It's just like "Wild Kingdom" !

   I could say that this is why I'm not posting about work related things ( THOSE BAD ANIMALS !!) but it's not at all. At Christmas or when when family is in town it just doesn't work to do sculpture work  that will then get dry while I'm not looking because I'm off cavorting with my family.  It makes the carving more difficult than it needs to be. These are just my studio companions doing their thing. Which is often one of them happily being dragged around the room by the other one's leash. Believe me, I don't make them do these things.  

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Bhindi with Snow on Nose

       She puts up with a lot from me, but as I told her today "at least I don't put costumes on you ". Yet.

Roadtrip !!

  Well, really it was just to Lynchburg to deliver my ceramic sculptures to Suzanne , owner of Artifacts Gallery , a great little art+craft gallery that I've worked with fruitfully for a long time now.  On the drive there and back, I was thinking about the relationships between galleries and an artist because I'm ready to expand my outlets. That's a tricky thing but in my mission statement for this blog, my intent was to relay my experience as an artist , the difficult parts as well as the successes.  Part of that is selling, obviously an artist has to sell their work in order to live and make more work but another aspect is the person selling your work. The aforementioned tricky part is that you have to throw yourself up there to be judged, hopefully the person in charge likes your work and wants to buy it. I personally feel that a buyer shouldn't just think it'll sell but they should really like your work personally. In my experience , it will come through to their own customer if they don't. If they do want to buy, there are yet more sticky parts, you have to like them, too. Well, like is a strong word, maybe trust is a better one. You rely on them to be your representative to the world within their space and to deal with you fairly and honestly. I have left very good selling galleries because I either didn't like or trust the owner,or both. Thankfully, that's unusual. Over the last 17 years (Holy Cow ! ) most people have been great to work with and sometimes, as with Suzanne , I even got a friend out of the deal.

On my walk with Bhindi...

  .....we saw these gorgeous leaves with their amazing colors. Until this week Bhindi has been doped up on multiple pills for Lyme's disease and allergies. So for once in her life she was completely uninterested in walking. But now we're back to it. Just in time for winter !

RECAP..I still love Staunton..

  For those of you who have just joined us, I will now do a recap of this blog to date.  I've been a sculptor for 15 years , I lived and worked on a mountaintop in Bedford County.  For the last 5 years ( leaving out the last year) I was a caregiver for my mother who had had a stroke. When that ended I chose to move to Staunton and begin my work again but in the "city". I bought a pre-pre civil home and am slowly improving it. This blog is among other things an example of how this artist works or DOESN'T WORK ! when other things ( like a kitchen renovation ) are going on). Basically , I yammer on about my clay sculptures of Dinosaurs , reptiles, amphibians and last night A BEAR! and also about my garden and my photogenic pets, Bhindi, Sasha and Spike. Coincidentally, this is Sasha complaining about something. Although I have to say , judging by how much time she spends on the counters , she heartily approves of the kitchen reno.  But she still complains about it.  I also like to talk about Staunton , Virginia and how much I love living here. Because I do love it here. The people are friendly and you can walk to downtown and there is a downtown to walk to, and people are interested in the enviroment and food. All in all , I have no regrets about up and moving to a small town where I literally knew no one. I recommend it highly, but only if you're moving here.