When I had a big sale last fall, I decided to spend the profit not only on casting some of my own pieces and advertising, but also on taking some workshops.  I haven't taken any in quite a while, and I wanted to take some "different" workshops to explore my creativity, learn about different media and techniques and so on.  So early this year, I chose two workshops from the American Academy of Equine Art, one with Morgen Kilbourne and one with Lisa Perry, and a figurative workshop with Phillipe Farault.  I thought I'd fit other things in around those.

The workshop with Morgen was a lot of fun and I finally learned how to use Apoxie Sculpt (an epoxy type clay, mix two equal parts together and it hardens) and a lot of other things, as well as discovering new tools (always a pleasure!) and making new friends.  Morgen's techniques are quite different from mine, so I learned a lot from her.  It's really good for me to stretch myself and get outside my comfort zone.

The Lisa Perry workshop is for jewelry.  It will be in the fall, and I'm really looking forward to it.  I enjoy Lisa as a person (we could gab for hours, and have done so when I see her at the Quarter Horse Congress - she's a fun lady!) and I do need to polish my jewelry skills, so I'm excited to take this one.

My next workshop is with Phillipe Farault, a figurative artist who lives in upstate New York, a beautiful area.  He works in water-based clay, which I really don't enjoy working in very much and avoid as much as possible.  Because I want to learn as much as possible from him, I started taking clay classes at the local YMCA (Countryside Y in Lebanon, Ohio) to get used to working in water-based clay again.  Most of the folks there are making pots or little animals or folk art Nativities or decorative or useful things for the home.  Then there's me, trying to do sort of realistic sculptures on a tiny scale (not my best idea!!).  The lady pictured (prior to firing) was my first attempt.  She has lovely movement in her hair and dress, but her body could use some improvement.  Her face turned out nicely, but the grog (bits of fired clay incorporated to make the clay have a stronger body and not be so mushy) was big enough in comparison to her than when I brushed a piece off the end of her nose, most of the end of her nose disappeared!  I've since done some cartoony kind of stuff, a dragon and two horses, all whistles (for fun and because the sweet and generous Norma The Whistle Lady joins us in class most of the time).  From this class, I have learned that while I'm a good sculptor (within my limitations - that lady was too small for me to get good detail, although I bet Tamara Bonet could do it!), I'm not very good at painting on underglazes!  Good thing I mostly do bronze since I'm not such a good painter.  Either my glazes are uneven or I miss a spot or I smear it somewhere.  *sigh*  But it's all fun and adds to my education.

Yes, I'm a professional sculptor.  Yes, I do good work, but yes, I still have a lot to learn and I'm happy to learn what I can, where I can, and to share what I know if it will help others, too ("paying it forward" to thank those who've shared their expertise with me).  It's good for me to stretch myself and to take workshops outside my comfort zone.  It's good to do work that doesn't satisfy my standards (such as what I've done in this water clay class - it's decent, but not good enough that I would ever offer such things for sale or put them in a show).  It's all a growing process, and if you aren't growing, you're stagnant.  So when I can, I'll keep struggling along in workshops where I have no idea what I'm doing as well as those that improve upon what I already know.  I'm looking for one that combines stained glass, which I did before I started sculpting, with clay - I think that would be great fun!  Stay tuned to see what I get up to next!  (And yes, sculpting horses for bronze is still going on.  I'll be posting pics of my current work in progress soon.)

We've lived in our new home since October 2012 - that's not to say we're all moved in, even now, but we've lived here that long now.  My studio and office still have boxes that need to be unpacked, but things are progressing nicely and the "end of the tunnel" is in sight, yay!  We're painting the old house to get it ready to sell and just have a few things to move out of there, then clean it all up and it'll be on the market!  Anyone need a 32 acre deluxe horse facility with a regulation small dressage arena, five stalls, a heated tack room, loads of storage, etc. etc.?  Not to mention a 3 BR 2 1/2 bath house, two stories with a full basement.  It won't be listed for maybe another  month, but if you're interested, let me know!  It's located in Montgomery County, Ohio.  Beautiful place.  And it has a nice heated and air conditioned art studio too!

As for "getting on with my artistic life" . . . if I stay away from art or writing for too long, my hands get itchy to get back to work.  This *moving stuff* has kept my mind and body too occupied for me to do anything creative for MONTHS!  Si U recently started taking a clay class at the Lebanon YMCA.  It's been years since I've used water based clay except for a little relief of a lion's head that I did last summer for fun (still haven't glazed it, but it's fired).  I thought it would be wise for me to get good at this medium again because I wanted to take a figurative (human) workshop from Phillipe Faraut, who uses water-based clay in his workshops.  So here I am, working in that kind of clay and getting FRUSTRATED because I *KNOW* plastilene and Super Sculpey inside out, but water-based clay is fussy and not as easy for me to work in.  It has its uses, and I want to improve my skills with it, so I'm soldiering on in this class where the other class members are making adorable little animals that are actually whistles, or tiles with low reliefs of various things (frogs, etc.) carved into them, or throwing pots.  I'm making a sculpture of a lady whose dress is blowing in the wind.  Here are some pictures of her as she is right now:

Part of my problem is that I can't decide if she's in a heavy Victorian type dress or a filmy modern dress of some kind.  I'm leaning toward Victorian, I think.  Her hair will be down and flowing in billowing waves.  After years of sculpting Friesians, I can do hair!  She may be holding a large picture hat against her dress, I'm not sure yet.  She's a bit awkward to me in a lot of ways, but she has an innate grace that l like a lot.  I don't know if I'll fire her or not.  If she isn't up to my standards, I may not.

