It is a dark and gloomy day… inside and out. The news is bad, friends are going through tough times, the weather is screwed up, and everything is playing merry hell with my moods. As is usual for late January, there is a cloud over the Valley that feels like a giant hand clapped a lid on and is pressing down tight.
I come downstairs in the dark, and I light a candle on the coffee table. Then I light another one—the little tea light that’s inside the fairy house sitting next to the candle. “Apple Bowl Cottage” has been to a couple of art shows this winter, but it didn’t find a new home yet. Maybe that’s just as well; I needed it today.
I sip my coffee, enjoying the soft glow of the candlelight, then I turn on the big light and write in my journal for a while. By now, there is daylight outside, such as it is. Not much of it (did I mention Lid-on-the-Valley weather?). But it’s time for breakfast, so I blow out the candle.
And in those two seconds that I watch the smoke curl out of the chimney of the fairy house, I have a sudden flash of Story.
The fairies turned off their lights, I think, and they’re off to work. No, actually, they don’t go to work outside of home; the fairy that lives in this house is getting ready for her day of cooking and washing and making apple pies. She turned off the light because it’s bright enough outside now she doesn’t need the lamp. I wonder what she’s going to do today? I think after she’s turned the apples in the bowl into a pie, she might be looking forward to reading her book; she just got to the best part yesterday.
And just like that, the world has become brighter. Warmer. Safer.
I don’t know her name, the little fairy that lives in the tiny ceramic cottage on my coffee table today. But the light shining from her little home, and the warm smoke curling from the chimney, has cheered my day. There is still a Lid on the Valley and bad things in the news, but I’ve been reminded of joy and warmth and comfort and whimsy and brightness.
And those are as real as anything else.
Life, the Universe, and Apple Bowl Cottage. The comfort of Story.
(Apple Bowl Cottage with a quarter to show scale. Also, that’d be a heck of a lot of money, by comparison! A coin as big as your table top…)
PS: Yes, Apple Bowl Cottage is for sale, and I think the fairy would be very happy to move to your house (and I’d be happy to share her)! If you’re interested send me a message, here.
It was ArtWalk this weekend, and as per usual, it was fabulous. I got an excellent spot, on a tall counter (the top of a bank of lockers) in the hallway in front of one of the gyms. It meant that the thousands(!) of visitors all walked by my display TWICE, once going into the gym to look at everyone else’s amazing art, and once coming out again – up one side of the display and down the other on the return trip, and having the counter so high meant that my tiny detail work was right at people’s eye level.
The setup on The Night Before ArtWalk (when all through the school/Not a creature was stirring,/ they’re all much too cool…)
The night before it started, I was lying awake at 3am, worrying (as one does), and I came to the conclusion that I probably wouldn’t get a lot of sales – people would just walk past my display instead of stopping to linger and look. It was a hallway, after all. Fine, I thought, so be it. It is what it is.
Hah! I couldn’t have been more wrong. People stopped, they looked, they lingered, they oooh’d and aaah’d. And they bought. And bought!
“On Top of the Mattress” – the newest in the Fairy Tales Bookends series. And you see that red dot on the card? That means SOLD!
I’d brought a little group of mice (apparently that’s called a mischief?), sitting on cheeses. Last year, I had a cat with a companion cheesymouse, and people kept trying to buy just the mouse, so I thought I’ll try a few mice on their own this time. They flew off the shelf – the first one sold within ten minutes of the opening!
The Cheesymice
Hilariously, the flock of Tiny Gnomes that were so popular last year were, to begin with, completely overshadowed by the Cheesymice – they only started selling once all the mice were gone. They got lots of attention, though (“Look at the tiny gnomes, Mommy!”, “Oh my gosh, so cute!”), so it’s all good.
The 2025 Flock of Tiny Gnomes
The theme this year was “Colour Unleashed”. If you’ve met me in person, you know that that’s right up my alley. I would have worn my rainbow Ali Baba pants anyway, but as is, I looked like I dressed on theme! And it gave me an opportunity to bring my super-bright splashy abstract pieces (I call some of them “Kandinsky cups”), and to my surprise they were really popular.
Sporting my colours and chatting up the customers
Not much more to say. It was a fun weekend, quite exhausting, quite exhilerating. Now to go into hibernation for a couple of weeks, and then back into the studio to replenish the stock!
Life, the Universe, and my third time at ArtWalk. If you’re interested in adopting a Tiny Gnome or getting your very own Mousepresso cup, give me a shout. I’ll be over here on the couch, having a nap.
Lineups of eager art collectors waiting to get in at ten minutes before opening on Day 1Little Louis and Cheesymouse led the viewer into my display (and yes, they sold!)I had a wonderful booth neighbour in Jill of Jill’s JournalsDid I have fun? Yes. Yes I did.My display in all its gloryMy ArtWalk 2024: a Video (if you’re viewing this post in an email and can’t see the video, click on the post title so you can watch it in your browser)
Here’s a few pieces that are coming to Lake Country ArtWalk with me this weekend:
And then there’s this flock of Tiny G’nomes that materialized in my studio recently:
They haven’t told me their names yet, but they’re a very friendly sort, and they’ve moved into the village of fairy houses and picture pots. But I’m sure they’d be more than happy to come live at your house, too! Maybe with a fairy house or a picture mug, so they’ll feel at home.
I know you’ve all been eagerly waiting for the verdict, and here it is: ArtWalk was fantastic. (If you can’t see a video above this paragraph because you’re getting this as an email, click on the title and it’ll take you to the post in your browser, where it should show the video properly.)
