Today was a happy day. I got to hang out in the studio with Jeanette and Tania. During the day. You see, I got laid off from my "real job" on Friday, so now I'm obsessed with celebrating my independence from "normal business hours."

Maybe it's my imagination, but I felt like it was way more fun to be in the studio during "normal business hours" than it would have been on a Saturday or Sunday.

Different strokes for different folks. Doing what I love to do when I want to be doing it, and not having to squeeze it into my schedule is "like totally major."

That's it. No more quotation marks today.

Critiques and photos are our friends.

Before I joined CCGW, I relied on myself, friends and family for critique. But is critique really that important? According to my college professors, yes. Of course, I didn't listen to a thing they said, so it wasn't until our president Devanie Schilpp dropped the "c" word a couple of times that it dawned on me: Critique is important for artists who would like to grow.

I can only speak for myself here, but for me it's a huge inspiration to see how the other artists in the studio evolve their work and refine their techniques. We all have our areas of expertise, our comfort zones where we can work with speed and produce items we like. Once I have established the boundaries of my comfort zone or my area of "expertise" (if you can call it that) the fun part is then coming up with variations. If I stay in my comfort zone, I get bored. I'm a pottery robot. If I deviate, I'm taking a risk. If I try too many new things at once, I lose track of what works and what doesn't. This is why critique is important to me, and has helped me grow as an artist.

It's not like we call a tribal critique where everyone shows up at the studio and sits in a circle and takes turns making comments about specific pieces. It just kind of happens, usually in a one-on-one conversation.

And this is how I learned that my photography skills had room for improvement. Dev, who happens to be a professional photographer in addition to being a clay and glass genius, suggested that the details in my pots would show up better if I could avoid backlighting.

Huh? What's backlighting?

When I joined etsy.com, I remember reading their pointers about the importance of having good photos when listing inventory on the internet. So I asked for a fancy digital camera for Christmas, and Santa came through. I never bothered to read the instruction manual. I just played with the buttons, and recognized some of the icons from my old 35mm camera that I used in my photography class back in college.

Thank heavens Devanie was kind enough to tweak my camera settings and school me on how to take good shots of my work. Here are the notes:

*Avoid backlighting. Natural light is a must. Use "open shade" or wait till a cloudy day. Avoid harsh light. Soft light is desired.

*If submitting to a gallery or festival, always use a solid white or 18% gray cardstock for the background. Set the item on top of the card, and fold the card so it comes up behind the piece as well. But don't crease it. It should just be a gentle curve. This way when you take the photo it will look like your piece is floating in white space, or gray space.

*Fill the entire frame with your item.

*Show the item from several different angles. Show the details. Show what makes this piece unique.

Having good quality photos of your work will come in handy for museum/gallery submissions, online portfolios, tax/insurance purposes, and of course, for your own personal benefit. What if your piece gets broken or lost? What if it sold 2 years ago and you forgot what it looks like? Then you have a photo to remember it by, in case you want to make a new one.

just throw your hands in the air.

Most artists I know work with their hands, often involving direct manual contact with substances that can damage or dry the skin. Sometimes when I leave the studio my hands feel like they belong to a dried up old lady.

I had been listening to the audioversion of Augusten Burroughs' Possible Side Effects, which tells the story of how Augusten befriended a deformed dermatologist when he had a problem with crackly dry skin on his hands, and how he got this special hand cream that cured his problem.

So I thought, "A-ha! Enough of this bottled lotion nonsense. I need some hand cream in a jar!" And I visualized a blue jar of Nivea. But I kept procrastinating on actually buying the product, because it meant I'd have to go to CVS, my most dreaded shopping destination.

I am fortunate to have a day job in which nobody notices if I take a 3 hour lunch. Part of my ritual when I'm killing time at Whole Foods is to go to the Whole Body department and help myself to the tester tube of Dr. Hauschka hand cream. I really want my very own tube one day, but it costs $22.

I walked away from the $22 tubes of hand cream and saw some jars, and I got that feeling. That "YES" feeling, you know that you get sometimes when you're shopping. I never know when the feeling will come. Sometimes I lie to myself when I want something that doesn't fit, or when I want to try something just because its new and it has a pretty package. Those are fake yes feelings. It's hard to distinguish between fake yes feelings and real ones, but sometimes you just know.

And I knew. Even though technically it says "body cream" and not "hand cream" I still knew this was going to be my new best friend. It cost either $11 or $13, I can't remember. But it doesn't matter because even if this stuff cost $22, I'd buy it again. Its the alba botanicals kukui nut body cream (warning: it is heavy duty. I only use it at night right before I go to bed because it takes a long time for my skin to soak it all up).

Artist hands are beautiful no matter what, so I know we don't need fancy hand cream. I just like having it around.

Happy Birthday, Sophie! CCGW Member Tania Julian gave birth to beautiful Sophie last summer, pictured above.

BRACE YOURSELF.

Because I am about to wax on and on about my new favorite pottery success story: Jonathan Adler. Basically, he started out as a kid who learned pottery at summer camp, and now has 8 retail stores, a book, an interior design business, and is/was the lead judge on Bravo TV's "Top Design."

I first became aware of his work back in 2004 when I was shopping at the Dallas Museum of Art gift shop, where I was immediately drawn to the bold simple designs and unusual color combinations on his needlepoint pillowcases, which were definitely out of my price range at the time.

