Turner Studio

We’ve been in the new house for about three months now. My sweet husband has been so good to me. He made some new work tables for my studio and they are perfect! My favorite is the table be designed for my wheel. It’s designed so I can throw standing instead of sitting (much better on your back to stand) and on the other end I have my plaster slab for wedging and recycling clay. It’s on castors so it’s perfect to pull out when i have a wheel project and I can push it back against the wall to make extra space in the studio. Not to mention there’s extra storage underneath too. This is such a great design for any studio potter! I am always so impressed with what he comes up with.

Next project will have to be some insulation or fans and some sort of mosquito zapper!

I had my work featured in the Houston Chronicle this past December.
http://www.chron.com/life/article/Gifts-from-Houston-with-love-2390553.php
It has been a whirlwind of work and wedding and moving, but now the wedding is over. We’re all moved into the new house and my studio space in semi functional and I am SO READY to get back to work. I’ve missed having mud under my nails and paint in my hair.

I have a brand new raku kiln on the way so I’ll be going in a different direction here soon. Which ultimately means I need to clean shop! All pieces listed at www.turnerstudio.etsy.com will be drastically marked down. For all you Texas residents, I do have a tax ID this year so that will be added to your price.

So many changes ahead! I am so excited and can not wait to get this ball rolling.

It’s that time of year again. Please join us for our annual studio sale at Cone 10 Studios of Austin, Texas.

2309 Thornton Road
Suite “O” Austin, TX 78704
512-440-8485

~LIVE MUSIC~
Inside Out Steelband
Saturday, December 3rd @ Noon
2311 Thornton Rd, Suite B

~ Hourly Raffle for FREE Art work @ Cone 10 Studio~

I recently decided to re-brand one of my lines into it’s own separate product line. From now on all of my ceramic castings (pieces made from my original hand made molds) as well as other molded work like pendants and slab built ceramic bags will now be under the new name “Baptized by Fire.” All of my thrown ceramic pieces will continue to be listed under Turner Studio.

I’m sure some of you are wondering how this new name, “Baptized by Fire,” came to be. While this new name has multiple meanings the one I identify with the most refers to the translation of the French phrase baptême du feu and is a reference to a soldier’s first experience under fire in battle. To me, nothing speaks truer to an artist trying to make a living of their craft.

Look for lots of new products from this line at my new ETSY shop www.baptizedbyfire.etsy.com
You will notice I’ve added a separate page to this site just for Baptized by Fire pieces too!

There will be lots of other changes to both shops in the coming months so keep and eye out for changes to tax rates, new discount and coupon codes for Facebook fans and repeat customers, and a whole facelift in general… and lots LOTS more posts!

Thanks for checking in and keep buying LOCAL & HANDMADE!

The the short time I’ve been engaged I’ve nearly lost my ring 3 times now. Now I just leave it on ALL the time, but there are times when I really should take it off. Like when I’m cleaning or working with clay. The combination of my desperate need for a designated space for my ring and one of my all time favorite  summer plants has led to a new item I’m selling in my shop. This just may be one of my favorite things that I’ve made in a long long time.

I’ve been planting this kind of purple bean plant for the past few years called a Hyacinth Ruby Moon Bean. If you love sweet-peas, but have a hard time keeping them in your garden past April (here in Texas at least) then this is the plant for you. It’s is extremely heat and drought tolerant. Here I am at the end of July in Houston and it is practically the only thing still blooming in my yard.

This vine puts on shoot after shoot of purple and white sweet-pea like flowers followed by velvety purple seed pods. The beans are a unique black pea with a white stripe and are inedible. However, it is a staple of some ethnic cuisines but requires special preparation. It is native to tropical asia and is an important forage item in the tropics. This bean is also  known as Egyptian Beans, Indian Beans, Bonavist and Lablab. Thomas Jefferson also grew Hyacinth Beans in his Monticello garden. The common name, Hyacinth Bean, is misleading because they are not related to true beans and they are not related to Hyacinths.

Ok so one of the prettiest things about this plant is the purple stems and veins through the leaves. Even if it isn’t blooming the foliage is still just as pretty to look at.

So far, I’ve only made the ceramic leaf dishes with a rustic stain finish. I think next I’ll be trying out some different glazes.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lablab_purpureus

I have been living in Houston for about 5 months now. It’s been a big change from Austin. Here the air smells like exhaust instead of trees and the “rivers” are muddy drainage ditches full of mosquitos. I guess I make it sounds worse than it is. While I miss having all my friends around I am really enjoying spending more time with Bill, and I’ve made some good friends with some of my co-workers at the MFAH. Even though the only thing to do around here seems to be going out to eat.

As far as my art is concerned… I still have my rental space back in Austin and once a month I’ll drive over to drop off big pieces and glaze whatever has been fired from last month. Thanks to my very sweet Bill I now have a small kiln here in Houston to fire little things so that saves on some gas, but I still have to drive the big things over for now.

