School of Fish, each individually hand-made, never a duplicate, by Tammy Vitale (click for a a close up view)

Best laid plans:  I intended to post at least pictures from my set up at Unique Boutique (Hollywood, MD) one day over the weekend but I can’t take pictures if the card for the camera is sitting in the computer at home.  So I didn’t get pictures taken until Sunday (not Friday as planned) and I have to say the environment wasn’t good for great pictures so many I took were blurred.  Nevertheless some are posted here and I hope you enjoy them.

This was my first year showing at Unique Boutique.  Apparently the show was not the usual weekend (Veterans Day) because our venue, the Hollywood Firehouse social room, had already been taken.  As a result, I am told that the crowds we had were down.  And there were definite slow spots.  Folks were more focused on Halloween than on holiday purchases (which November brings).  I was starting to think maybe I’d made a mistake, but in the end I did well enough to make me want to sign up again for next year, where we have our usual weekend (and we’re reserving 2008 now too!).  I sold two torsos:  Into the Deep (right) and Sisters (left),  which I pulled out of the kiln and finished when I sold Into the Deep.  And realized too late that I didn’t have a single shot of her.  Only the grouping picture you see here.   Sisters has two turtles – I created her thinking of friendship, how, like a turtle, friendship means you always have a home that you can carry with you, so you’re never lost.

I plan to raku today – I think the wind we had for the past two days (which has departed – good! bad to raku in wind, too much flame flying around for me firing in the woods like I do) has dried out the leaves and pine needles enough to get a good flame.  I’m also going to use newspaper this go round because I want to try for some really good crackle lines and it has to reduce well (flame then lots of smoke) to get good crackle lines.  Husband is on board to help me when I pull the torsos out of the kiln. 

Made two new torsos Saturday night realizing that I had sold one and hoped to sell at least another (yes, I did that too) that are drying.  I will glaze them.  I need them for the Joie de Vivre show I’m loading into next Monday in Cambridge….this is great – I can’t keep up with the demand for torsos!  So starting the new year I’m raising their prices – and I’m thinking about starting to make cards with pictures of torsos for folks who like them but don’t have a place for them just at this moment.

I’m going to try to make a few masks this week and maybe another one or two torsos in amidst my social calendar (keeping up with girlfriends:  coffee Wednesday and lunch Thursday – mandatory…see Sisters above.).  Gallery sitting at Gallery at Friday’s Creek Friday.  Finishing and packing Saturday and Sunday and travel to Cambridge to load in Monday.  That gives me today for raku and tomorrow for making stuff and the rest has to fit in between the cracks.

And I also start my "one a day" art (see Kat’s Paws in the top left column) tomorrow!  I can do this!

More pictures from Unique Boutique: I sat across from Faun (mask with word tiles) for so long I think I’ve decided that I like him too much to sell.  There’s something about his eyes and the way he holds his face….I’m glad he hasn’t sold – though Mage, right, did sell.)

thought for the day:  We do not learn by experience, but by our capacity for experience.  Buddha

p.s  I’ve been sitting here listening to The Tragically Hip new album on iTunes which Husband uses my computer for and from which I thereby benefit by being able to listen to all kinds of music.  So I’m listening to the new album which is very much more pop than usual and thinking:  not bad.  And then this great wonderful heavy metal sounding stuff comes on and I think:  hey, not bad at all…so not bad I wanted to see which Hip song I was listening too.  Ah, iPod.  We were off to Nitoseed, Barbarian Test Tube.  Hey, what can I say.  I like the heavy stuff.