For the longest time, I've wanted to be on Oregon ArtBeat.
It's a public television program, produced out of Portland, that profiles visual and performing artists from around the state. Not just painters and sculptors, either. More than a few of my potter friends have been featured over the years, including a couple of Eugenians, Ken Standhardt and Faith Rahill. Being on ArtBeat is a sort of imprimatur, a seal of approval from Oregon Public Broadcasting.
It doesn't hurt career-wise, either. Both Ken and Faith reported a lot more interest in their work, and a number of new customers, after their ArtBeat appearances.
So it should have been a dream come true last January when I got a phone call from a listener on my public radio show, saying she'd seen me on Oregon ArtBeat the previous night.
Except I hadn't been interviewed. What the heck?
I watched the rebroadcast Sunday night, and she was right, there I was. For about 10 seconds. The crew had been in Eugene to record a feature about local painter Sarkis Antikajian, shot some footage of his retrospective exhibit, and decided to economize on the travel budget by shooting a feature on the Maude Kerns Art Center, where Sarkis' show was held. A feature that included footage of Club Mud.
So there's Don Prey, inspecting a bisque firing. There's Laura, teaching a kids' class. And there I am, way back in the back room, dipping and painting pots. There's a nice 3-second close-up of my hands painting chrome green onto a hummingbird bowl, and about 4 seconds more, speeded up, drawing a dragonfly on a salad bowl. Then cut to the education director explaining why the studio cat couldn't be the ghost of Maude Kerns. (It's a boy cat.)
Sigh.
I'd been hearing for a while from other artists about Etsy.com, a website that lets you open an internet storefront to sell handmade art and craft. While I do a little business on-line, mostly special orders from this website, by far and away the bulk of my work sells at retail art fairs. Etsy seems like a relatively painless way to increase my online exposure. Think I'll give it some time and see what happens.
As with Flickr, I've added a link to the menu (left) that takes you directly to my Etsy storefront.
And speaking of Flickr, I've just uploaded photos of a very nice batch of small squared bakers from my February firing.
I blame Mr. Popper.
I was a voracious reader as a kid. Mysteries, biographies, humor, even science fiction—I remember reading Heinlein's Rocket Ship Galileo in the second grade. Bits and pieces stick with me, most is long gone, but some books led to a lifelong fascination. Such as Mr. Popper's Penguins.
It's a silly little story, with a penguin sleeping in the icebox, Mrs. Popper playing the piano with fingerless gloves, a dancing penguin revue, a heroic Arctic explorer and an everyday fellow who dreams of being just like him. It's still in print, look it up sometime.
It sent me to the natural history stacks to read everything I could about penguins.
They're fascinating critters, flightless birds that fly underwater, found wherever cold water and abundant fish occur in the Southern hemisphere. They live as far north as equitorial Ecuador, following the cold Humboldt current. Antarctic penguins get the best press, though: Emperors, hunkering down in the midst of the polar winter, incubating eggs atop their feet, warmed by a roll of belly fat. And my favorite, the Adelie.
Partly, it's the tux, the waddling gait, the tendency to flop over and toboggan just for the sheer fun of it. Mostly, though, it's the romance. Even as an icky-girl-hating third grader, I still had to go, "Awwww."
Adelies give gifts, you see. The male will comb the gravelly shoreline for just the perfect pebble for his intended. Competition is fierce; males steal each other's pebbles. Eventually, our beau will pick up his pebble and carry back to his girl in the rookery, presenting it to her with great ceremony.
If she thinks he's an insensitive lunk who just grabbed up any old pebble in the checkout line at IceMart, she'll brush it aside and leave him heartbroken. Or dashing back to the beach to find a better pebble. On the other hand, if he's found a gem among pebbles in her estimation, she'll accept it with grave courtesy and incorporate it into the nest she's building, and it's wedding time. After all, they're both already in formal wear...
See? Penguins make me silly. Which is why I paint Emperors on tall mugs and dessert plates, Adelies on dessert plates and bakers and serving bowls.
You never know where they might pop up.