MOVING SALE

The Rumors are true....I am relocating and having a big sale in my online store! Come July, my studio will be in Cortland, NY a small town outside of Ithaca. The area is beautiful and a huge change from my beach life style. I couldn't be more excited. As I spend the next three weeks packing and saying good-bye to northeast Florida, YOU can benefit from my need to downsize. For the month of June anything I made in 2008 is marked down 25% off, a significant savings. Please visit my online store for more!

Some Things Never Change

 

Lately when I've been working in the studio I keep seeing shapes and surfaces that I have used before.  And it has struck me that no matter how far I feel I have come or how hard I work I am still constantly coming back to the same shapes and same thoughts about my work.  It makes me wonder if there is some kind of blueprint to my work and when it was developed or how.  

This is my latest cup, which took two tries to throw and some sketching, and is basically a variation of a cup I made for about two years before really concentrating on just throwing a simple shape.  The dots, feel new, and the handle is a new method and form, but it's the same shape.  The line design I used to paint with luster and is now applied with slip, but I didn't notice this until after the fact.  And the foot I think is new, although I know i tried to create cut feet several years ago without success.  I think this kind of phenomenon applies to other aspects of my life, for example the way I dress.  No matter how many new things I acquire I still mix the old with them, and sometimes maybe like the old ones better.  So it seems that in life and in work, I am searching for something better, or newer and coming to rest on the same ideas.  

Identity Crisis

So for months now I have been trying to establish myself as TRACY K MCEVILLY. I thought that it was a better "artist name". Sort of like when in fifth grade I insisted on spelling my name Tracie, because I thought it looked better. This name changing poses a few problems, one most people who know me don't know that my middle initial is K. So if someone wanted to find my work they would probably search "Tracy McEvilly". I hate to publicly admit that I "google" myself, but it's true. And more info comes up under Tracy K McEvilly, than plain old Tracy McEvilly, but Tracy McEvilly is more familiar to most people. Everytime I fill out show submissions, etc. I put in the K, to make myself sound more important. Then a few days ago I received a postcard for Jersey Shore Clay National. There it was plain old Tracy McEvilly. And it didn't bother me in the least. So I am updating myself to plain old Tracy McEvilly. It's who I am.

Fresh Work

It's all flowers and bubble gum colors for spring. When I lined up all my work I wished I had finished it for Easter. I've never been very good at planning for holidays, I'm hoping I'll get better at it as time goes on. So here is the infamous tulip bowl, stage one. Some of the work I made this firing was more about the form, and less about the surface. I tried restraining myself, which of course backfired because I became less interested in the work. I did, however come up with some good basic ideas.

Every firing elicits a different reaction from me. In the past firings I have peeked in the kiln and prepared myself for disaster, only to be pleasantly surprised; fired a kiln load almost completely full of pots for the shard pile; and most recently had every emotion possible about my work until arriving in a satisfied place. My good friend Mandy told me as I was about to fire my first load of glazes I had mixed myself, you won't get the glazes exactly how you want them until about ten years from now. At the time I was a little discouraged, but of course hindsight is 20/20. I know that I probably still won't get the glazes exactly how I went them, but that feeling now relaxes me, and sometimes allows the "happy accidents" I wouldn't otherwise experience.



In my next firing you will see some more of these bubbly gummy colors, and my new forms playing dress-up with different embellishments. As I was loading up the kiln this morning with student work, and I remembered a critique where someone commented on my work, "You're going to hate this, but it's like venus flying trap playing dress-up" Now who could hate that?