I do have a wonderful little room just for my art now. No longer will I have to use my dinning room and kitchen to wedge clay and store all my tools! Hooray! It’s mostly full of supplies for after-school art classes I teach at the moment, but I still manage to get in there and make new pieces now and then.

I also am in the process of clearing out my winter crops from the garden to make room for some delicious spring goods this week. Titus has only managed to kill 2 of my pepper plants so far. He got both my banana pepper plants, nothing else… I hope he enjoyed them cause I may be treating the rest with some pepper flakes now. Today I’m putting in my beans and peas. Black, sugar snap and soy. I’m really excited about the soy, I hope they will produce enough to have at least a few servings of fresh edamame. Nom nom nom.

This is spring break after all so I suppose I should get to the list of things I need to get done.

This session was one a lot of fun. I think I saw some of my most creative work come from this session too!
We started off with a “My Pet Dragon” lesson. The kids made their dragon out of newspaper and masking tape (a MUCH easier and much MUCH cleaner way of making 3-d art with out the mess of paper mache.) They had to name their dragon and tell me what his favorite food was and if he had any special powers. The kids that finished early made little story books about their dragon. My dragon I used as an example was names “Crackers” so we ended up with a lot of food-named dragons like “Marshmello” and “Cheeto.” Usually the kids will stick close to what the example looks like, but for this project I really got to see them make their own decisions on how they wanted it, and I was thrilled with that! I was starting to think having examples to show was a bad idea. Or maybe they finally got to where they felt comfortable enough. No two were alike by the end of it.

The biggest hit with the kids by far was the magic lesson. We talked about wizzards and magic and I read them Tickles Tale (a cute story about a very curious wizzard’s cat.) I love love love all the serendipity books by the way… and the kids did too! After snack break I did an entire magic show for them and showed them how they could do the tricks for their family and friends. Every day after that they would always ask me for a new trick. I found this GREAT site that has how-to instructions on magic tricks for all levels and tons more so if you have a kido who needs something to keep them busy check out this site!! http://www.activitytv.com/magic-tricks-for-kids

In the Sun Surf and Sand session we did sea shell mosaics so I decided to try tile mosaics for this session. They were MUCH easier to grout this time around since it was all one level. I showed them tapestry and mosaics that told a fable for inspiration. Looking at tiny little squares of color is pretty tough to start with anyways. One piece that really blew me away was a mosaic the student made of a man running (I was told from a dragon.)

Of coarse we had to make crowns and shields as well and the kids always love making things they can wear too. I on the other hand, had to repeatedly clean glitter off of everything for the rest of the camp. It was worth every fleck of glitter though.

For their clay project they made clay goblets. We only use food safe glazes so as long as they have a good coat of glaze to seal the clay the pieces are actually usable.

I’m a little behind with my summer camp postings, but I’m getting to it! Well now that summer camp is officially over I can officially say this was my FAVORITE session of all. I’ve always been a fan of the ocean to begin with if that has anything to do with it.


The kiddies never cease to amaze me with what they are capable of making at just 5 years old. I had some really amazing projects come out in this session. (note the catfish-rattlesnake imaginary sea creature below)


On that note, I also forgot just how sensitive they can be too… for one project the kiddies made shark fin hats. For part of my intro to the project I brought in my dad’s old national geographic ocean life book, the same book I remember looking at as a kid. During the middle of my spiel I look up and see my smallest sweetest little kido sitting there with tears running down his face. Then he asks me, “if a shark gets you do you die? Do you come back?” Not wanting to get into a religious discussion with a 5 year old whom I had no idea what his family’s religious beliefs even are, I was able to distract him long enough for him to forget. Behold the power of glitter. Sure put me in an awkward position though. The rest of the session was like walking on egg shells with him in class. He cried again when another kid told him his immaginary sea creature would eat him cause he eats everything… and he cried again when another kid told him dinosoars were real and carnivors were meat eaters. Who knew… we talked about mummies and pirates with his class in the past and yet sharks are the one to do him in… not that I can blame him they are kinda scary. Sweet kid though, I felt pretty bad. You just never know.


That set aside, so lets see for this session we did… sea shell mozaics, imaginary sea creatures, shark fin hats, sea life impression tiles, fishing poles, and origami whales (with bling of coarse, bling makes everything better) to name a few.


I really enjoyed getting to share my sea shell collection with the kids and teaching them the names. They got so excited when they found out I found them all right here off the Gulf Coast in Texas! Our final project was making fishing poles. As an example I brought in my real pole from home. Later that day I had two kids bring their parents into my room to ask where they could buy a fishing pole like mine. Just goes to show how much a student can get out of a lesson when the teacher is just as excited about it.