Hello Fall!

Cool air flows through my window. Clouds fill the blue gray sky. Yellow, gold and red color peeps in between the green leaves in the distant hills. Fall is here. Finally. 

I’ll admit, I haven’t always been a fan of Fall. It felt sad to see Summer go and see my kids go back to school. I love summer’s roses and lavender. The taste of fresh, warm garden tomatoes and crunchy cucumbers. But this year, I’m breathing a sigh of relief that those 90-100 degree days are behind me. 

Fall leaves fresh from the kiln. 

It was a delight to fire up my kiln with a load full of new porcelain leaves. I collect the actual leaves from my nearby park so I’m never sure what I’ll find. This year was a great year. I found many lovely leaves in several sizes to use in my studio. 

I roll out slabs of porcelain clay and carefully push the leaves into the soft surface. Once they set up, I cut all the edge details and decide which ones I’ll use as bowl shapes or plates. After slow, careful drying, I bisque fire clay and the actual leaves burn away. Then I add a wash of color. Finally, the leaves are glazed and fired. 

Pinecones and pumpkins.

Changing up for the fall season around my house means adding the delicious smells of vanilla, pumpkin and cinnamon. I love making arrangements of pine cones, acorns from the park and mini white pumpkins. 

As the color slowly changes outside, I always add some color changes inside. 

Ceramic leaves in crimson and black. 

Teal and crimson birds, vases of late blooming hydrangeas. 

Seasonal inspiration. 

In the studio, I’m playing with new ideas. After being forced out of my studio last year, I found creative comfort in playing with an old friend, watercolor painting. I took watercolor classes with a local artist when I was sixteen. I loved how the colors flowed and melded using the wet into wet technique. It was my comfort then and now. 

So I thought I might try taking my love of watercolor painting and combining it with clay. This is my first attempt and I’m  not sure if I like how it turned out.  

But I’ve decided to let fall changes inspire me to make some changes, too. 

Fall Favorites.

It’s official. Today is the first day of Fall and I’m loving it this year. I’m not sure why I’m not sad to say goodbye to Summer because it’s always my favorite season. For some reason, this year it feels good to see the changing fall colors, cooler temperatures and warmer foods. 

Here are a few snapshots of my favorite things about fall this year. 

Beautiful hydrangeas. 

I love how this plant produces so many different colors on one bush. Deep red. Light turquoise. Even a lovely purple. Oh, I know it’s the ph of the soil that affects color and each flower is like a living litmus paper showing the acid or base of the earth beneath its roots. While this is fascinating, the best part is how they dry out in a vase to be even more beautiful.

Surprise mini pumpkins popped up. 

I did not plant pumpkins this year, yet a new vine appeared in July. At first, we thought it was more zucchini but then magic happened. The squash we thought we had was in fact, a small crop of little white pumpkins. The reason? Last year, in November, when I was done with the mini pumpkins I’d bought at the store, my husband decided to compost them in the empty garden space. Voila!

Apples and crows. 

I love apples. As a kid, my favorite thing was fresh pressed apple cider. So every Fall, I just have to get mounds of apples and pile them in my big black, oval, slab built dish and add my artist friend, Terry’s quilted crow. 

I also love crows. One of my first mixed media pieces was about a crow shapeshifter. I’ve collected crows from other artists. And this year, I made my own slab built crow to add to my collection. It can hang on a wall, sit on a table for decoration or, maybe, I’ll add it to my Halloween wreath on my door this year. 

I can see now that my Fall favorites are also becoming Fall inspirations.   

Cold Finishing.

I've worked in clay for decades but I didn't know I was using 'cold finishing' on my work.  Call it  marketing or more 'art speak', cold finishing is really very simple.  It's using paint to add color and texture to the bisqued clay body giving it a finished surface beyond the bare clay.

Even though porcelain pieces right out of the bisque kiln are beautifully white, they're still slightly rough to the touch.  They're still porous, too, so dust, oil and other debris can stain and damage the clay.  That's why functional pieces are always glazed.

Sculptural pieces don't need this kind of functional protection.  But they do need some finishing to give the clay some protection as well as a richer surface.  

When I first started making clay masks, I just painted them with acrylic paints.  Then I learned to do metal leafing in gold, copper and silver.  Adding this kind of metal surface to the clay and then adding thin layers of oil paint creates such a deep, beautiful surface.

I made several new porcelain pieces shaped around large leaves I found on my morning walks in the park.  Deep in my studio closet were two clay busts I'd called 'leaf ladies' which I'd abandoned in my quest to learn new skills in functional work.  Somehow, the porcelain leaf bowls and older clay busts seemed to be a perfect match.  My old pieces had been 'cold finished', so this week I began to re-learn this technique in order to finish these new sculptures.

In the last few years, my easel had moved from center stage to the edges of my studio and my collection of paints had shoved into the closet.  I remember thinking recently that it was time, maybe, to throw those old paints away since I wasn't using them.  

I'm glad I didn't.  I thought I was finished with cold finishing.  But what I see now, is art isn't about being finished with anything, it's always about beginning.