Moved....Just in Time

One angle of our new space.  I LOVE IT! Visitors have walked in and said "WoW!  This feels great.  Peaceful, beautiful, calm."  I hadn't thought of those adjectives but when I look around, I realize that maybe this is the reason that I love walking into the gallery each morning.  

I am working on details still.  Always details with running a small business.  Inventory, cleaning, dusting, accounting, banking, advertising, social media.  Oh, did I mention, that some where in all of these details, I am supposed to be creative and make my own ceramic work.  The very strange thing is that I am more energized than I have been in years.  Hopefully, my ceramic work will show that new enthusiasm also. 

Many of you know that I visited Vermont, a couple of weeks ago.  Two days was all I had.  I saw family members, visited friends, and popped into my favorite art galleries.  I think C2C Gallery will benefit from this trip.  We are adding a new jeweler, Lochlin Smith, http://www.lochlinsmith.com.  I think his work will compliment Julie Sanford's work, http://www.juliesanforddesigns.com.  We, also, will have new scarves created by Maggie Neale, http://colormusings.com.  Both Lochlin and Maggie are Vermont artists who have many many years in their craft.

New ceramics work is being delivered daily.  Michael Kifer's work has been leaving the store quickly.  I had to visit his studio to pick up more of it.  Michael's work is bright, painterly, many colored, and in some pieces lots of texture.  Josh Herman's work, www.joshherman.com, is all about texture.  I met Josh about ten years ago in Robin Hopper's Glaze Course.  

Brian is in the gallery, this morning, so that I can write this note.  I have a hard time focusing when I am in the shop; too many details and things to do.  I can't quiet my mind.  

Upcoming events:  Friday, November 2, 6 - 8pm.  "Keep the Lights On".  We are raising money for Grand Haven's Local Icon, the Lighthouse.  It will be a fun night to purchase art posters by Christi Dreese, engraved bricks, and the chance to win a Jon McDonald painting.  As we do on First Friday's, we will have wonderful live music.  This month, Susan Picking is performing, www.susanleighpicking.com.  Please plan to support this worthy cause and Have Some Fun!

Image by Bob Walma

Remember:  if you like to cook, I send an email about every other week, with recipes and other interesting bits of information on the area and in the arts world.  To sign up go to:  http://www.c2cgallery.com/Site/Contact.html and

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A billy club and getting to work.

We have moved the gallery and I am on to my next adventure:  

A fundraiser for our Grand Haven Lighthouse.  

Friday, November 2, 6-9pm.  

I am hosting an event with 10% off of all sales being donated to our fund.  Throughout October and November, I will donate $1 for each new like on Facebook.  Please help me build the fund to maintain our local icon.  

(Go to:www.facebook.com/C2CGallery)

More event details to come!  It will be a fun evening at C2C.

Today, I am firing my gas kiln from my home.  I have a to-do list started for my day.  I plan to pause and create a journal entry using several items - tissue paper, glue, watercolor paint, maybe tea.  I read Robert Genn's newsletter this morning and I would like to pass it on:

Robert Genn:

A remarkable old black and white photograph of Henry Miller, taken when he was living in Big Sur, California, shows a small room, almost a shack, fairly tidy, with books and a few of the simple staples of the writer's life--paper, pen and ink. But something else in that room has always made me curious. I wonder if you can find it?

It's curious because I've had the same thing hanging up in all my own studios since my teens. I bought it in a junk store. It made me smile. It appealed to my feelings of power and my secret desire to control things. It's still here. Just now I dusted it off. It's a nightstick--a truncheon--I call it my billy club. I've never actually hit anyone with it.

I always suspected Miller had it as a weapon to fend off the demons that often beset creative folks. I'm happy with that idea.

Miller gave his fellow writers a set of commandments--eleven of them. Here they are, only slightly abridged:

1. Work on one thing at a time until finished.

2. Start no more new books.

3. Don't be nervous. Work calmly, joyously, recklessly on whatever is in hand.

4. Work according to Program and not according to mood.

5. When you can't create, you can work.

6. Cement a little every day, rather than add new fertilizers.

7. Keep human! See people, go places, drink if you feel like it.

8. Don't be a draught horse! Work with pleasure only.

9. Discard the Program when you feel like it--go back to it next day. Concentrate. Narrow down. Exclude.

10. Forget the books you want to write. Think only of the book you are writing.

11. Write first and always. Painting, music, friends, cinema, all these come afterwards.

For painters, I've always liked Miller's commandments except the first two and the last. In the first two, I'm a believer in multitasking--maybe multitasking is easier and more valuable in painting. But in the last, I think he would have approved, in our case, of putting painting above writing. Passionate people always put their main passion first, and he knew that. Goodness, he knew that. Even if we have to sometimes hit ourselves on the head with a billy club.
I would add that this applies to potters, too. Have a good day. The kiln is at 1715.

Have a productive day, in however you spend it.

C2.