After years of hectivity, change, moving, moving, and moving again, I've finally landed back home where I started, gotten settled, started teaching at various venues, and have ample studio time to get back to the business of making funny pots.
I like to glaze with both active and wysiwyg glazes that use Mason stains as colorants. My active glazes are changing as I get down to the bottom of the buckets that have traveled miles, and I use ingredients that I buy at my local supplier but come from different mines, or perhaps it's the same mine but a later run. Some of the changes could be from the differences in the tap water that I use, could be due to being in a climate with more moisture in the air, could be from the subtle differences in the way my new kiln fires.
I've lost my beautiful green glaze that broke to peach and yellow and pooled to blue with my textures. I will continue to try to test my way back to it, but I'm going to let my glaze palette evolve rather than fight the changes.
Not all of the changes are bad. The blue-green glaze that I use has begun to develop fuzzy little crystals in the pools, and a mistake of using cobalt carbonate rather than oxide has amped up the variation within the glaze. So, one bad & one good.
My darker glaze has also changed, showing more and different color variation than it did before. It's ready to collaborate and be taken in new directions.
Luckily, I have a dedicated bucket room, a whole separate studio to mix and test as well as glaze my work. My palette is evolving, and I welcome the change.
I am not afraid of purple. I just want you to know that. Stay tuned...

As I came to consciousness over & over again this morning, I remembered, with some excitement to the commitment, that I had chosen this day to not speak. I spoke up until the final hour last night, getting off the phone at five ‘til midnight, and then I turned off my chatter box for a day.
It’s not an escape from language, far from it. Language is rushing through my head at a dizzying pace as this day stretches out before me. Torrents of words, glorious phrases that I am now keeping to myself. I’m not perfect: I started to whisper something out loud as I was going down the back steps to check my garden, but I caught myself and strengthened my resolve and I sharpened my awareness of this voice that is always trying to go out into the world.
I took the doggy down to the dog park. I wanted to play outside of the fence with him, to avoid having to be strange to strangers, but he was squirrel-minded today, and so I had to enter the arena where a few people already were stationed. I smiled sweetly and acknowledged everybody, but moved over to an unoccupied area, and began to throw the ball for Gepetto. I confirmed what I already knew on some level, which is I don’t need words to communicate with my dog. When I snapped my fingers he looked at me, when I patted my leg he came to me, when I was going to change the direction I was going to throw the ball, all I had to do was catch his eye and point. When he knocked the ball outside of the fence, he knew the drill: As I walked towards the gate and motioned for him to come, he ran to me. Then when I let him out, he ran along the fence to the other side of the park, and retrieved his ball. Calling out commands is unnecessary. In fact, without all the shouting and calling his name, we seemed to operate together more seamlessly.
At the dog park this morning, silence was more powerful that words. I could sense people watching Gepetto and I even more intensely than usual, wondering, perhaps if I were mute, or merely exceedingly shy. As I was leaving, letting Gepetto lay in the shady grass for a moment, his best buddy Riley came running up. Riley and his dad are dog park buddies of ours, and as the man approached, I readied my prepared note: “I have taken a vow of silence for a day. Talk to you tomorrow!” He read the note and said, “Ah, cool.” He did talk a bit, but I quietly shrugged my shoulders when I couldn’t respond and he understood.
Gepetto and I wended our way home. I smelled the wet earth of the field after last night’s rain. We saw young squirrels, cheekily nibbling things on the sidewalk in front of us. I felt a cool springtime breeze and smiled up into the beautiful blue sky. And then, as we crossed the final street and were steps away from home, a purple balloon approached, dragging its purple ribbon down the shady sidewalk toward us. (This is the second of these weary travelers who has come right to me.) We met in front of my gate as his ribbon wrapped around a stalk of over-grown grass, and he bowed to me, his head so graciously and reverently close to the ground. Of course I brought him inside, and when I let him go, he went up to the ceiling, greeting the Lego Nun on top of the armoire, and then descended to his comfortable level. He is behind me now, watching as I write, holding steady at the height of a child, his ribbon curved in front of him on the floor, like legs sitting.
I will do this again. Time seems to open up before me right now, and I feel more magical than usual.

