Curtain Up, Light the Lights

rockin' light switch covers

The song finishes with everything's coming up roses and being the optimist that I am, I hope it's true.  Although's  it's been difficult to post the last few days, I'm working steadily on getting ready for the fall season's shows.  We've had 'weather', civic elections, work, and all those other things that are part of life and the time has just flown by, with Halloween here in a few days. I haven't even had time to plan my costume...or Molly's for that matter, and she does come first, lol. 

I've tried to fit in some clay work in the in-between times, but it hasn't been easy.  For some reason, this show season's just kind of HAPPENED, and I am not prepared! My inventory seems to be smaller than usual this year.  I even had to turn down a big show because I didn't have enough stuff to fill the booth.  That being said, I am gradually increasing production of things that have been moving well, mainly the light switch plates and other 'affordable' items.  I've taken to buying boxes of the plates as that way they are a little less pricy and if I get in the mood, I can make a dozen or more.  These neutral-colored rock ones are quite popular, and even though I enjoy making them, I find them a bit tedious. So every once in a while I shift the color palette to much brighter things, like these tropical ones.

colorful palette 'subtropical' plates

With the horrible weather we've been experiencing the last couple of days, our climate is anything but tropical but  maybe that's why I made them.  Actually, part of my inspiration for those was at my last book club meeting about a week ago.  The hostess of that get together lives in a building that has an enclosed atrium that reaches all the way up to the top floor, probably sixteen or more levels.  Although not at the very top, she lives above the full grown trees  and her outer balcony, which actually is enclosed, looks out on the lush foliage below.  Her balcony space is decorated in a very south-sea fashion, like a lanai, and it's all so warm feeling.  She even has the natural 'music' playing to complete the setting.  The bamboo curtaining sets off her one side from the neighbour's and she is on a corner, so the privacy is complete.  I'm thinking the first or third of this triad would go well there.

It's funny how the opening of this fall's show season is so much like preparing for an actual stage production.  I've purchased a few new 'props' to help display my stuff and hope they'll work.  Some of the shows I'll be in are new for me and the spaces allocated are not quite boxy regular shapes, so I'm thinking that having 'portable' racks that can be moved will do the trick.  I bought a clothes rack on wheels that I'll used to showcase my longer hanging things, and am going to use my 'womanakin' that I purchased at Winner's a couple of years ago.  Standing about three feet tall, she has no head and arms, but she wears a sequiny-beaded dress that's very flashy.  I've come up with a way to insert some 'arms' that are just right for hanging ornaments and other pendants.  I still have to come up with a way to position her at eye level so the objects can be viewed more easily. 

All this staging is starting to make me hummmm, would that tune be Bali H'ai, or Shangri-la...