9:10 11.12.13
Today is THE day!

After months of preparation, the blue bean studio Etsy store is being launched. Everyone is welcome to come on in and take a look…

To celebrate the occasion, I am offering FREE SHIPPING for the FIRST TEN ITEMS sold. Here is a little taste of what I have in the store right now…

A Sunny Bunny Cup to add some cheer to your tabletop.

A Blue Lagoon dish to make those beach vacation memories linger longer…

The Cheery Sun and Sleepy Moon spoons to wish you g’day and bid you g’night!

Opening day has been a long time coming and I have to say there is a bit of relief that it’s actually happening (believe me, there have been many days of questioning on my part). Leading up to this, the emotions were a mixture of excitement, anticipation, and dread. Does the world really need more whimsy and cuteness? Will the enormous Etsy community even notice that a new little shop exists? Can I live with the possibility of failure after putting so much heart and soul into the project?

In all my questioning I have realized that I am, in fact, motivated by many other things outside of success. At the core of it all is my need to be creative. I intrinsically enjoy the creative process and I have loved every moment of putting this all together.

Hop on over to the blue bean studio Etsy store to check out the rest of the pieces and to take advantage of the free shipping. The virtual shelves are stocked and the packaging material is standing by; the web window display has been put up and the digital doors have been flung open. And now that the sign has flipped to “OPEN”, feel free to contact me if you have any questions or would just like to say hello!

Things are coming together and I can’t wait to finally unveil it all. We’ve been working on this project for a while now and I had some serious doubts, but we’re plowing forward…

The countdown to 11.12.13 begins!

We are in the final steps of something we’ve been working on for a while… we’re now in the waiting and prepping phase, making adjustments as needed, like this man loading the last few glazed pieces for firing.

I took this photo at one of the public kilns in Jingdezhen’s sculpture factory during one of my stays there. Every couple of days or so, hundreds of pieces are loaded onto the kiln shelves, then wheeled into the kiln to be glaze fired.

For people in ceramics, the final part of the creative process is often the most nerve-wracking. Once the pieces are loaded and passed into the fire of the kiln, there is nothing to do but eagerly await the result. After all the hours of careful work, the pieces go through their biggest test in the fire.

In just a couple of steps (after about 24 hours), these same pieces will be unloaded, having been transformed by the fire and thereby completing their creative journey. Where they go from there is anyone’s guess — perhaps they will sit on shelves in shops or, better yet, sent off to grace the spaces of businesses and homes.

I’m definitely eager to push things ahead and get things moving with our pet project, but I’m learning to be patient for just a little longer so we can put our best effort forward.

In a few more steps, we’ll be ready to allow others to sneak a peek at what we’ve been up to. From there, we have no clue where the idea will take us. To most people, it may not seem like much. But for me and my hubby, it represents many days and nights of hard work! I think the sense of accomplishment of having completed a project will be enough to tide us over for a while ; )

It’s not so bad to be at the mercy of weather… sometimes a moon on a clear starry night, or a drizzly drippy shower can be quite inspiring.

That’s how this handful of fun and expressive ceramic spoons came about — they’re a family of “weather spoons,” with a few bunnies thrown in for good measure. They have a more refined shape and are quite a bit larger compared to my previous test spoons. Their whimsical design is a spin-off of traditional “blue and white painting,” a technique used for centuries in China (see this blog post about qinghua painting).

This photo was taken after the lines were painted, using the fine line brush, and before the “water pushing” (or filling) step, which is done with a “chicken head” brush. It’s interesting to note that the paint is dark grey in color at this stage.

Each spoon was hand-formed from stoneware clay and allowed to dry before being hand-painted using the traditional Chinese cobalt pigment. I have used porcelain in the past, but decided to use a speckled stoneware clay this time around to pull it further away from its original qinghua roots.

Please excuse the work in progress. I’ve been spending some time moving old posts, particularly the ones related to my creative interests as they shine a light on my journey, from my personal blog to this one.

Usually my mind is too distracted or my hands are too dirty to take step-by-step photos in the studio, but I do remember to take a photo once in a while. That said, I have decided to share some of the photos in order to give a little glimpse into the process.

First off, here are the dark blue Rope Series Ring Dishes before they were fired for the first time.

They began as soft slabs of clay that were then textured and shaped on a mold. The photo was taken just after the slabs were removed from the mold. They will be left to dry before being loaded into the kiln for the first firing.

In general, the design aspect of this series happens as I am adding the decoration, so it is all quite organic. On a whim, I decided to make a set of interconnected pieces here. Each dish can sit on its own, but is part of a greater whole.

The Rope Series is one of my favorite to make as I love to play with texture.

One of the first things I was encouraged to do when I started my journey in ceramics was to “let go.” Specifically, I was to let go of my need for perfection. As a former (but sometimes still practicing) perfectionist, that was very difficult advice to take seriously. But if you work long enough with natural materials, you learn quickly that they do not lend themselves to perfect surfaces, lines and symmetries.

Then one day as I was lamenting about a piece that came out of the kiln with funny glaze drips, somebody told me it was “wabi sabi.” Being unfamiliar with the term, I looked it up. Wikipedia, as usual, came through with a helpful description.

“Wabi-sabi represents a comprehensive Japanese world view or aesthetic centered on the acceptance of transience and imperfection. The aesthetic is sometimes described as one of beauty that is “imperfect, impermanent, and incomplete”… Characteristics of the wabi-sabi aesthetic include asymmetry, asperity (roughness or irregularity), simplicity, economy, austerity, modesty, intimacy and appreciation of the ingenuous integrity of natural objects and processes.

Wabi now connotes rustic simplicity, freshness or quietness, and can be applied to both natural and human-made objects, or understated elegance. It can also refer to quirks and anomalies arising from the process of construction, which add uniqueness and elegance to the object. Sabi is beauty or serenity that comes with age, when the life of the object and its impermanence are evidenced in its patina and wear, or in any visible repairs.”

While the wabi sabi aesthetic has roots in the tradition and culture of Zen buddhism, the term has crossed over into more casual use within modern vernacular. It is interesting to note that for all the words used to describe the essence of wabi sabi, it is an idea that is often difficult to put a finger on, especially for those who look at it from a deeper perspective or practice it as a way of life.

Even so, if I may move this discussion away from the philosophical arena, I think the general, more shallow, overarching concept can be applied across cultures. One need only to look closer at the environment that surrounds him to find that very few things in nature are considered “perfect.” One will also observe that that which is subject to the elements will be shaped by them over time.

For the potter, there is a freedom that comes in embracing the imperfect. The bowl shown in the photo above, made by the studio manager, is an example of how wabi sabi may be translated into pottery. Its shape is not perfectly round, its surface displays irregularities, and its color echoes that of a rock. The form is clearly not manufactured in a mass production line but bears the marks of a personal creator.

But it’s one thing to let go of perfection and another thing to actually embrace imperfection. Even as I am still walking along that continuum from accepting that things will not be perfect to celebrating it, I can honestly say that I have come to appreciate the beauty and uniqueness that result from natural and uncontrolled processes… flaws and all.