Hello there

Hi there!

My name is Linda and I am so happy to start blogging. It will be fun to share my clay (and other!) adventures with you all.

I live in Tucson, Arizona, and am so fortunate to be teaching pottery at a local leisure class program. The program is administered by a local school district, and they have been awesome with us. They "adopted" our entire art program after the county left our center due to budget cuts. We really lucked out!

I have been teaching since 1998, and have really grown in my abilities and knowledge concerning running a program. My duties inclued coordinating the class schedules, ordering supplies and clay, as well as firing kilns, making glazes, and of course teaching people about clay. I do mostly wheel work, and we use stoneware and porcelain clays, firing in a cone 10 (2350 degrees) gas reduction kiln. It is the best! Teaching introduced me to an entire group of people who are also interested in clay providing a wonderful artistic community.

One of the things I am anxious to share with you all is my love of clay, what my new ideas are and other everyday goings on. I will try to keep it as interesting as possible.

The things I most love to make with clay are mugs. I make mugs all the time for my regular inventory, and I am fortunate to occassionally have a commission for personalized mugs. I have made custom mugs for a local university sorority, a local bluegrass band, and one of our local politicians. It is challenging and fun to create their names and ideas on a useful and personal item they can use every day.

I have recently opened a shop on Etsy. If you don't know what it is, it is an online store housing a large community of artists. They also feature vintage items and items you can use to make create or enhance your art.

My Etsy shop address is www.starrshinepottery.etsy.com. I have only a few items listed so far, but am looking forward to listing more in the near future.

Thanks for joining me today. The next posts will be more than an introduction to who I am, and will include other aspects of my life......

Hope your day is great!

Linda