Mush...

Whaaaaaaat?  Well, just wanted to share a little something that I made as a custom request.  These little animal requests actually started with my Etsy friend Kristy from BeadyKeekJewelry about a year and a half ago.  She asked if I could make a round tubular pendant with ears giving the sense of a cat.  I did and I ended up giving them a little more shape.  Here is how they turned out.

This led to more requests....which then led to the reason this post is titled, "Mush!"

 My first contact with Bonnie was when she asked that I make something similiar to the cat pendants.  I'm always (almost) up to a challenge and created these 3 huskies which Bonnie had made into necklaces.  Sometimes it is very difficult to do a custom order due to the fact that what the buyer's vision may be stands the risk of being very different than what the artist envisions.  I try to make sure that we are at least in the same neighborhood and also make it clear that we are dealing with clay, glaze and firing to 2200 degrees.  Once these pieces enter the kiln, I have no more control.  With experience, the artist has a somewhat better idea of how everything will turn out, but that final say is not theirs.

Here's my friend Bonnie. 

Not so surprising that she might request these...

And then this year, a new challenge came along....  She wanted ornament sets to give to her friends for Christmas.  She sent me a picture of some polar bear ornaments that she had found online.  I found pictures of huskys online, printed them and from there Bill carved each of these sets.  I then took on the glazing and firing.  I had to hang them strategically from my bead trees so that the weight would not cause the bead wire to sag. Another common worry for ceramic bead artists is the glaze running and firing the bead/pendant right onto the wire.   In this case, I was careful not to apply the glaze too heavily over the holes and  I used one wire to hang each one and two more wires as support.  I was thrilled when I opened the kiln and saw all of these little Momma dogs with all of their matching puppies still hanging and ready to be lifted from the kiln.  They went out yesterday and if she can get them open with the pounds of bubble wrap that they lay snug in....they should make her friends very happy this Christmas. 

My favorites are the gray ones, Bonnie likes the black.