Didn't make the cut

I posted a while back that I had applied to graduate school. I received a letter yesterday that I was not being considered for the program. I always knew that the school I was applying for was very competitive (they only take 2 new students a year) but somehow I always felt like applying for the program was the right thing to do. It's close to home, and they have excellent pre-schools on campus. The timing seemed so right, too. My daughter has two more years before she can go to elementary school--my program would take two years. So she could come to school with me everyday and I could drop her off at the excellent pre-school just a hop, skip, and a jump across campus.

Now that one avenue has closed for me, at least for next year, I need to consider what to do next. Of course, I'll apply again for 2010. But in the meantime, do I want to go back to school and just take courses till I can get into the program I want, or find a job, or create more art and try to get into more galleries and shows, or teach more classes at home? What's the best choice for my family? What do I want to do?

Fun with a Clay Gun

Orange Lizard, by boy, age 9

I got a gift certificate for Bigceramicstore.com for Christmas. When I saw an industrial sized clay gun, I just couldn't resist. I justified my purchase because I thought it would be helpful for making the sides of my short trays that I put with my love mugs and because it was heavily discounted after Christmas. But really, I thought it just sounded "cool" and that the 8-10 year old boys that I teach in clay class would really go for it. The clay gun is big and golden. In demo, I held it up like a rifle "Wha!". I let the children choose different dies and design an animal with dixie cups as support for longer legs.

Here are some of the things they came up with:

Horse and Saddle, boy, age 7

Poodle family, girl, age 8

Sheep, girl, age 8


Snake Family, Boy, age 7

This Spring, I will be participating in several local boutiques (trying to save money for grad school). The Spring Spectacular Boutique in Salt Lake City will feature my smoke-fired ceramic jewelry, as well as some newer polymer clay work. I've attached the official flier below.

Spring Spectacular Boutique

Saturday, April 11, 2009

10:00 AM – 4:00 PM

Courtyard by Marriott

10701 S. Holiday Park Drive

Sandy, Utah 84070

High quality vendors & crafters!

Raffle & door prizes!

Participating Retailers

a Bit of Color

Bead for Life

Chic Boutique Jeans

Close To My Heart

Elv Stitches

Full Give

Handmade Cards

Lia Sophia

Lily Pond Soaps

Little Keepsakes

My Daisy Diva

My Shoe Shoppe

Purse Party, Inc.

Salt City Design

Scentsy

Smoky Pendants

Tastefully Simple

The Cupcake Goddess

Tomboy Tools

Tweedy Baby

Tweedy Lane

New Smoke-fired Post Earrings

I've been experimenting with making smaller designs to use for post earrings. First, I make a prototype out of soft clay. Then, when that has completely dried, I press the prototype in soft clay to make my mold. I'll usually impress the the actual mold some more to make elements that will pop up rather than recede in the final piece. Finally, I press the actual pieces into this mold. With this style, I like to press the clay into the mold lightly, to give them very loose weathered feel. I'm hoping this will mesh well with the smoke-fired finish. Here are some pictures from my first batch of finished products.

Stamp Exchange


The Etsy Mud Team is having a stamp exchange. As a texture junkie, I am more than stoked to receive some new stamps from other team members. As my part in the exchange, I've made two polymer clay stamp sets. I went with poly clay because it works well with ceramic clay and, frankly, because I didn't know if I'd be able to get some regular clay ones through bisque in time. One has a heart pattern, the other is abstract lines. I'm shipping them both off in different directions tomorrow and will post the new stamps I receive when they arrive.

Kid's and Clay Face Jug Project


I just got some of my kid's classes Face Jugs out of glazing last week. As always, I was impressed by the incredible creativity in my groups. It would be nice to be so uninhibited when creating new work.


The assignment was to create a jug from two pinch pots joined in the center with a coiled rim and foot. We spent one week (1 1/4 hour) making the jug and another class period with the facial features.

We talked about the legend in the Appalachians where face jugs were made and used. People would place a face jug on the grave of a family member after they died. If the jug cracked, it meant that person was "wrestling with the devil".



Children were encouraged to make their jugs "ugly". I was hoping this would free them from trying to make it look like a real person, and allow them to have fun with things like warts, beards, funny teeth, etc.

