I almost didn’t go to that Writers’ Social. I was tired, and it was quite a long drive into town. But I knew I’d enjoy it – hanging out with other writers is always a boost – and so I made myself go.
Should I do the Open Mic?, I wondered as I was driving down the highway through the twilight (I hate driving in twilight, it’s so confusing). I hadn’t prepared for it at all, just had a story in mind that I thought might work – it’s short enough.
And then a line popped into my head, I don’t remember where I heard it or who said it: “Never pass up the opportunity to read from your work.”
Okay then, I thought. What have I got to lose? So when I got there, I asked if there were any Open Mic spots left. I wasn’t really sure whether I wanted to read, I said, so just put me on the “maybe” list.
There were two others ahead of me – two lovely young Creative Writing students from the uni – and as it turned out, nobody else signed up. I was up!
And so I did my first reading at an Open Mic, at a Writer’s Gathering, among six other amazing writers. I pulled up the story on my phone, on Fairytale Magazine‘s old website, and read “Hitting the Wall” – the story of what happens when you stake everything on one particular version of a fairy tale.
It was fun! I really enjoyed reading, and I think the audience enjoyed it too. I even got a laugh or two. And even though my lighthearted, fun little story was rather different from all the serious work that came before and after, I felt okay about that. I’m unapologetic about writing fairy tales – they have things to say.
I’ve finally taken the plunge and set up a newsletter, to keep my faithful followers updated with some semblance of regularity (no more than once every month or two) on what’s going on in the Clay and Words studio and study.
If you’re interested in being among the first to find out when there’s a new book coming out or an art show in the offing, or you’d like to be introduced to my writing and my ceramics one piece at a time, go over here (the “Newsletter” tab in the menu) and leave me your email address.
There’ll be an unsubscribe link at the bottom of every mail so you can bail out again; I promise I won’t take it amiss!
(Just to clarify, the blog has two places where you can leave your email address: one is in the sidebar of every page and is for subscribing to blog posts, the other under the “Newsletter” tab at the top. The newsletter will only be sent out by email, you can’t read it on the web. So if you’re interested, please subscribe!)
Life, the Universe, and a Newsletter. See you on the mailing list?
I just saw that today is our ninth bloggiversary on WordPress. After four years of blogging on Blogger, Steve and I moved house and came over to WordPress, in anticipation of publishing Seventh Son, which happened on Oct. 18th, 2014.
Steve posing on my library books. Yes, he’s still around, even if he hasn’t said much lately (to me at least).
So, Happy Bloggiversary to us! If you feel like wasting, umm, I mean spending some time on browsing the Archives, there’s a handy button on the right entitled, fittingly, “Archives” (if you’re getting this per email, you’ll need to click on the title to go to the post in your browser to see it). Or you could type a keyword into the “Search” bar and see what there is to see on the topic – for example, “Steve”. You could find all about him; he’s a bear with history.
In other news, our main website just underwent a major overhaul; check it out at www.amoffenwanger.com (or www.clayandwords.com, that should get you to the same page).
And that, to keep it short and pithy, is Life, the Universe, and a Bloggiversary. More to come soon!
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…
My coffee tastes like espresso this morning – the first cup of a whole potful that I grabbed to get back upstairs with it so as not to have to talk to anyone quite yet.
The valley is socked in with smoke still, the rising sun a blood-red ball over the hazy hillside. But there is no smell of smoke that I can detect; maybe my nose has become inured to it. The doves are cooing, there is chirping and whistling and shrieking, and the odd chattering noises of what I think is the quails interrupting it all.
It’s a good morning – pleasant, cool, slightly breezy. The orange glow of the smoke-shrouded morning sun is laying diagonal planks of light across the balcony floor like molten copper; the indolent curve of the blue-and-green-striped hammock swaying almost imperceptibly in the breeze.
My tongue is still tasting the acrid flavour of the much-too-strong coffee – I can’t even finish it; a whole mug of espresso is far too much.
