So, you want to sculpt? I can’t always tell you what to do right, but I am very good at learning what not to do.I have had explosions, meltings, kiln malfunctions, and clay failure, and that is just in the past six months. Although I have been sculpting since 1992 in porcelain, the past few months have been a challenge on my ego as well as on my purse. Why a Unicorn? ok, there are fun. You can make them anyway you want, as far as your imagination will take you. No one can tell you you made it wrong because other than resembling a horse, they have a horn. The rest is up to you to define and create. S... » Read More

Making Chocolate Labs Creativity is allowing yourself to make mistakes.  Art is knowing which ones to keep.  ~Scott Adams No, not real chocolate, but brown colored Labrador retrievers.I thought I would show how I work on some ornaments. I usually spend one day a week mixing up clay and making clay colors. Some colors are more difficult to make and to use. Mixing up black and brown are difficult due to the amount and type of stains used in the clay body. Brown is difficult due to the fact that it is hard to remove the stain from your hands, which gets on all of the other colors I use. You can see the brown stain all over... » Read More

Thank you for stopping by my Artfire Studio Blog. I have just settled in, so be sure to check back soon for updates!... » Read More

 A little sarcastic note to my customers and friends and a big reminder for me for next Christmas Even though I have many Reindeer friends, I am not Santa. How do I know this? Let me count the ways... 1. I do not have 100+ little elves helping me make things.   2. I really have no sleigh and 8 tiny reindeer!  I cannot deliver everything overnight.         3. Ho, Ho, ho....        4.  Cookies and milk... 5. Making his list, checking it twice....          I really need to work on this one, I am not perfect, I have little sticky notes all over my studio..... no organization at all 6. ... » Read More

....to get in the way of my art. Today my refrigerator bit the dust.... and I had to spend the morning cooking all of the defrosted chicken , gave the fish to my Mom, more chicken to my daughter, what a waste of a lot of food, kind of sad. But now I have custom orders awaiting and life goes on.... My beaWootiful girl always makes me smile though!... » Read More

You can’t have any successes unless you can accept failure. ~George Cukor Just when I thought things were going well,I have been sculpting for many years, and still occasionally have a failure of a piece or two, nothing quite prepares you for opening the kiln and seeing this.   Sometimes things just go wrong. I think that the computer on my kiln reverted to the last program I used, which was a quick, fast gold firing, instead of the very slow bisque firing I usually do. I expected the kiln to fire around 100 degrees in an hour, I returned to check on it in and hour and a half and it was over 700 degrees, with this result. Some... » Read More

I was recently interviewed about my ideas, my thoughts,  and my work. Here are some of the questions that were asked. How long have you been doing this? I started working first in Porcelain in 1990.   What inspired you to get started? Christmas and Merlin, my cat, is what got me started in making Christmas Ornaments. I wanted to make an ornament of him for my tree.  So, I learned how to make bread dough ornaments. From there I sculpted in bread dough, making several hundred of these ornaments, selling them at craft shows, friends and family. I specialized in animals, mostly cats and dogs, but would ... » Read More