Mug Shot Monday- Mugs by my favorite potters

A roundup of mugs by some of my favorite pro potters-

Rothshank

Jason Bige Burnett

Michael Kline

Linda Arbuckle

Jane Peiser

Posey Bacopoulos

Ok, not a mug, but too beautiful not to include! Enjoy and Happy Monday :0)

Here Piggy Piggy!

 Here's how I make my adorable hand made pig bowls

Click here to get one! oink!!

All pottery designs copyright Karen O'Lone-Hahn 2015 registered with the US copyright office

Cat Treat Jars on the Wheel-Ceramics Cat presents...

I like to post videos of making different things on the potters wheel and this two part video series shows how I make my cat treat jars that everyone is raving about!  I call them cat treat jars but they can be used for anything since they are completely food safe.

 In fact the first one that I made was a custom order for someone who wanted a grey tabby creamer.

That is when I came up with the design.

Now I  have gone cat crazy, creating a whole line of tabby cat and black cat ceramic items. In addition to the jars, the collection includes a large wall hanging, salt and pepper shakers, a skinny cat sculpture and a really adorable bowl suitable for soup, candy, kibble or even a plant! The possibilities are open! Check out my website for availability and subscribe to my newsletter and this blog for updates.

****all of my designs collections are copyrighted and registered with the US copyright office reg. #23171342015phl***

What to do with all that Art

 One of the aspects of doing art festivals that I  used to enjoy is the interaction that I had with customers in my booth. People would come in and smile and admire my paintings and try to visualize where they would put one of my works in their home. Unfortunatley, I didn't always get the sale, because one of the barriers to purchase was the customer's issue with where they would hang it.  

How to hang art Salon Style

I often suggested hanging salon style like I do in my own home, which creates a kind of artwork in itself with a collection of paintings. Another suggestion that I had was to swap the artwork out, relegating some paintings to a closet or different room for a period of time, thus creating a personal rotating art show. 

Framing ideas

A percieved lack of space is no reason to stop buying art. We all  walk around in the same body all of our  lives but we don't stop buying clothes to put on it. (I know, different animal, but you get the point :0) 

Salon Style painting display in my own home

It's the same for your walls. There are lots of ways to dress and rearrange them to keep them attractive and interesting to yourself and all who enter your home.  

I display my own work and other artists that I collect in my living room salon.



Do you own a lot of artwork? How about pottery? Do you have fun or intersting ways that you diplay yours? Please share!

The Art of the Letter

When is  the last time you got a real letter in the mail from someone? Was it just recently or was so long ago that you can't remember? Writing letters seems to be a dying art. Children are not even being taught cursive writing in school anymore. (Really!)

Last year a friend sent me an actual birthday card in the mail and I was thrilled. I do appreciate e-cards because, hey, it's just nice that someone remembers you! But getting a card or letter in the mail these days is like a gift.

Send a nice letter with my packaged Notecard Assortments

My daughter is a writer, artist and musician. A couple of Christmas's ago she bought herself a typewriter at an antique store and then she came home and promptly started to type away a story that she was working on. I thought she was kind of crazy but really enjoyed the sound of the clack clacking of her furious typing.

And then last summer I was at an antique store with a friend of mine and I saw a beautiful 1940 Remington Deluxe 5 in excellent shape with the case and it was only $40, so I bought it. I used it to type a couple of friends letters on it last summer at meaningful points in their life. Remembering how happy I was toget a real birthday card in the mail, I thought my friends would be equally thrilled to get a typewritten letter.

It was a wonderful experience.  There is no delete button that makes it easy to rephrase so I had to really slow down and think about what I was saying.  I had to be careful with my typing I'm not very good at it. There is something very beautiful and tactile about having to put so much pressure on the keys to make a letter happen and I really enjoyed how messy the letters looked as they struck the paper in varying degrees of ink.

 I have saved quite a few letters  and notecards over the years. Though the majority were hand written not typed. (Even better!) Some of the ones that I saved were from a lovely man who had an online art gallery called Hustontown and is someone whom who I still call friend. We met in Baltimore at an Outsider Art Festival and he agreed to represent my work.