A cell phone, for me, is an instrument of weakness. Talking, talking, talking, wasting time. I had a teacher once who discouraged me from talking about my work before I actually made it. He thought that if you spoke too much about an idea that you would achieve an artistic climax and you'd lose motivation for actually making the work. I've found this to be true.
Same goes, I think, for dealing with various issues. Sometimes you've just got to shut up and get on with it, even in times of hard work with little return. Especially then.
I'm taking a vow of silence for Saturday, which takes some planning, actually, I'll carry a note in my pocket, and keep Gepetto on leash. The phone will stay off all day. I will make no purchases. I will work in my studio, walk in the park and lay in the sunshine. Listening. Receiving, but for one day, not broadcasting.

At times I feel as if I could fall out of an open window into the night sky.

Is it possible to be allergic to gravity?

Sometimes things start to flow in droves: repairs to my communicator, my transporter, water for the garden, and...I got my heat back. Mucho thanks to Laura at Paragon, who spent hours on the phone with me until we finally figured out how to bootleg my problem child.

I wrapped up the next article to be published in the July/August issue of PMI this past week. I had the pleasure of getting to know and writing about another ceramist here in denver, Cristine Boyd. She allowed me to photograph and explain a really exciting technique, and I look forward to seeing if others find it as exciting as I do. I have one of her pieces where this technique is employed, and I have to say, it's genius. I'm obviously not going to scoop myself or my magazine, but I will tell you that it's a way of going beyond what's normally expected.

I like being beyond what's normally expected, don't you?

My space ship was returned to me all shiny and new. Glossed up, with a go-faster coating that I'm sure will come in handy. I pulled down the faded orange dingle balls, and put fresh ones up with an added bonus of purple fringe. I corresponded with people far away, then I printed up a map today.
Here's just a bit of something I've been working on, again, recently, with a friend. Some of you will recognize this from another time, another place, but it's not done yet:

"They stepped out into the noon light, he with his carry-on, she with her dreams. He followed her wandering to the upper-deck of short term. Her car, which he always expected to contain a jumble of interesting objects, seemed at first glance to be full of rubbish. Looking through the window, though, he realized the mess was maps: Pages ripped from atlases, faded print-outs, a spiral bound map of the city, its pages all kerfluffle, Rand McNallies of this state and adjacent states, maps, maps, maps. Was that a star-chart on the dash?
“What gives?” he said as she joined him on the passenger’s side and handed him the keys. He took the keys, opened her door and watched as the contours of her feet became mountains among maps."

The largest beings on the planet have been calling to me, for a few years now, even before the red balloon flew down from the sky right into my arms as I was sitting on a roof, talking to a man who had lived in the trees. Today, I made the time and space to go to the Redwoods after my workshops in San Francisco, and I printed up a map.

Here's the announcement, Gepetto and I will be heading west on the night of June 9th. We will drive to Salt Lake City to wake up in another state the next morning. We will continue on our way to California. One way or another, I will fly a dragon kite in a sea breeze on June 12th. I'm teaching two workshops at the Sharon Art Studio on the 13th & 14th. Drop me a line if you are on route and would like to hear a funny story or two, or even if you have one to tell me.

Eeee heeeee!

I guess I should, perhaps, start dating these entries. What follows spans a few years now, so don't be confused and think the past is the present.