I Googled him when I got back from the museum, and found out he's really famous for his pottery, not his pillowcases, but then I totally forgot about him. until a few months ago when I needed a bedspread for my new apartment, and I saw the Jonathan Adler Happy Home line at Bed Bath and Beyond, and I could not resist.

I decided I wanted a sham to match, so I just went to his website to try to find one, where I read his story, and looked at more examples of his work.

Y'all. I love this man. This man is a HERO. Just look at his manifesto, and his bio. Not to mention his actual work...

www.jonathanadler.com

INTERESTING NEWS.

There was an interesting article in the ajc today about a new trend of freelance artists finding affordable health insurance through unions. Here's the link to the Freelancer Union if you want to find out more, it seems like a really good plan to me. Union membership is free, you just pay for the health insurance if you want it. There's also a networking thing where you can post a profile and a description of services you provide.

http://www.freelancersunion.org/

HOT OFF THE PRESS!

Guess what y'all? Beehive Co-op is hosting summer classes on knitting, sewing, papermaking, handbag making, and art business basics.

I'm SOoo excited! I've already registered for the business basics class. One of my personal goals is to become a financially stable full time artist, and I know this class is going to have helpful information.

And don't forget that your friends at CCGW are hosting glass fusion, pottery and jewelry making classes this summer, too. Scroll down to the "Sizzlin Summer Classes" post for more info.

Please mark your calendar for the CCGW Sidewalk Sale on July 28.

Knitting: its not just for Blue Hairs.

"The mind plays tricks on you. You play tricks back! It's like you're unraveling a big cable-knit sweater that someone keeps knitting and knitting and knitting and knitting and knitting and knitting..."

Remember that from Pee Wee's Big Adventure when he invites his friends over for a meeting to discuss the fact that his magical bike got stolen? I think about that quote a lot as I'm knitting a gigantic cotton blanket for myself.

Originally I asked Mom to do it for me, since I didn't know how to knit. Because Mom and I have the same disease where we actually finish about 2 out of every 50 art projects we begin, she suggested I do it myself. Luckily, she was able to teach me how to knit at our family reunion last weekend, so I'm well on my way of completing the first of nine panels in the blanket.

Nell at Knitch recommended the Mason Dixon Knitting book by Kay Gardner and Ann Shayne. At first I kind of had a mental block about becoming a person who would actually read a book about knitting, as opposed to just looking at the pictures. But the two writers are not only hilarious, but they know their stuff. I learned a lot from this book. I couldn't resist reading the whole thing, even the patterns I know I'll never use. And I was really glad to see that my pre-existing idea of knitting sub-culture being full of prissy old grammaws and uber-cool hipsters was totally wrong. Normal people knit all the time.

I love knitting because it's a portable art form, and I get to make practical things that people can actually use. I get to pick out pretty colors and textures. I can make the projects long and time consuming, or short and sweet. Plus I get to use math, and math is FUN.

Best of all, I can multi-task: Knit and listen to audiobooks. Knit in the car while somebody else is driving. Knit while I sit around waiting for my oil change at Cactus Car Wash. Knit through my attempts at meditation. Knit during the sales meetings at work. Just kidding, I'm not that brave. (Yet.) But you get the idea.

Anyway, I'm pretty excited about being a knitter, and even more excited that my CCGW friends also like to knit. Although we probably won't form our own CCGW knitting circle, you'll find a few of us knitting up a storm at Knitch on Friday nights.

CCGW member Carla Kaiser recommends...

We like to spread the news when we come across a book or video that we find helpful or inspiring, especially when it's relevant to artists. There is an awesome DVD produced by PBS, available at the Fulton County Public Library System and it's called Organizing from the Inside Out by Julie Morgenstern, a regular contributor to "O" The Oprah Magazine.

I'm not going to lie, y'all. When I first popped in the DVD, I busted out laughing because it totally seemed like a Saturday Night Live parody. But I soon noticed that Julie Morgenstern radiates a genuine passion for her work not unlike how the members of our co-op feel about our clay and glass work. Seriously. The woman is passionate about organization. She loves what she does. And its contagious.

A lot of artists have day jobs, families, physical fitness goals or active social lives and I don't know about anybody else, but sometimes I feel guilty or selfish when I leave it all behind and head to the studio. If I did all those things I "should" be doing, I'd never make it to the studio to create anything.

Morgenstern addresses this issue. She says we must first determine what is truly important to us, and organize our time and our space accordingly. She said we must be patient with ourselves when we are in a state of transition, such as moving, new job, new marriage, new baby, new divorce...whatever. She says that during times like this it is actually unproductive to try to organize because we are in a transformational phase where our lives are changing rapidly. She said its better to wait till things settle down.

Anyway, after watching this DVD I felt empowered to make the choices and actions that will point me in the direction of being organized. I even cleaned out my locker at the co-op!

We are still working on the details of getting our gallery hours officially established, but one of us is usually there by 10:30-ish on Saturday mornings. By the way, our neighbor Stone Soup Kitchen has awesome weekend brunch. And our other neighbor The Urban Gardener has an amazing selection of plants and gardening supplies.

We will have our website updated soon with all the new class schedules and photos of the new space and our work. Stay tuned, and don't forget to come to the studio and introduce yourself!