Mommy's Little Helper

Whenever I have my 3-year-old daughter come to the studio with me, I am amused by her choice of activity. I offer her clay to play with and she'll putter around for a little. I offer her paintbrushes and paints and she'll do that for a while, too. But the whole time, what she really wants to do is.....clean. That's right, clean. She'll beg me for a sponge and a bucket of water. She LOVES cleaning the bits of clay and smudges off of my wheel, cleaning my bats till they shine, and even sponging the floor. She loves what I usually avoid at all costs. I don't get it, but I'm not going to complain :)

Featured in a Local Newspaper

My gallery show with all the Offspring vessels was recently written up in our local newspaper. Below is an excerpt. To see the full story, click here.

"For Cindy McConkie, Scott Nelson Foster, and Tara Robertson, all of whom have work on display at the Bountiful/Davis Art Center (BDAC) now through Feb. 16, the proximity between the three artists shows off several different parallels. From the different ways that an artist can play with light to the fluidity of images, the work highlights all different kinds of connections."

"Potter Tara Robertson, whose work sits in the center of the gallery, reaches out to McConkie’s art in the way that her work flows and twists. Unlike the other woman’s abstract swirls of light, however, Robertson’s work is meant to be evocative of a very real woman holding her child.

The series, which Robertson has named “Offspring” as a whole, evokes mothers and children of all shapes and sizes through the use of different heights, thicknesses, and curves where shoulder meets body and neck meets head. Taken together, it seems to say something about the universality of motherhood, drawing lines between different people in a way that connects all of humanity."

I love the different perspectives I get when other people comment on my work. The whole thing sounds so much grander than me playing in the mud in my garage :)

Applying for Graduate School

This last week I finished and turned in my application for graduate school. I want to get an MFA in ceramics. I've been thinking a lot in the last month about how I got into ceramics and where I want to go from here. I owe a big thanks to my hubby who read draft after draft and kept telling me to be more confident. Below, I've copied and pasted part of my finished draft of my letter of application.

I became involved with ceramics during my undergraduate work in Elementary Education. Once I took my first clay class, I became infatuated with the medium and just kept finding ways to come back. After years of taking ceramics classes on the side, I found that I was much more interested in a career making and teaching ceramics than that of a full-time elementary teacher. However, by this time, I was nearly finished with my degree and several months pregnant. When I gave birth a month after graduation, I decided to use my “time off” from work and school to explore my possibilities with clay. After nearly a year of creating, experimenting, and developing a coherent line, I started submitting work to galleries, selling at fairs and festivals, and getting my work online. I’ve used knowledge gleaned from my education background to develop child and adult courses in clay. Between selling and teaching, I have managed to build a professional ceramic career while being home for my daughter’s early childhood.

My practical and professional experience with clay before and since graduation has been extensive. I run and manage my own ceramics studio. I mix all of my own glazes from scratch, many of which I have developed for my own personal preferences. I am experienced at loading and firing electric, gas, and wood-firing kilns at low, mid, and high-fire temperatures as well as saggar, pit, barrel, and raku firings. With Clay Arts, Utah, I participated in a saggar-firing experiment in which we tested several additives for fuming effects over a 13-week period. As an active member of this group, I have attended several workshops and taught a section at their first Educator’s Workshop this past year. My work has been juried into several local and national exhibitions, one of which was juried by Val Cushing, whom I was privileged to meet at the opening reception in New York. Through gallery shows and online sales, my pottery has sold all over the US and Canada. In addition to preparation for an upcoming solo show at the Union Station Gallery in Ogden this summer, and filling orders for galleries and individuals, I currently teach clay classes for children and adults.

My recent work has been moving towards more sculptural and abstract vessels. My main emphasis is an exploration of attitudes and relationships. I like to manipulate the stance of a vessel and look at what it implies about the emotion or personality of a pot. Especially in my Offspring series (currently on display at the Bountiful-Davis Art Center), a group of paired works with a parent and child figure, I explore how two vessels can interact, and how differences in sizes, stances, and attitudes change dynamics between vessels. I ask myself questions like, “Is this one too overprotective, crouching over the other?” or “Does the way these tilt away from each other show emotional distance between them?” I draw inspiration for this series from my work as a stay-at-home mom. Technically, I have been striving for larger works, experimenting with creating plaster molds to further stretch my size and shape capabilities.