Last night, in an obscure film projected onto the wall of a bar, I saw the boats I've made. Not the actual boat, you know, I work in clay, but the shape was the same and the color! (The boats that the duck teapots & ewers are sitting in somewhere. Who has them?) The turquoise inside and the glaze I call corrosion on the outside. I was transfixed - it was my boat, alive on film, moving through rapids and waves. That's not the shape of boat I associated with rapids. Before, I thought, rubber raft for that. And these boats I made were only the idea of a dory named Sharkey that used to haul us across the river to the pub, helmed by the lock-keeper - he rowed a boat full of women, children, a baby carriage and assorted dogs across to the Olde Lock & Weir. But here were my boats as exact replicas, same form, same color, being helmed by handsome swarthy men with oars, in rivers near oceans it seemed, bobbing and diving through waves with beautiful women aboard. They were being taken for an exciting ride by capable men who guided the boats between boulders. The flickering images were not of here or now, and I have never been there or when, but by coincidence, I made those boats. And now I will be searching for this place and chance forever.

I celebrated the new year by becoming a member of the Denver Art Museum today. I went for a visit, and who should I run into but the teacher of the 2nd ceramics class I ever took, Sweetie Bowman. She runs a great program at a Jr. College in the Dallas area - blimey, what is the name of that school? Oh, it'll come to me...North Richland Hills? Is that it?
Anyway, after a stint at that Jr College, I finally found my way into the art department at a university. I graduated from TWU, where I was one of John Brough Miller's last students. Sweetie also studied there too, during the hey-day of his program, along with David Hendley, Mara Smith, Dee Buck& others. These were the students that Miller told stories about. These ceramists are kind of like mythological creatures to me, and here I ran into one of those unicorns today! I experienced a place-warp vertigo, since I would expect to run into her in a Museum, but not in Denver, in Dallas or Ft Worth. She and her husband are in town to see a grand baby, and were stopping by the museum on the way there. Spotting a unicorn has got to be a great omen for the new year!

so don't confuse them with the present!

Cindy and Diane and Lillian and Kathy and Cindy:

I had a such a great time yesterday! What a great group of people, and what a creative, fun day! The conversation ranged all over the place, and I am still cracking up thinking about all the random bits of information. I wish you all the best on your ceramic journeys and I hope you will all keep in touch!

I’ve been getting other people muddy for as long as I can remember. I grew up with a creek behind my house, which I played in everyday. My friend Amy and I would go down into it after school and go for miles, switching from one side to the other as we walked until we got to the ‘deadly bubbles’ part where the bank was too steep on either side and we had to paddle through gingerly, taking care to not disturb the bottom, which would release huge gushes of awful smells! Amy and I were both the youngest children; our mothers had long since gotten over the clean child ideal. But not poor Valerie or Jhanifor.

Valerie was the oldest of three, and had ‘a lot of responsibility as the oldest child.’ Jhanifor lived with her grandmother. When either of these two girlies came over to my house to play, well, I guess problems resulted from cultural differences: The savage culture of my childhood versus the pinafore culture of theirs. ‘Play’ to the petit four girls meant something civilized, sitting down with dolls, or crayons at a table with a tablet. First of all, I had no dolls. I hate them. Crayons are cool when it’s raining, or when you are sick, or at nighttime, though paints are better – especially when the kitty walks through your painting and helps it continue beyond the framing device to the carpet. We can call the puckered edges of a single piece of newsprint a framing device, can't we?

But, if playtime was in the afternoon, or on a weekend day, I couldn’t comprehend anyone’s desire to stay out of the creek. So, I talked them into it: “Oh, come on, how will they know?” I’ll tell you how – those girly girls ALWAYS slip and fall in the mud FIRST THING. They cannot stay away from it – the mud wants them, and they, on some level hunger for the mud.

I can tell you something else: creek water won’t wash black silty mud out of anything. Not jeans, or white shorts, or a dress (sorry Kim), and anyway, those things won’t dry before they have to go home or get picked up. And in cold weather, this just makes the situation worse.

