It’s been a while since I did anything with my actual website or blog. I was having thinky-thoughts this morning about some of the changes I want to make this year in my artistic practice and this seemed like the right place to start logging that process.
A brief summery for anyone who might not have known me for very long: I retired from the Army in 2006 after 21 & a half years of service. I wanted a complete change to my life so I used my GI Bill to go to school for art. I took every class I could and learned all sorts of nifty things. There were 3 subjects that I really loved. Mixed Media Jewelry making, Fine Bookbinding and (of course) Ceramics/Functional Art Pottery.
When I finished school I just sort of played around with pottery for a few years and then in 2014 I started really pushing myself to work on my skills and crafting a real art business. I feel really good about where I am and the directions I’m going with my functional art pottery. I miss the mixed media and bookbinding though. I miss the challenges of figuring out ways to combine disparate materials.
I’m lucky enough to have the buffer of my military retirement and the support of my partners so that I don’t have to make a living at my art. I’ve decided that I’m going to make a few changes in my art practice and give myself more time to play with all the materials available to me. I’m absolutely still going to be making pottery but slowly shifting to a focus on more challenging, fancier limited edition or one of a kind pieces. I also want to expand my “inspired by history” collection adding a few more time periods and different areas of the world.
In addition to the changes I’m working on with my pottery I’ve registered for two mixed media jewelry making workshops for this summer. Both of them are being taught by artists I admire (Keith Lo Bue and Susan Lenart Kazmer) and I’m super excited to dive back in to the excitement of working with a variety of different art materials. I even have some (exciting to me) ideas of ways to combine the mixed media with my functional art pottery and design truly unique one of a kind pieces!
For my in person vending I’m going to be rebranding to Sidhefire Arts Emporium and starting to offer a curated selection of items besides pottery that fit in with my design esthetic. I also want to try and do more collaborative work with other artists. I am so inspired by interacting with other artistic spirits and seeing what materials they use and the choices they make with their own projects!
So yes! Some change and new things coming soon from Sidhefire Arts. 🙂 I’ll also be trying to post more here on my blog since this gives me a better format to use as sort of a digital diary and a place to share my projects and experiments.
