Home Tour - More

Every year lately I've been doing tiles
of the buildings that are featured on the
Spring Home and Garden Tour. The next
tour is coming up April 11 & 12.

I start out by making the tiles, then, as shown in this photo,
I sketch the building on the tile in pencil.

I put the color on with underglazes then put clear glaze over it and fire to 1000 degrees.

The tiles can be used as a hot plate, made into a back splash or hung on the wall.

I can do a tile of your house!

Commissioned tiles are $85 each, they are 8 x 8 inches. I need about 4 weeks advanced notice and a straight on shot, I'll take the photos myself if you live in the area. Email me for more information!

janet@carolinacreations.com

More projects!

While I've been waiting for my other sculpture to dry I've been working on other projects. It seems that one idea just leads to another.

This Raven sits on a tall post, a large ball, then a small ball. He too is in the process of drying, very............. slowly............. As I said before I've done some sculpture off and on for as long as I've been working with clay, about 10 years, (or is it 15? yikes!). I've had some issues that I never could figure out how to overcome until I read a few articles and then took 2, 2 day workshops from two very accomplished clay sculptors. One was Steve Fabrico and the other Peter King.

Their construction methods help me to build big and strong. Another thing I've done is started using a different clay body. One with more grog.

Grog is clay that is fired and then ground up and added to another clay body. It adds a gritty texture, reduces shrinkage and aids even drying. It helps prevent cracking and allows the gasses to escape during firing. It also adds structural strength to hand-built and thrown pottery during the process of shaping the clay.

POP! New Work at Carolina Creations

New Bern artist T Rader has just finished this fabulous painting called Autumn Sundown, New Bern for our new show "POP!". The image size is 24 x 30. This beautiful painting is just one of the many new pieces of work we have at the gallery.



Also just in from Janet Sweeney are some new blown glass shells and crabs on a shell. They are amazing. Put the shell up to your ear and you can hear the ocean. Really!

Coral Reefs Through the Eyes of Aaron Slater

I spent two wonderful weeks last summer on Deer Isle in Maine at a papermaking workshop. I met lots of wonderfully interesting people from all over the country including Alsaka! The setting was unbelievably beautiful and the food was great! Anyway, there were several other classes going on including one in glass blowing. This 'marble', an example of lampwork, comes from one of the students in that class, Aaron Slater. As you can see he seems to have mastered lampworking and had come to Haystack to learn more about blowing glass. I fell in love with these marbles which Aaron calls coral reefs. I'm sorry that the photograph does not do it justice. He has another style called undersea coral reefs and when you look at them you feel like you are under the ocean, deep sea diving, for not only is there the reef, but also objects like jellyfish and anemones that appear to be floating in the glass. But they are hidden and you really have to search for them which is part of the fun! You seem to discover new elements in his work if you look closely. One of the most astonishing things to me is the size of the marbles, only 1 1/2 to 2 1/2 inches in diameter! The detail in incredible!

-- guest blogger Lou Plummer

sculpture update - painting workshop - and our house is going to be on the home tour!

My relief sculpture is almost finished. Here is the bird that sits on the fence. I'll post one more picture with the finished piece, then comes the tedious part, letting it dry very slowly so nothing cracks!















Calling all painters!

Carolina Creations is hosting a plein air painting workshop with Mike Rooney May 13 & 14 from 9-5 pm. Cost is $150. We'll be painting on site in beautiful Downtown New Bern.

You may have seen Mikes work in our gallery. His loose, impressionistic style gives his work a lot of excitement.

For more infomation visit our website

http://www.carolinacreationsnewbern.com/NewFiles/rooney%20workshop.html





Our House & Studio
is going to be on the
Spring Home and Garden Tour!

Many friends of ours we've met through Carolina Creations have seen our home and studio being constructed (because it's just one block from our gallery) and have asked to see it. Well we're fortunate that we've met A LOT of wonderful people but since there are A LOT of people that have said they want to see our home we decided that a good way to do it was to have it be on the home tour.

We're still doing some work on it, some will be done & some won't. We hope the sculpture I've been talking about here in this blog will be hanging right outside our door. I doubt that I'll have the back splash finished but most everything else will be done.


During the home tour Michael and I will be working in our studio, Michael throwing pots and I'll be decorating them, working on a sculpture or making tiles. Who knows maybe I'll be painting a picture part of the time. Then on the evening of April 11 we'll have a reception at Carolina Creations for everyone on the tour with refreshments, harp music by Joyce Kell and Jim Bisbee will be there doing a demonstration.


You can purchase tickets at the Historical Society, Click here for more info http://www.newbernhistorical.org/springtour.html

I am also pleased that one of my wall hangings has been used as the arwork for the home tour. We'll hope you come!

Sculpture Progress

Sculpture progress

I've been working on our sculpture, here are a couple detail photos. I hope to finish it today, I'll post more photos!

Local Artist Jennifer Crowell has just delivered new paintings to the gallery. Jennifer paints scenes inspired by her neighborhood and neighbors.
To read about Jennifer and see more of her work click on this link http://www.carolinacreationsnewbern.com/NewFiles/crow.html


Green Carolina Creations!

For as long as we can remember we have been concerned about conservation.

We use shopping bags that are made out of recycled milk bottles, paper bags that are a by product of the fabric printing industry and we recycle shipping packing material.

In addition we have another bag - shown on the left - that we give when people purchase a certain dollar amount. These bags are high quality and people use over and over. To see where some of these bags have been click on this link http://www.carolinacreationsnewbern.com/NewFiles/bag%20travels.html

Sally Anger mural piece at Carolina Creations

Local artist Sally Anger just brought her sketch (if you can call a piece 6 x 5 feet a sketch) of a mural she painted in France.

Les Halles Acrylics / Mixed Collage

It is fabulous!

Each year the Beaufort (NC) Sister Cities sponsor a mural competition in Beaufort. The winner's prize is a trip to France to paint a larger (8 x 10 foot) mural in Beaufort-en-Vallee France. Sally was fortunate enough to get to go to France this year.

The theme of the contest in France was to paint a mural based upon the beautifully restored building, called Les Halles, in which an indoor market had been held since the 1800s.

The medieval writing is from one of the financial people who worked for the queen Jeanne de Laval. Sally chose this because Les Halles are located on Place Jeanne de Laval and the market (for which Les Halles were later built) began there in the Middle Ages.

The portrait is of the french actress Sarah Bernhardt. She chose her as a symbol of the entertainment they have at Les Halles. Also she was born about the same time that Les Halles were built.

Sculpture for 229 East Front Street

Now that we're getting settled into our new house we're getting anxious to decorate it with our own art.

I started working with clay about 10 years ago and some of you may remember a series of clay towers I did a few years back. I've always loved to do sculpture but in our old studio and house we didn't really have much room.

That's all changed! Today I started a wall sculpture that will hang to the left of our front door. My goal is to have it hanging before the home tour (which our home is on) April 11 & 12.

Above is a photo of Michael with my pattern. Photo number 2 is is a closeup of part of it.

The last photo shows the border. I'm working with 1/2" thick sculpture clay, I've made supports and will cover the supports with strips of clay. This border will look like bark (I hope!)