Just to catch you up on what this Lake Country ArtWalk thing is, it’s a giant art festival that has been held in our community on the second weekend in September for the last thirty years. Two days, three school gyms/halls/hallways full of art by close to two hundred local artists, live music, food, performances, visitors by the thousands. Complete sensory overload, inspiration, exhileration.
I had the best location – full sunlight on my sculptures for most of the morning.
So this year I finally got to take part, showing my ceramics. And sell my books! Book selling isn’t normally part of this, but this year there was an exception, because the theme was “Art and Story Bound Together“. I mean, that’s me! As I was telling everyone, I write books with potters in them, and make pottery sculptures with books in them.“Telling Stories in Clay and Words”, that’s my new motto.
Books about a potter……and pottery with books.“The Library”, stoneware, 6x6x5″. SOLD (but I can make another one like it if you want one!)
I sold pieces! A friend who is an ArtWalk veteran told me to bring some small pieces, things that don’t cost the earth so visitors can go home with their very own piece of art without breaking the bank. So I took a whole lot of mugs – well, they’re honest-to-goodness stoneware mugs you can drink your coffee out of, but really, they’re paintings that happen to be on a mug instead of a canvas. And people liked them, and bought them!
Doors and towers (mostly SOLD, but there’s more where they came from)
Selling things was exciting. But the best part was the reactions I got from the show visitors. Over and over, someone would come around the corner, catch sight of my display, stop, come closer – and get a big smile on their face.
“This is so cute!”, “These are delightful!” “I want to live in that little house!” Several times, someone came back, towing a friend behind them: “You’ve got to see this! Look, isn’t it amazing?”
I can’t tell you how much that meant to me. My art makes people happy. It creates pleasure and delight; it brings joy.
That is what I wanted to achieve with my work. I have a lot of fun making my bookends and fairy houses and gnomes, but it was amazing to see how that joy transmitted itself to the viewers.
What I saw coming back from my lunch…
One of the things I had the most fun with at the show was introducing the gnomes to the kids that came by. Art shows can be rather overwhelming, and for children, maybe a bit boring.
So a family with young kids would wander by. One of them would catch sight of my booth.
“Oh, look! Look at the fairy house!” And they would zoom in on my table, their eyes lighting up. “It’s got a little bathtub! And look at the tiny mugs!”
I’d let them look for a minute, then I’d say, “Have you met the gnomes?” They’d shake their heads, and I’d point to the gnomes at the front of the long table, right at their eye level.
Gordon G’nome, 6″, stoneware
“Well, here’s Gordon,” I’d say. “His bug went to sleep, so he’s just hanging out. This one is Goldie. She just caught sight of a butterfly! Her bug isn’t so sure about this, I think he’s a bit jealous…”
The kids loved it. Over the course of the two days, the stories of Gordon and Goldie and Garth and Gabby kept growing in the telling. Goldie’s butterfly appeared fairly early – at first I didn’t know what she was looking at, but now it’s obviously a butterfly.
Gaeli’s G’nomes, and the bookends holding up my books
One young visitor wanted to know who lives in the little bookend rooms, and then she decided that it must be the gnomes, because they stood right in front of them. She was right, of course. So that became part of their stories.
Goldie’s Knitting Room (with real sunlight coming through the window)Gordon’s Tea Party
Goldie, we thought, must belong to the room with the knitting – she looks like the kind of person who likes to keep busy. And Gordon obviously likes food, so he’d be at home in the tea party room. Garth the Dreamer got the library with all the books, and his sister Gabby, who is telling her bug a story, belongs in the writer’s study.
Garth dreaming into the cloudsGabby’s Writer’s StudyGabby telling stories
What, me, having fun? Naaah…
I knew I wouldn’t get any sales out of the kids. But that’s not what it’s about. I wanted the kids to have fun looking at my sculptures, as much fun as I had making them. And not just the kids, either.
For those thirty seconds that you look at one of my pieces, I want you to be drawn in. I want you to feel that you can live in one of the fairy houses, that the little bookend room is your own cozy corner, that Gordon and Goldie are your friends. I want you to come into my little ceramic world and be happy, safe, and warm.
And I saw that reaction on the faces of the ArtWalk visitors that came by my booth, over and over. See what I mean when I say ArtWalk was fantastic?
Life, the Universe, and ArtWalk 2023. I’m already planning for the next show.
Bathtime at G’nome Cottage, 9″ high. It’s all ceramics, i.e. safe to put in your flowerbed. You never know, someone might move in…
I spent the weekend at the Ceramics Congress, which is an international multi-cultural multi-lingual ceramics arts festival that’s all online. It was awesome.
Here’s one thing I learned, in a workshop by Julissa Llosa Vite from Peru (as in, actually from Peru. That’s where she was teaching from. Did I mention “international”?): How to make a bird flute. I’d made ocarinas before, but had never quite figured out the voicing, i.e. the bit that makes the sound. It was always a hit-and-miss thing; after lots of fiddling, some worked, some didn’t. This time, it worked right off the bat!
Trying out the bird flute, still wet/leatherhard. (Behind me on the studio wall you can see my one-and-only self-portrait from, umm, a while ago. The advantage of painted self-portraits over videos is that you can make them look flattering. So this is me, the way I look when I’m at work and not planning on having anyone watching me.)
Life, the Universe, and the Ceramics Congress. I think I’ll go carve some feathers on that bird now.
PS: The next Ceramics Congress is going to be at the end of November. If you’re at all interested in clay, check it out – the tickets start at only US $10!
PPS: If you want to learn how to make a bird flute, too, wait a few weeks, and Julissa’s workshop will be uploaded at the Ceramic School where you can purchase a ticket to watch it.
