Celebrating Spring
The days are getting longer, the flowers are awakening from their winter rest, and the warmth of spring is returning! You are invited to celebrate the joys and colors of spring this season with new collections, fresh flowers, and new learning opportunities from the studio.
After a little break from making during the winter, I returned to the studio in late February to begin creating a new line of work called 'Tulipware'. These new pieces inspired by spring made their debut during the Attleboro Art Museum Flower Show. The theme for this years’ exhibit was ‘Pollinator Party’ and for my display garden, I chose to represent the honeybee.
For this display, I decided to work with another artist friend, who is also a beekeeper, to help fill this garden. Susan Medyn from Nanaquaket Nectary adorns her bee hives with colorful designs that I knew would be perfect for this display. She generously loaned me some real hives with honeycomb, along with many supplies used in her bee keeping practices.
I envisioned a pollinator picnic for this display and wanted to create a resting place for my beekeeper to take a break and enjoy lunch among the bees. Using a fabulous teal table and octopus chair borrowed from another fellow artist, Kelly Milukas, this table served as the perfect backdrop for a picnic tablescape with the new tulipware.
I also built a honeycomb shelf/fence to create more visual interest for the display and hung branches from the ceiling to create a sense of being in the forest. One hundred tiny bee charms were hung from the branches, swirling above the picnic. I used a mix of spring flowers to brighten the display, and cut flowering branches from apples, blueberries, forsythia, and magnolia as those are some of the first flowers to be pollinated in the spring.
Creating work for the flower show has helped me branch out into new forms or styles over the years, and I am excited to now offer ‘tulipware’ as part of my collection this spring.
I am currently in the midst of creating new crystalline pieces and will be excited to share them with you during the upcoming open studio events at the end of the month.
Make a Vase Workshops
Due to popular demand, workshops are returning to the list of studio events! In this special workshop you will learn handbuilding techniques to create your very own ceramic vase. Using stamps, found objects, or flowers, you can create your own pattern on clay and transform it into a slab-built vase.
Prior to the pandemic, I was offering various types of ‘make your own’ events, one of which was a vase workshop. The 2019 event was successful, and for 2020 I had planned to add the tulip experience as part of the workshop. Planting the thousands of tulips I now have all started with the idea that you could make a vase and get a bouquet all in the same place. Five years later, that idea is coming to life with the reintroduction of the workshops.
These workshops will be an intimate experience for handbuilding your own vase using slab techniques. I will have various stamps, objects, or flowers that you can use to create patterns on your clay slab that will be turned into a vase. With a limit of four people per session, you will get hands-on instruction on how to create forms from clay using slabs.
More information on the workshop and how to sign up can be found here.
Tuber Sale Goes Live April 15th!
The dahlia tubers are looking lovely! The sale will open April 15th, 2025 at 6:00 pm ET. All quantities listed online until the sale opens will be listed as 'SOLD OUT' until the sale opens. This will serve as a preview for available cultivars until the sale goes live.
Please remember- this sale is ONLINE ONLY. Orders can be shipped or picked up at the Tiverton studio. Any shipping overages will be refunded once your order has been packaged and an accurate shipping rate is a calculated.
Bloom Report!
The tulips are looking lovely, and some buds are starting to form! Depending on the weather, we should have bouquets starting within the next 10-14 days.
Once blooming, bouquets can be ordered daily. Orders can be placed online up to the day before pickup.
Looking ahead
The studio will be open for two open studio weekends at the end of April and beginning of May. During these open studio weekends, you can view the full collection of available pottery, walk through the tulip gardens, pick up a bouquet and shop the bi-annual seconds sale! The dates will be April 26-27 and May 3-4 from 10:00 - 4:00 pm. As always, if you can't make an open studio weekend, you are welcome to schedule an appointment to visit the studio at another time.
Thank you for your continued support! More than ever, finding ways to create, support art, and encourage creativity are extremely important in connecting us together. I am forever grateful to share things that bring joy with you.