Mini Sculpture Project: The end of the 80 days

The school year is officially over, grades are in (though I got my first post-grading e-mail asking whether I'd forgotten to grade something) and my summer has begun. I'm taking about a week to recuperate from this weekend's windy June Art Fest at Chalet Place in Yakima. My studio is a disaster, since I took down all my shelves and tables to be part of the June Art Fest booth setup. I'm going to attempt to put it all back today. 

Last week I didn't do much in the way of mini-sculpture making. I took some clay to June Art Fest but there was too much to do and too many people coming through to leave me time to work. Maybe next year. 

What I do have is some pictures of work made before finals/packing/grading week and one piece made Sunday.

Really, I have no idea what I was thinking with this one. I think I made it while waiting for a kiln to finish firing at the start of finals week.

This one too. I used a school stamp (actually a stamp I made for my daughter's day care clay demonstration but then brought to school and left for my students. This one is smaller than most of my pieces.

Coincidentally, I pulled "Renee Adams" as my inspiration hint on Sunday or maybe Tuesday after visiting the Ellensburg Artist Home Tour. This is (sort of) a mushroom like the ones she had on her wall in her studio. Her's had all sorts of cool textures on the surfaces, soft and fuzzy.

underside of mushroom

shell (in the kiln)

another shell, not in the kiln

Sunday's contribution (during nap time while I watched Bones for the first time in months).

Lookie, I loaded a kiln! As of last weekend when I loaded the kiln, I had 82 pieces. I have maybe 85 today.

During June Art Fest I sold quite a few small pieces. I priced them pretty low, between $10 and $25 for pieces this size and smaller. I think people who didn't feel they could afford big work still wanted something and this was within their price range. I also sold a lot of "critters," my mini-sculptures with legs and/or faces. I had been thinking of this mini-sculpture project as mostly a me-thing. I wanted the satisfaction of making stuff during the school year and I wanted to challenge myself to make stuff following arbitrary rules (inspiration hints) and I wanted to keep my hand in a a bit while I couldn't make more complex or larger sculptures. I hadn't really been thinking sales.

I also realized this weekend that my mind-set is different from the last time I did art fairs (2005/2006). Then it was a significant part of my income. Now it isn't. My motivation in making the stuff isn't sales (though its hard to say how much it was in 2006) and I realized I would make the stuff regardless of whether it would sell. Selling now is more a way of making space for the new stuff.

Did I mention it was windy this weekend?