It was the smell of my reclaimed clay just now, as I scooped it up and laid it into my plaster wedging bowl, that brought back these memories. The smell of the black Texas mud in a stone-bottomed creek. I sit here with a towel in my lap to wipe the clay off the keyboard…

My six wonderful students just left after a day of making cups. This was the first workshop I taught in my new home-studio. The space is a bit cramped, but nevertheless the seven of us took a lovely little trip through the land of slow cups. You've heard of the slow-food movement? Well, I'm nudging up a slow cup movement. Make a cup really worth getting to know.
Thank you all - Jennifer, Michele and Dori, Aimee (you left your rolling pin here, call me) Vivian, and Heather. You guys were an absolute pleasure to have in my home and teach. Keep in touch and make great pots!

your dedicated satellite,

Annie

ps: someone left a really cool brush in the cornstarch. Did you make it? email me to claim and tell me the story of where it came from

Right here in Denver, Colorado, I am offering a second date for this studio workshop.

Saturday February 23rd

This BYOC (bring your own clay) workshop will be held in my studio for you to come spend a day with me learning how to make textured slab cups. I will cover creating, using, and modifying templates to get the form you desire, slab handles and their modification, and altering after assembly. The workshop runs from 10 to 5, and we will take a lunch break. Fee is $75. Please email me for more info and to register.

I'm so pleased to have been included in AHEAD OF THE NEED, an invitational show benefitting CERF at the Red Lodge Clay Center April 5 - 30th

And I'm having a private little spazter over being invited by Anthony Schaller to be a featured artist at the Red Lodge Clay center in August.

How many cups of coffee does it take to get to the center of a featured show? The world may never know...

Last night was the 'sneak preview' opening for the members of the Foothills Art Center. I am honored to be in this show - it was juried down to 12 participants from over 60 applicants. The work is excellent, and the official reception is Friday February 8th from 5:30 to 8:00 pm. Mr Notkin will be giving a free slide lecture on Thursday February 7th at 6:00. Come join us for one or both of these events!

I am making cups for the next few days, and would be happy to make one just for you. Prices are $35 for the 'touchy tumblers' without handles, $45 for a normal sized cup with a handle, and $55 for the 'caffeine addict' giant size. Add $8 for s/h. You can pick your own patterns & colors, too!

please email me to place an order.

the Cups Glorious Cups workshop on February 16th is full. I have a couple of options here...move to another location and take more students, or offer another session. Since this is a hands-on workshop, with the original intention to have it in my actual studio, I think I'll set up an over-flow date on the following Saturday, February 23, 2008.

To be the Pioneer of Enrollment on the February 23rd date, drop me a line!

Ah! At last! I am out from under the avalanche of deadlines that were difficult to meet due to my move! I've got my next article turned in, my workshop is filling up, and I've been corresponding with people all over the world!
I'm turning in my work for the Colorado Clay show, and I'm looking forward to my next making cycle - no stress, no pressure, no rushing to catch up, just the pure pleasure of making!
It now truly feels like the new year for me - and what a year it will be! 8 is such a fat & happy number and I hope this year will be great for us all!

See you at NCECA! I'm really looking forward to it this year. Don't be afraid to say hi - I look forward to meeting you!

I hope they take you in new directions!

I'm just waiting to get my hands on my copy of PMI, then I'll get some templates together to go along with the article. When we submit articles, we don't know the final shape and form of them until we get our own copies of the magazine...it's always a nice surprise to see which photos are chosen, what is edited, and how everything is laid out. I'm certainly not objective, but it always seems to me that they do some extra fun stuff with the layout of my articles (rumor has it that they've included a picture of Gepetto this time)...Bill Jones is just the best!

I've just finished and submitted an article for the Jan/Feb issue of PMI on how to make my textured slab cups. I'd love to have a few of you into my studio for an intimate hand-on workshop to make cups for a day. This will be BYOC - bring your own clay, so you can take what you make home and fire it with your own glazes. I'll have plenty of texture tools and hand tools for you to use, or you can bring your own. The person who brings the best new (to me) texture tool gets a prize! We'll just hang out and tell stories and make some exquisite cups from textured slabs and templates. I'll explain how to create and modify templates to get to the form you're dreaming of, and will cover after-assembly forming techniques that make your cups really sing. I will also go over various slab handles and how to alter them. We'll break for lunch and all go somewhere together, so the shop talk won't stop!
The workshop will run from 10 to 5 on Saturday, February 16th, and the fee will be $75.
The enrollment for this workshop will be limited. Please email me with any questions or to register.