I've consulted with my figurative sculpting GENIUS friend, Tamara Bonet (www.tamarabonet.com) on this piece and she's given me a lot of helpful pointers.  As you'll see if you look at her page, she's WORLDS better than I am at figurative art and working in water-based clay.  I really appreciate her help with improving my figurative and water-based clay skills!

I had decided earlier this year that this would be a year of taking workshops for me.  I need my creative batteries recharged after all this moving, and I certainly want to improve my skills with various media and with figurative sculpting in particular.  So to that end, I've signed up for two American Academy of Equine Art (www.aaea.net) workshops (a perk of membership is lower workshop fees, yay!), the first an equine workshop with Morgen Kilbourne ( http://www.artbymorgen.com/) who works in various media I want to learn more about, as well as making lovely horse sculptures.  The second one is a jewelry workshop with Lisa Perry (http://www.lisaperry.com/), who's a wonderful lady I enjoy talking with (we chatted for over two hours in her booth at the Quarter Horse Congress one year and our conversation never slowed down at all!) and who is a truly gifted sculptor and jeweler.  The third is with Phillipe Faraut (http://philippefaraut.com/index.html), a brilliant figurative sculptor who has a lot of videos on YouTube, tools of his own design and lots of other helpful stuff available through his website and his classes.  I'm excited about these workshops!!

I'll keep working in this clay class at the Y until I get my studio ready to go - hopefully not much longer (I'm enjoying the class, but I do need to get back to my "business" work!)  I hope to find some "playful" classes later this year that will just be fun explorations of creativity - or maybe I'll go back to the Y and make some whistles - those look like fun to make!

I've decided to move my blog to my website rather than using Blogger anymore.  I hope my followers there will move over here!

It's a new year.  I have a new studio (not completely moved into yet) and new creative energy, probably because it's been so long since I could do creative work (due to the move from the farm where we lived for 18 years to this wonderful new one closer to our kids).  I'm eager to get my hands back in the clay, and interested in trying some new materials and methods!  I've been looking at workshops I might attend - a sculptor friend told me about quite a few places that give sculpting, art and craft workshops.  And I just learned that the YMCA we joined recently offers a clay class (water-based clay).  I'm going to try it out tomorrow evening and see what I can learn.  It'll be fun to get in the clay, and before my studio's finished too!

I'm intrigued with the idea of using glass in some of my creations.  I don't know how I'd do it yet, but I was a stained glass artist before I became a sculptor and I just love glass.  Perhaps I can come up with some interesting way to combine media - perhaps not.  But exploring the possibilities will recharge my creative batteries in good ways, I believe!  And taking some workshops will be beneficial - it's always good to network with other artists and learn new ways to approach art.

I have quite a few ambitions for this year.  I hope I can accomplish them!  I want to show my horse again, which I haven't been able to do for a couple of years due to health issues, and then this past year, my daughter used him to earn points for her silver medal.  I was happy to loan him to her.  She's the one who trained him to do flying changes, series changes, and all the other things he had to do to show Prix St. Georges, so I was happy she was able to benefit from his training (her horses aren't at that level yet).  The two big obstacles to overcome before I can show him is to get my stamina back and get him to go well in a snaffle again (he really goes best in a double, but I'm not a third level rider yet . . . or even a solid first level rider!  But hope springs eternal that we'll find a way to show together!)

I want to finish and cast a sculpture I started years ago of my horse Jack and my hubby's late horse, Pepper, playing.  I started it and commissions got in the way, and then the cost of casting it made me set it aside.  I sold a second life-size of Nanning a few months ago (he's in the process of being cast now), which gives me the funds to cast this piece and others, as well as attending some workshops!  "Horseplay" (the one of Jack and Pepper) is a big piece.  I don't know if there will be a market for it, but it will be a nice piece for my husband and I to enjoy, since it's portraits of two horses we had, enjoyed and loved a long time (We had Pepper 18 years - he was 28 when he died.  I've had Jack for almost 11 years). 

I want to PLAY with art more than I usually do.  I don't know if I'll cast the playful pieces or not, but if they're good, I probably will.  I have some fun ideas, not all of them horses, not all of them bronze.  And I want to play with painting some more too.  I'm not a horrible painter, I've just never done anything I felt like showing anyone or that I felt was worth selling.  If I work at it a bit more, I might be able to paint to my satisfaction - and it would be fun.  At least, it will be fun trying!

I have a novel to finish and another to write, and I have other ideas I need to write.  I could certainly use more than 24 hours in a day!!  Or at least I would appreciate the ability to work a lot faster than I normally do!

One thing I'm really looking forward to is the February release of an anthology which includes a short story of mine, "Lisa Goodman, Writer." This story is unusual for my work because it's both a short story(I normally write novels)  and a horror story (I normally write fantasy)!  I'm delighted it was accepted to this anthology!  The stories were all written by members of the Western Ohio Writers Association.  The main requirement for each story (other than being well-written and interesting) was that they be set in the Miami Vally (the region in and around Dayton, Ohio). A publisher contacted our group asking us to do an anthology for them.  Not all the stories submitted got in - there was a tough editorial board deciding which ones to accept.  I'll post ordering information on www.LyndaSappington.com as well as my Facebook page when it's available.

I hope 2012 was good to you, and that 2013 will be even better!  And I sure hope I have this blog set up properly so it will post where I want it to!  Happy New Year!