New Mexico Has The Best Skies

Hand-painted raku tile, 6.5" x 7" image

New Mexico might rank among the poorest states and the bottom of the national barrel for related indicators such as teen pregnancy, high school drop-out rates, and average household income… but we’ve got great skies. Dramatic, expansive, 365° beautiful skies. One sky often has 15 different displays of color, texture, light, shapes–something you just don’t see everywhere. While living at various times in other parts of the country and world, I think it was the New Mexico skies that I missed the most (green chile was a close second, followed by my family).

[Sept 14 4pm, west view]

(Sept 14 4pm, east view)

I’ve sold paintings of New Mexico skies for the past 13 years, and I’m telling you: more than anything, people love clouds. I once talked to a fellow artist who said he made his living in Santa Fe for 10 years drawing and painting nothing but clouds. No landscapes, no clever content, just skies with clouds. I’m not sure what it is, but clouds seem to inspire people in a special way. There are cloud clubs, Flickr Groups, and even a Cloud Appreciation Society who offer interesting ideas in their manifesto:

…We think that they are Nature’s poetry, and the most egalitarian of her displays, since everyone can have a fantastic view of them…

Clouds are so commonplace that their beauty is often overlooked. They are for dreamers and their contemplation benefits the soul. Indeed, all who consider the shapes they see in them will save on psychoanalysis bills…

Small raku tile, 3.5" x 25."

Finally, monsoon season has come to New Mexico, bringing us closer to our 6″ average annual rainfall. These are my attempts to pin down a bit of the beauty in photos (phone cameras are so handy!) and raku tiles, soon to be listed in my Etsy store and available at Mariposa Gallery in Albuquerque.

Large raku tile, 9.25" x 6.25" image size

Small raku tile, 3.58" x 3"

Hand-painted raku tile, 6" x 9.5" image size

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Available Now On Etsy

Speckled Jade Green Sea Turtle, 8 in. w x 6 in. l x 1.5 in. h, twice fired in gas kiln

I’ll take a few moments before we head out for a hike on this beautiful July 3 morning to post a few pictures of my new Live Clay Etsy offerings. It’s been a busy week of painting and photography and there will be more listings next week! I hope my vast readership enjoy their holiday weekend!

Miniature Landscape Pendant, 1.5 x 1.5 in., raku fired stoneware

Extra Small Cloud Pendant, 1 in. x 1 in., raku fired stoneware

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Pendants Finished! And I like them!

Here are a few of the new pendants that I fired on Sunday… I’m happy with them! I’ll list them on Etsy as soon as I can take some delicious pictures. I’ll photograph them with several chain styles to give an idea of the possibilities, but I think I’ll sell them solo because there’s too much variety in wearability (chain length, style, size, material, clasp, etc etc etc). Yipee!

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New Pendants?

I had a request to make a pendant in the style of my raku tiles and vases so I thought, what the hey, I’ll make 10 while I’m at it. I contacted a jeweler to find out what those hookie things are for a chain to go through (bail, as I’ve learned), ordered some of those, and started painting. I wonder if I’ll like them, or think they look cheesy when they’re finished? Never know with new ideas. It’s nice when people ask me to do something I wouldn’t normally (within reason) because I often do like the results and it becomes a part of the inventory.

I’ve never painted anything so small as these pendants! The smallest is 1″ x 1″. People tend to think that small=inexpensive, but actually, it takes a lot of skill to paint miniatures. And for me, what makes miniatures look good is detail; can’t skimp on the detail or they look graphic and clunky. I use a tiny brush with about 4 hairs on it and can hardly see what I’m doing. Then I just hope the colors look good after they’re fired. It’s not like oil or acrylic painting, where you can keep working until it looks good. With painting on clay with underglazes (liquid, tinted clay), I sort of have one shot at it.

I’ll fire these tomorrow along with two small Aspens urns that someone has ordered through Funeria. Fingers crossed they all turn out well!

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Madrid, New Mexico & Kiln Opening [part 2]

These beautiful wind gongs by Bill Lloyd, made of recycled oxygen tanks, can be found at the Range West Stone Gallery in Madrid.

This will be the final post about the anagama wood firing I participated in over the past month. I’ve been asked a few questions about Madrid, New Mexico, so I thought I’d say a little about that, then conclude with a slide show of the gorgeous skies and people of the firing, a few pictures of Madrid, and a few of my pieces that sold at the kiln opening. Similar works are being listed this week in my Etsy store.

