I just received official notice that the Phoenix Faerie Festival will not be happening this year. The actual news is that it's been postponed until next year, but the effect is still the same. Reasons quoted are to allow event coordinators to regroup and re-energize.
I know there's been some logistics that seem to be playing against this fest. The event tries to take place in a wooded or treed area. Yes these places exist here in Phoenix! It seems we are having difficulties acquiring a good location, and when we do, it just comes down to too many regulations coming in and wrecking a good thing.
Of course it's more complicated than that, but that's my war. Logistics be damned, I want my fest!
So... okay, I now have almost TWO YEARS to plan for the next fest. Somehow I have to keep my creative juices flowing and not think about how much this really sucks eggs. And if I do come up with something creative and butt kicking, I still have to figure out how to keep it intact without breaking it. And in the interim, I'll just have to find another venue to sell my wares, but I don't know where. Maybe this is just too much for me. Perhaps I'll just hang my hat and forget escaping for a bit into fantasy altogether.
Perhaps, but perhaps not. I know myself enough to know that I could give two snots whether I actually sell my shit or not. Of course it's always nice to sell your crap, but sales aren't really what drive me. I'd be doing this even without the Faerie Fest. I could always argue that there's still the Phoenix First Fridays, but that seems to have gone away as well.
So back to my creations. More to the point, my lack of creations! LOL! Seems I've been too busy doing nothing lately to actually do anything. I have a bunch of small projects waiting for my return to the creation table and get them back up and going. Meh, it's winter, though you wouldn't know it by the unusually warm weather. It's the season of rebirth. Out with the old Oak King, in with the Holly King! Actually its currently a time where the old Oak King sleeps, awaiting His rebirth as the Holly King, but I digress... My point is that its the season of rebirth, where all greenery is in deep slumber awaiting the awakening in the spring. Perhaps I'm more in tune with the seasons than I realize and my creative juices are merely sleeping, awaiting their spring revival.
Perhaps. All my beloved little ficus trees are all fast asleep outside, waiting on the spring. Its a bit difficult to get into the spirit of bonsai creativity when everything has retreated into their dreaming states. Try as I can, I cannot bring myself to do anything creative. I have plenty of different clays, but no will to work it.

Did I mention I've been busy?

Most of the things in the studio have been fired. Still waiting a few items to be raku fired, but other than that, I'm done for the season.

I've been turning and burning, taking pictures of items as they come out of the kiln, and putting them on my etsy shop.

I've also been potting up as much stuff as possible. Did I mention things have been growing like weeds? Been busy wiring things up and getting them ready. There's been some really great surprises hidden amongst the vines.

Once I get everything all potted up, I'll be turning my attention over to a few epoxy clay projects I have lined up. They're literally lined up my project table, waiting!

soo.... I've been in the studio.

Busy busy.

The one octopus pot that was hiding in the studio still hasn't been fired. Soon, I imagine. I have multiple octopus pots that I'm going to high fire (cone 10). Still awaiting the dragon high fire. Very anxious to see how they turn out.

As of this writing, I have two fish sculptures and three or four pots on the raku shelf, waiting to dance in the raku kiln. The pots harken back a few years ago, when I was going for pots with ultra-smooth surfaces. I'm doing these based on a request. All raku pieces have my trademark combination of raku and low-fire crystal glazes.

I decided to ignore the broken pieces. For now. So much to do, so little time.

Awaiting their bisque firing are multiple pots: a couple 'turk' pots, a couple round pots, two 'primitive' pots, a 'rocket' pot, a couple free form pots, a couple of fish sculptures, and a couple of goblin heads.

In case anyone cares, I'm back from vacation mode. I went to San Diego for a week with the family, did the whole Sea World and beach thing. For a week I was very active, being out and about from about 10am until 10pm. Just non stop activity. Lots of eating, but lots and lots and being active.

So now I'm back to work. And I'm back to the clay studio. Most importantly, I'm back to creating as much clay as possible. I had with me one octopus clay pot that I recently did, along with a smaller piece. I took it in to the Dragon, and hand built a few more items:

two fish
an octopus pot
Mishy pointed out that I had a few pieces that I had forgotten about, so I also had a few pieces to glaze:
an octopus pot with horns
two dragon heads
a sea urchin pot
a primitive dragon whistle
a couple of sea slugs
a broken fish

I used high fire glaze on the octopus pot. One of the dragon heads was a little broken (tongue was broken). Rather than toss this item, I decided to experiment a little. I dipped this dragon head in high fire Robin Egg glaze. I then used a sponge to remove most of the glaze from the raised edges, highlighting the details of the dragon head. I'm really anxious to see how this will turn out!

