
Thursday, July 8, 2010
Barns and a deer
I am starting to get a bit of an itch to get some canvas and paints and do some paintings of them. It has been forever since I painted and I know they would be crap, but I think it would be fun to try. What I really need to do is take a class. What I really need is another project haha!
Wednesday, July 7, 2010
Biloya Pottery
Monday, July 5, 2010
Slab and Coil
"And this I believe: that the free, exploring mind of the individual human is the most valuable thing in the world. And this I would fight for: the freedom of the mind to take any direction it wishes, undirected. And this I must fight against: any idea, religion, or government which limits or destroys the individual. This is what I am and what I am about."
— John Steinbeck (East of Eden)
for the folks in Toronto!

A busy 8-5 day today. Here are my tools all cleaned up at the end of the day. I am trying to stick with the end of day cleaning so I am more motivated to work the next day. I finished putting terra sig on some barns that I made last week, and worked on three coil bowls. I have to work on them in stages so the coils set up enough that they don't slump. Last week Wes and I went to the UNC campus library. OMG! If you live nearby and haven't been there. I highly suggest it. They had sooooo many ceramics books: English, German, Korean, Chinese, Japanese. Canadian, Early American, folk pottery, slipware, redware, and on and on. And in many different languages too. And that was just the Davis library. Apparently all of the art books are in the art library at the Ackland Museum. Anyway, my point is, I checked out some books on Nigerian, New Guinea, and Camaroon pottery and got an itch to make some coil pots. I really have to be in the right mood, they take so much time. But I put on the ipod and went at it.

This one on the shimpo got a bit out of hand. I made it upside down and it just kept growing. It's really heavy, I need to weigh it and see how much clay it is.
One was dry enough at the end of the day to put terra sig on.
So, thanks to everyone for your comments on the artist statement. I agree that it stands well on the last two paragraphs, thanks for pointing that out. I appreciate everyone being honest. When I was in school we were asked to go around the room during our project presentations and critique the person giving the presentation. There could be a total pile of shit being presented and no one would say anything negative. It drove me crazy! I of course said what I thought (a surprise to you I know!) and then no one would speak to me for the rest of the day. You can give constructive critisism without being hurtful and I much prefer that, so thanks!
— John Steinbeck (East of Eden)
for the folks in Toronto!
A busy 8-5 day today. Here are my tools all cleaned up at the end of the day. I am trying to stick with the end of day cleaning so I am more motivated to work the next day. I finished putting terra sig on some barns that I made last week, and worked on three coil bowls. I have to work on them in stages so the coils set up enough that they don't slump. Last week Wes and I went to the UNC campus library. OMG! If you live nearby and haven't been there. I highly suggest it. They had sooooo many ceramics books: English, German, Korean, Chinese, Japanese. Canadian, Early American, folk pottery, slipware, redware, and on and on. And in many different languages too. And that was just the Davis library. Apparently all of the art books are in the art library at the Ackland Museum. Anyway, my point is, I checked out some books on Nigerian, New Guinea, and Camaroon pottery and got an itch to make some coil pots. I really have to be in the right mood, they take so much time. But I put on the ipod and went at it.
So, thanks to everyone for your comments on the artist statement. I agree that it stands well on the last two paragraphs, thanks for pointing that out. I appreciate everyone being honest. When I was in school we were asked to go around the room during our project presentations and critique the person giving the presentation. There could be a total pile of shit being presented and no one would say anything negative. It drove me crazy! I of course said what I thought (a surprise to you I know!) and then no one would speak to me for the rest of the day. You can give constructive critisism without being hurtful and I much prefer that, so thanks!
Friday, July 2, 2010
Brave and stupid
Yesterday I read a letter to the editor in Ceramics Monthly June/July/August issue(don't like to work in the summer, people?) regarding the artist statements of their selected emerging artists and I just have to say Thank You to the person that wrote this! I am too lazy to get up right now and go get the magazine and scan it or copy the letter so find yourself the letter and read it if you want to know what I am talking about.... basically this person is saying what I think every time I read an artist statement. What are you talking about, is usually my first response. I consider myself a fairly intelligent person, I was a straight A student, I can use proper grammar when forced to and I can have a pretty good conversation with you on occasion. But I can't for the life of me read most of the artist statements that get written by people mostly out of grad school with an MFA. I read the first sentence, lose interest and move on.
A while back I sent a draft of an artist statement to Alex Matisse, who I consider to be an excellent writer, in fact if he decides to not be a potter, he should be a writer. Anyway, I knew that I would get an honest critique from him. Problem was, it was a bunch of horse shit, and made no sense at all. I was writing as if I had been influenced by all those other statements I had read, which in fact, I was. I re read it recently and am basically mortified that I could write something so ridiculous! I think the problem was, I had nothing to say. I wasn't feeling anything for the work I was making. I am now, I know where it's coming from and I sat down and wrote another one because, these applications sometimes require one. I would prefer to just say, I like clay, I fire clay, I sell pottery and be done with it.
So here is the brave and stupid part. I told my friends that I would post my newly written statement on my blog, so here it is. Let me know what you think, feel free to edit and suggest changes.
Tracey Broome Artist Statement
I was born in a small town in North Carolina near the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains, but moved to the coast of South Carolina as a small child and grew up in a town visited every summer by tourists from all over. I always thought that I would be a painter, but pursued a career in interior design instead and spent over twenty-five years designing furniture showrooms, retail stores and theater sets and props. I saw a wheel throwing demonstration at the North Carolina State Fair when I was forty years old, and signed up for a class the next week. That was the beginning of changing careers from full time designer to full time potter.
Although the sand and the ocean are important memories of my childhood, I find that I am influenced most by the rides through rural North Carolina and the visits to Seagrove potters, journeys my grandparents took me on in the summers when I visited them. I loved the barns, the fields, the abandoned houses, the rusty tractors and the colors of the country. Blue and white were the colors at home but in the country there was rust, barn wood, and green trees. I loved it.
I now create work that expresses the serenity and simplicity of those colors in the country, the influences of the barns and houses and sometimes a hint of turquoise from the ocean sneaks in. Most of my work is hand built using either slabs or coils. It is then fired in a gas kiln at low temperatures. My palette includes stains, oxides, and glazes as well as dry clay and, on occasion, acrylic paints. I also include mixed media in some of my work. I use templates that I have designed using drafting skills from my days as a designer, but I never know exactly how the piece will turn out until it has been fired at least once. I love the surprises I get with each piece.
I have a deep respect for the history of what has already been created and try to add to that lineage of creativity with my own personal vision. Art is a companion, and it is my intent that the objects I create originate through my own personal growth. My work changes constantly, but the influences of my past on my art are ever present.
Thursday, July 1, 2010
Colorful flower pots for Summer
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