Madrid (pronounced ma-drid in these parts), New Mexico, is located in a valley of the Ortiz mountains, and is the oldest coal mining town region in New Mexico (as early as 1850). By 1892, the village was connected by a narrow gauge spur to the Santa Fe Railroad. By 1893 a seven story anthracite breaker was constructed, and by 1899 all coal production in the area was consolidated at Coal Gulch, which later became Madrid. Wood framed cabins were dismantled in Kansas and brought to Madrid by train to house the miners and their families. The town flourished as a “Company Town” of some 2500 people. In 1919, Oscar Joseph Huber was hired as full time superintendent of mines. Under his leadership, Madrid became a model for other mining towns to follow. Schools, a fully equipped hospital, a Company Store and an Employees Club were some of the benefits of life in Madrid during the 20′s and 30′s. However, production dwindled with W.W.II and the mines closed in the 1950′s.

In the early 1970′s Joe Huber (Oscar’s son), then owner of the entire town site, rented a few of the miner’s cabins to rugged individuals, artists and craftsmen eager to make a home in the mountains of New Mexico. He remained dedicated to the town he’d grown up in and its new community until his death in the late 1980′s. Madrid is now an active village with a quiet residential area and a short but bustling “Main Street” (State Hwy 14, also known as the Turquoise Trail or the scenic route between Albuquerque and Santa Fe) with galleries, shops and a few restaurants. It has a funky vibe, thanks to the conglomeration of hippies, tourists, locals, bikers, dogs, and artists who share in daily life.

I hope my vast readership have enjoyed this little foray into my adventures along the Turquoise Trail, through Madrid, and at the anagama kiln climbing a hill in the Ortiz Mountains.

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new paintings & cups

It’s been a busy week at Live Clay! Just finished a batch of new tiles/paintings (never sure what to call them) destined for the raku kiln, some blossom cups for a future wood firing, and several Keepsake Aspen Urns for Funeria. I like the way paintings look at this stage and sometimes wish I could leave them as-is. But they also seem unfinished and I like even more the way the raku kiln transforms them in a way I can’t control.

I’ll be posting the tiles on Etsy as soon as they are fired & photographed. Let’s hope they survive! ( I didn’t intend for these photos to look dreamy, I think the battery was running out… still adjusting to my new camera.)

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Live Clam

In 2001, I took a fortuitous detour into the urn business. One of my lidded vases was juried into the first Ashes to Art® exhibition organized by Funeria in San Francisco that year, and I was later invited to be one of Funeria’s Portfolio Artists. We’ve had a wonderful relationship ever since. Why not be in the urn business, I thought, it’s likely to be a steady market, as people tend to die.

In 2005, I started Live Clay, LLC to accommodate a large wholesale order I had just received through Funeria. Although I knew nothing about operating a small business or mid-scale ceramics production, I jumped at the opportunity. I started collecting other artists to help me with production and advise me on numbery things because I really can’t stand accounting. I thought “Live Clay” a particularly clever and fitting name for an urn company, conjuring wild philosophical deliberations about life and death, symbolic representation, is it “live” or “live”, and other heady critique usually reserved for only the most fine of fine art. Let alone urns.

Somehow, however, the State of New Mexico recorded my exceedingly relevant business name as Live Clam, which I like even better. I could’ve thought all day and not come up with that. I briefly considered changing everything to Live Clam, but ultimately the prospect of being inundated with requests for seafood squelched that idea.

Although professional Urnmaker had never been among my anticipated career choices, it is a special privilege to create art for this purpose, particularly in a market dominated by mediocre, impersonal, NOT fair trade, over-priced schlock. (Just google “urns” and see for yourself.) As with all art, a special connection is forged between the artist and the client; but when I make art for this particular purpose, I believe it also connects me with loved ones (human and animal) no longer present. Even if I never meet the living client, I create each urn with intention, respect for the departed, and blessings.

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The Year Begins

Now that January is over, I can begin.

January is my least favorite month — after holidays and before taxes, cold and pale, boring, the Monday of the year. January did, however, produce some spectacular skies over Albuquerque thanks to a few deviant storm systems.

Snowy Sandia Mtns to the east

North toward Santa Fe

South on the same day

February, on the other hand, is fantastic: the month of my daughter’s birthday. Also the month when here in the Rio Grande Valley, things start to warm up just a bit. The pond unfreezes, the nighttime temperatures don’t dip quite so low, the soil is workable. An important turning point for devoted gardeners such as myself.

In honor of February, I’ve just finished painting a group of small tiles: landscapes, flowers, aspens. I paint with underglaze (liquid, tinted clay), then they will be bisque fired in the electric kiln, then raku fired. The colors at this stage are a much paler, pastel version of the vibrant finished pieces. (I have to anticipate what the colors will look like after firing and hope they turn out well!) To see an example of a finished tile, please visit my etsy store. I will also post a picture of these when they’re finished.

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