Ceramics is much more than a hobby for me. I am somewhat obsessive when it comes to clay, and always eager and willing to learn and grow. I feel the MFA program at the University of Utah will help me further expand my abilities and open up increased opportunities to teach, especially at the college level, where I am most interested in working.



Wish me luck! :)

Gallery Show

This last weekend was the opening night for my first large gallery show. The show featured 17 of my Offspring sets, all grouped together in one of the large showrooms.

My Offspring Vessels have evolved from the idea that the parent and child relationship is complicated. These vessels show two individuals, one small and the other large (and somewhat chubby around the hips--I wonder what this is saying about myself?). The parent pot supports the child which literally cannot stand on its own. However, depending on how you look at the vessels, they are either facing away from each other, beaks held high (everyone tells me they look birdish) and ready to leap away from one another, or looking at one another in rapt attention with crazy hair streaming out behind them. This contrast embodied in the work and peoples competing perception of it explains my feelings about motherhood. My daughter and I support one another. She still needs me for so much of her daily necessities. And I need her in so many ways. We face away from one another towards our separate interests and desires. Sometimes I feel slightly trapped or smothered in a relationship with so much daily demands and long to turn away. I'm sure my daughter feels "trapped" being with me sometimes--especially when i enforce time outs. But at the same time, we mirror one another, and in a very real way complete one another. She is my inspiration and my friend. My companion in good times and bad. Just like these pots, we make a pair that looks incomplete without both pieces.

It was especially enjoyable to see several of these pieces placed together. While creating and selling, I've usually thought of these as individual sculptures. When put together, they look like several moms in conversations while holding their little ones. This larger context of how mothers relate to one another was an unintended result, but one I'd like to explore further.

Here are some pictures from the show.

Sales for the Holiday
As I get ready to leave for Christmas, I'm listing several sales in each of my shops on holiday items.

In my pottery shop, all holiday sculptures and ornaments are 25% off


In my smoke-fired pendant shop, several items (not necessarily holiday) are 25% off


In my new polymer clay accessory shop, all holiday items are a whopping 50% off!

New Offspring Shape

I've been working on some variations on my Offspring Sculptural vessels. Here's the new shape I'm most excited about. It's still drying and will be bisqued and glazed later this week.

New Batch of Personality Pots


Here are some of the latest additions to my Personality Pot series. They were saggar fired at the Bountiful U of U Ceramics lab (it's getting too cold to pit fire--brrr.)

Phillina the Personality Pot

Europa the Personality Pot

I've just updated a bunch of information on my Trunkt profile. Here's a preview of my new and improved profile.

New Worldwide Women Artist Showcase
This international group of women has gotten together this month to feature functional art for the holidays. I've attached a slide show of all the pieces below.

Little Critters
I've been working on something different for holiday ornaments this year. They are little critters--dogs, cats, and pigs that I've made all the components in separate pieces and wired together. For the first time this year, I've tried out underglazes for coloring instead of staining or just painting with acrylics. I've added little yarn scarfs for accents, too. Here are some pictures from the first batch.

Child Creativity

I'm always impressed by what my students come up with in my Kids and Clay classes. The assignment here was to make a handbell. We made the bell section with a simple pinch-pot, and then the kids were free to handbuild whatever they wanted on the top for the handle. This girl chose to make the bell a hill and the handle a tree. She made individual leaves for the tree-top and even added little squirrels. The ringer inside was an inchworm.

Big Pots from Big Molds



With two solo gallery shows coming up next year, I've decided to make it more of a priority to work big. Since throwing big is out of the question for me (10 lbs is about my limit) and I've done quite a bit of coiling, I've decided to experiment with plaster molds and slab-building. Above is a picture of the plaster mold. Below is a pot I'm working on that I've altered from two joined slabs out of the mold and am adding a lip to.

Sale Item For the Week


This week's special is this three-pendant necklace. Normally $22, you can get it for $15 through Saturday.

Mounds of Mugs

I've had a lot of mug orders lately. Here's some of them piling up on the shelf.