He not only represented me, but encouraged me and submitted published my work in Outsider Art magazines and even got me included in a book about Self-Taught, Outsider and Folk  artists by Betty Carol Selin.

Reading over his chatty letters about his family and plans for my work still brings me a smile. I was in a completely different place in the work I was producing at that time, and re-reading his letters caused me to reflect on that and think about the direction that I'm going in now.

Assorted Notecards now available here

If you've become like most of America now and rely on texting and emails to communicate with people, why not think about writing again? Especially to people that matter to you. I am writing to my daughter more because I want her to have a tangible remembrance of me and the things I have said to her over the years to hold in her hands and reflect on when I'm gone, like the ones I have from my Mom. I sure don't think she is going to hold on to my emails :0)

12 pack Assorted Notecards now available here

Love and Rejection

An artists view of themselves sometimes tends to rise and fall on the amount of praise or rejection that they get from other people. I've been through my own share of rejection and the pain that comes with it. I have told my husband on more than one occasion that I was going to quit being an artist because I was rejected from a certain show or overheard a stinging remark somewhere about my work.

I've been represented by several galleries but I used to be terrified to approach them for fear that they would not consider my work worthy to hang on their walls. I was cleaning out some files the other day and I came across a number of letters that I had saved from gallery owners in New York and Philadelphia who had rejected my early work. I don't know why I saved them, but I had a whole file called "Correspondence". At the time that I received the letters, I interpreted them as a personal affront, because by rejecting my work, they were rejecting me and all I could see written there was "no".

But I'm glad I saved them, because in reading over them again, I realized that even though they were not able to accept me into their gallery, many of them had taken the time to hand write me a brief note of encouragement, which was a very kind thing for busy people to do and it showed that they cared about artists and knew how we were built.

I've learned since then that if a gallery rejects my work it is not something for me to take personally. More often than not my work is just not a fit for what they already represent in their gallery. It's a business thing.  Belonging to the right gallery is very important.

I know that in reality I have had more praise for my work than rejection but at times the negatives will still ring in my ears and rock my confidence. I have to shove those words away and think of all the wonderful people who appreciate what I do and who spend their hard-earned money to own what I make.

I am truly humbled that there are such people, because without them,  I could not continue to create.

 Several years ago I was a member of a group called the Artist Conference Network which is a coaching community for artists that was one of the best investments I've ever made in myself. I went into it as a very insecure and self deprecating artist who probably would have never taken many of the chances that I have over the years and come out a believer in myself as a creative force in the world.

I think the key for every artist to remember is that every human being is unique and that as a creative person, you bring something very special to the world. Try not to let your perception of the value of what you do rise and fall with the tide of someone else's opinions. There will never be another you in all time to create  the special vision that is all your own.

Thank you to all the lovers and supporters of my work. I cherish you for making it possible for me to do what I do.

My first ladies night out Pottery Party

With the proliferation of social painting nights popping up at wineries and bars all over the place,  I thought that it would be fun to do a ladies night out in the intimacy of my small studio where  a few girls could come to a working artist studio and glaze a piece of pottery made by me on the potters wheel and fired to the bisque stage of 1941 degrees.

I got the studio all set up and marked the premade bowls with a pattern of mine that I thought that the ladies were going to be completing although I had left the option open in my advertising to glaze the bowl with your own design.

To my surprise and delight these ladies came already to go with reference images and ideas for what they wanted to paint on their pottery. There was a slight bit of trepidation as Mary Ellen had not done any art previously. The girls had done some but none had experience with glazing pottery.

They were delightful and easy to work with as I guided them through the steps for drawing onto their pottery and showing them how to work backwards in completing their designs with the Amoco Velvet underglazes, a glaze pen, and wax resist.

 I had allotted three hours for the evening and we ran a little over time but that was okay as one of the girls was very involved in an intricate design on her work.We had a lot of fun chatting while they worked and mom and I sipping a little wine. All in all, it was a great evening.

 The ladies left their bowls for me to coat with a clear glaze and came back to pick them up a week or so later after my next glaze firing.

As you can see, the results were beautiful and I think everyone had a great time. I know I did and I hope to be able to host one at least once a month. My next one will be held on Friday, January 30 from 7-9 pm. You can get more information, register and sign up on my website .