The other pieces I will get to eventually. The other dragon head will most likely be raku fired, the sea urchin might go high fire. As for the broken fish, we'll see. Maybe I'll use it to experiment.

I'm on vacation

If anyone is reading my blog, you might have noticed my etsy shop link is blank.
Aaaand if you haven't noticed, I haven't posted much to my blog.
I'm on vacation mode. What can I say, it's hot. Hotter than snot. So I'm taking a vacation. Not a long one, but a long one by my standards. I've also pre-paid my dues for the month of August, so I'll be in the studio as long as I can, working on clay.
So I won't be posting much, if any. Not until September maybe. Even now, this post has taken me 90 minutes to list this much. Very distracted.
But I promise I'll be back with a lot more. Might even post once in a while, but not a lot of substance. Not until I'm BACK!

Monterey Chicken

Monterey Chicken
For a change, I thought I'd include a recipe for the Monterey Chicken dinner I made tonight:

Monterey Chicken
4-6 chicken breasts, each cut into 3-4 thin strips
1/4 cup olive oil
2-3 cups Monterey cheese
one package of bacon
fresh corn tortillas
2 cups of tomatillo sauce (recipe follows)

Garnish:
diced roma tomatoes
diced green onions
Mexican sour cream
Queso Cotija

Preheat oven to 425.
Prep the grill with REAL mesquite wood. If you do not have mesquite wood, QUIT!
Prepare the tomatillo sauce, keep warm.
Cook bacon until lightly brown. Not too crispy.

Marinate the chicken in olive oil, sprinkling with salt and pepper. Cook over mesquite wood until just brown. The wood should be nice and HOT. Do not overcook! We're trying to just cook it, but we're really just after the smokey flavor.
Chop strips into bite sized strips. Place into 13x9 baking dish. Add bacon bits all over. Smother with plenty of sauce and LOTS of Monterey cheese. You might need more cheese. Toss into hot oven on the top rack for about 30 minutes. You're just trying to melt the cheese, but a little charring of the cheese will only add flavor!

Lightly fry the corn tortillas in oil until they are soft (about 20 seconds per tortilla. Oil should be HOT, or you'll end up with a pile of torn up tortillas.

To serve: Place one or two fried tortillas on the side of a plate. Serve up a nice mound of rice and beans on the side. Plate up the chicken and sauce on the tortillas. Add garnishes of your choice.


Tomatillo Sauce:
2 lbs tomatillos
1/4 cup dried chile de arbol
4-6 chile serranos
1/4 cup cilantro
2 teaspoons finely chopped garlic
1/2 sweet onion (vidalia is my choice)
2-3 teaspoons vinegar
1-1 1/2 teaspoons salt
Chicken broth

over mesquite grill, blacken tomatillos, onions, serranos and chile de arbol. Once well blackened, process along with the rest ingredients in blender or food processor. Add up to 1/2 cup chicken broth to thin down sauce.

Cook in medium saucepan for about 30 minutes, or until the sauce is fully cooked, adjusting salt and broth for personal taste

Lessee.... I promised some pictures of some of the vinyl blanks I've been working on. It'll come later. Exhausted at the moment.
I'm off work tomorrow. My little girl is having a party this weekend. Her Birthday is in July but she wants to have an end of the school year party and birthday party now. Bernie noticed that I'm handy with the paintbrush. She asked me to make a 'pin the tail on the donkey', only to make it a Littlest Petshop monkey. I complied. It came out well enough that she then asked me to make a monkey head pinata. Did that today after work. I'll be painting it tomorrow.
So circling back to the pictures I promised of the vinyl blanks... I've been using the magic sculpt to modify golf balls. I finished one and I have three others that need to be painted tomorrow. So that's where I'm at. I have several pieces waiting their final paint jobs. Once that's done, it's picture time, then load to my Etsy shop.
Wait, did I say modified golf balls? Yep. Golf balls. Modified, meaning I add some magic sculpt. Then paint them up. Why golf balls? Because they're cheap! I bought a dozen for about $2. Plus I make two or three items at once, so I feel accomplished.
Looks like I'm going to be busy tomorrow, painting stuff up. We'll see how it goes.