Busta

This is our favorite bird Busta.

Back from shakerag

Heather and I have returned from Shakerag Artist Workshops in Sewanee TN, and All I have to say is WOW! whan an experience. I have never in my life been around so many incredible and talented people. I finally have some time to write this after three days of hard core catching up re: Chickens, overgrown gardens, overgrown lawns, (all of which tripled in size), work, laundry and general out-of-handedness....

I promised to post some pics of our adventures there and after going through roughly 450 pics I narrowed it down to about 75 pics that pretty much cover much of our experiences there. Great people, Great food, Great art,  and who could ever write a blog about Shakerag without saying, Great Claire.

Heather had a blast in her workshop the week prior to my coming there and got some much needed "Me" time to hang with the girls and decompress from her job and teaching duties, (and lets be honest.....me), and had great things to say about everyone. I was about to find out why.

My time in Gay Smiths' class was amazing and a huge leap ahead for me as far as throwing pottery on the wheel despite my ADD and general disdain for any type of outside instruction and I actually think I might be able to make some pitchers to help raise money for the raku workshops we are trying organize. I was thinking of calling it "The Pitcher Project" and maybe even trying to get some people to donate pitchers from which the sales proceeds can help with our start up costs for the workshops. Wish us luck.....I can't say enough about my time there so I will not try and i will just leave you with this link to some pics.

For all of you who we met and had fun with , (and probably forgot your names so we'll just call you all Bob), thank you very much and I hope to see you all again next summer......

Heather and Mike...

Welcome to our blog

Here we are in early June and it seems like it is going to0 be a great summer here in New Milford CT. Let us introduce ourselves.Heather is a full time ceramics instructor and studio manager at Silvermine Art Guild in New Canaan, CT., and I am a doer of all things/ jack of all trades/ master of my own small reality. Heather and I have had a lot of our dreams realized through hard work and dedication to each other and to our modest home. we take great pride in our relationship and our home and we both feel that we have lots to offer people in terms of sharing our knowledge and love of art and creativity.

One of our dreams is to start having affordable American style raku workshops here at our house. Lots of digging has already been done to level the kiln pad which has been dug out of the hill that our property is on, many hours of machining/metal work has been done to make the burner which will be used in the kiln, and plenty of money has been spent to get this venture off the ground. This brings me to the next order of business......Donations. Heather and I are asking for donations of any amount in order to complete this process and pay for things like: Steel to complete the lift-up kiln, Glazes, Insurance, Tongs, cement, patio stones, galvanized pails and buckets w/ lids, etc. etc. We are hoping to be able to start doing workshops in the late summer/ fall of this year and Eventually would like to get a co-op of some sort started.

I have started this blog to document our lives and hopefully the community of artists we build around this place and our adventures. I am no writer, so pardon if my grammar and punctuation aren't the best, but that isn't the point of this blog at all. I will not be posting probably for another couple weeks cuz heather is away at Shakerag in Tennesee and I will be joining her next week to take a class on firing a soda/salt kiln. I will try my best to update weekly staring towards the end of june and we'll see if I can keep on schedule. you can easily donate by clicking the button below, Till then.......Thanks and hopefully we'll see you at the workshops.

Mike and Heather.