I would also be happy to come to you with this or another workshop format, if you have a clay group in your town. Contact me to arrange a landing near you!

we've got a promotional video for the Rino Arts District, and there's some footage from Plinth Gallery...when I saw my teapot I totally cracked up. It's just like MTV back in the day, I swear...
watch the video

An in-studio workshop Saturday October 13 from 10 - 5.
I will deomonstrate the building techniques I've covered in my Pottery Making Illustrated articles, and perhaps even the cool new things that will be in the upcoming Nov/Dec issue.
The day's agenda includes, but is not limited to, double-sided textured slabs, slab handles & spouts, 'puffed' rims & handles, joining a slab to a thrown ring, etc. The format will be mostly demo, but there will be some hands-on, so you can take an example of your slabs spout & handle with you. The day's fee is $75. Call me at 303.241.1191 or email me for more info & to register.

Hope to see you there!

I'm featured in September's Rino Crow - the e-newsletter all about my beloved arts district.

Click here to jump straight to the photo feature of me in my studio, co-starring Gepetto...

There is nothing like the thrill of taking a new cup - new size, new color, new texture, warm from the kiln up to your kitchen, and making yourself a latte with a fine machine and beans sent by a dear friend from overseas, and discovering, to your delight, that the sugar-stirring-spoon glides around inside, and that the handle, while not perfect, was placed just right so that the cup floats up to your lips...

-your dedicated satellite, on the never-ending voyage to Exquisite Cups...

Why is it that we write our artist bio's in third person? We all write our own, but write them as if we were some admiring nosey fan. It does my head in!

Annie Chrietzberg is a studio potter now living in Denver, CO. She has a BFA in ceramics from Texas Woman’s University and an MA in ceramics from a place that will go unnamed. After grad school, she jumped across the pond and lived on a Narrowboat on the inland waterways of England for two and a half years. Most of the time abroad and aboard was spent in London, and she had a studio for a time near London Bridge, and then one in Chiswick, near the Fuller’s Brewery. While in Blighty, she gave presentations to the students at West Thames College and also to the London Potters Guild, and attended the biennial ceramics conference at Aberystwyth.
Her last summer in England was spent at the helm, slowing making her way down to Bristol, then heading back and finding a mooring at Hanham Lock smack dab between Bristol and Bath. The whole English adventure and especially that last magical summer provided endless inspiration for both her ceramic work and her writing.
Annie has lead a rich life and she deconstructs and blends her memories and stories into her work. While she takes her ceramics career and lifestyle very seriously, she’s knows that serious is just another parameter open to interpretation and definition: She fires electrically because it’s tidy. She fires to cone 7 because cone 7 is orange, and in fact, the trio of witnesses are the colors of a tasty sorbets. She thinks cooling cycles are cool. She encourages in others, and is inspired by, spontaneous adventure, deep appreciation, and tall tall tales. She thanks you, and goodnight.

Opening Friday, August 24th, 5-7 pm
Hibberd McGrath Gallery
Breckenridge, CO
970.453.6391

I've got articles coming out in the next four(!) PMI's. Click here to get your subscription so you don't miss a thing!

I'm pleased to announce that I've been anthologized in the upcoming "Handbuilding & Throwing: Forming Techniques" from the Ceramic Arts Handbook Series coming out fall 2007 from ACERS.

bikes in the rain

bikes in the rain - intoxicating
immersed but not struggling,
invigorating
speedy spokes, laughter,
wheeling and sizzling

the antidote to a dull lonely evening
or even those dreams
of creeping by swimming

spinning and flinging
clothes are now clinging
soaked in seconds
pedaling against freezing
torrents buffeting,
whipping and stinging

but still, you’re breathing
and, blinking, you’re seeing
and giggling in the warm wet summer evening
puddles buck up and then wash away
the city grit flinging and washing away