(In-progress pendant mandala)

So, I’ll admit it: I took on way too much work last year. Particularly the fall/winter. There are huge chunks of time–weeks, literally–where I don’t really remember what I was doing because I was just working. I was neglecting everything else in my life and also becoming a highly-stressed-out bitch queen.

That is insane and I’m trying to make this year easier, but it’s a little more difficult than I thought it would be.

For the last few years I’ve owned another business besides the pottery. That was GREAT because it was the kind of steady thing that kept my head above water when my pottery sales were slow. But it also took up a lot of time and had a really low profit margin. But over the last year, I had basically reached a wall where (because of this other business) I couldn’t make pottery fast enough to keep up with demand. (Or, maybe I could make it but I couldn’t photograph/write copy/put together Etsy listings/ship stuff too.) So about 2 months ago I made the long-in-coming decision to close up shop on that business and finally start making pottery full-time, for realsies.

But there is literally bags and bags of inventory that need to be liquidated. And long-time customers I need to let down easy. And supplies to go through and pack up. And still-outstanding orders that need to be filled. Etc. etc. And that is dragging on forever.

And then, of course, all the time I was laboring over my unending mountain of work throughout December, I was motivating myself with the promise that as soon as Christmas was over, I would SLOW DOWN and take a break for a few weeks. I would clean my house, maybe go on some day trips with my husband (since the weather has been beautiful), work on my garden, and generally stop and smell the roses.

Instead I got a bunch of “late Christmas gift” custom orders, and simultaneously ALL of my wholesale clients needed urgent restocking. And meanwhile there were still tons of things that urgently needed wrapping up in my other business. So here I am halfway through January, having been working almost nonstop since New Year’s. And this isn’t the end. I’m not done with anything. I’ve got at least another week of work ahead of me.

Don’t get me wrong, please–I agreed to take on the work, and I am happy to have the $$. I’m not playing the victim here. I guess I’m just playing the harried overworked small business owner. But I swear one day soon I am gonna take a BREAK and slow down and freakin’ BREATHE for once!

Meanwhile, there is SO much I have planned for my shop, this website, and my pottery lines this year! As you may have noticed in my Etsy shop, I’ve been going through a long process of transitioning to working as Lynae Zebest Pottery instead of Panopoly Creations. I feel like I’ve outgrown my original name and really want to “come into my own” by being known primarily as, well, myself. Eventually this blog will be migrating to lynaezebestpottery.com and will get a whole new design along with it. And eventually more of my new work will find its way into the shop, including the stripey mugs that I am super super excited about. I sold all of the first batch of them before they even could be photographed!

Eventually. For now: work. Work work work.

More soon.

I have been bustin’ my buns recently, getting pieces made and photographed. I’m gearing up for the holiday season!

Tonight, a number of new pieces, mostly my larger work, made their way to Etsy. Take a peek:

Coming soon: gift tags, coasters, a wee bowl restock, more pendants, and little vases!

I thought I’d share a little of what I’ve got going on in the studio right now. It’s a long journey from wet clay to a finished piece listed in my shop, and I have a little of every step of the road happening right now.

Step 1: Greenware
This is the part where the piece is formed from wet clay and then dried, before it goes into the kiln for the first firing.

Step 2: Bisqueware
After the first firing, the piece is a blank canvas, ready to be decorated and glazed.

Step 3: Waiting to be Photographed
After the piece has been fired again and is complete, I need to photograph it, possibly measure it, and get it online. This is probably the step that a given piece gets stuck on the longest! Many of the pieces in these photos are custom or wholesale work that now just needs to be mailed or delivered…the rest will find their way into the shop sometime soon.

For the past month or so, I’ve felt like I’m just barely keeping my head above water. There are so many projects I want to be working on, but instead it seems like I’m only completing the tasks that need completing.

This is terribly frustrating for an obsessive workaholic such as myself. For example, working nonstop on custom orders means that, when I’m done, my inventory is just as small (if not smaller) as it was before I made all that stuff. So even though I am making money and working hard, there seems to be virtually nothing left to show for it except a messy studio and a sink full of dishes.

I feel like I really need to kick into overdrive and make some AWESOME NEW STUFF. But–what’s that? A new pile of custom orders just came in? And another project deadline approaches? And I’m going out of town for my birthday on the 26th and need to do all this stuff before I leave?

Here we go again….

It has been two weeks since I last posted about the garden (and roughly two months since I started working on it), so now it’s time to check in and see how things are going. Things change so quickly this time of year!

Starting from seed indoors has so far been a huge success. On the suggestion of a wonderful book called Golden Gate Gardening, I planted the seeds in pure vermiculite, and all but one of them sprouted! The wonderful thing I discovered about vermiculite, too, is that it doesn’t hold its shape–which on the one hand does mean that the plants should be transplanted to soil while quite small, but on the other hand means that if I plant, say, 6 seeds and they all sprout, I can go in and separate the 6 plants and replant them separately–so I don’t have to do the usual practice of “thinning.” No one told me I could do this, but I tried and it’s worked like a dream. A few of my homegrown starts have already made it into the garden, and most of the others will be ready to move out there any day now.

We also got a few nursery seedlings, thanks to keeping an eye out for sales. I am really hesitant to spend any significant amount of money on the garden, not only because I don’t have much to spare and am very thrifty to begin with, but also because I’m so inexperienced that I feel like it’s a risky investment. So far I think I’ve spent no more than $60 on the garden…and a good chunk of that was from a gift certificate we got for our wedding last year, so doesn’t entirely count. In addition I feel like the seeds (which make up the bulk of that price) are worth investing in because I can use them for a long time before I run out; even if these starts fail, I can grow more.

I took all these photos the day that I planted many of the plants. I dug up all that soil and worked in some organic plant food before getting the plants in–it ended up being a ton of work! As I’ve gotten more “intimately acquainted” with our soil, I’ve come to the conclusion that it’s a bit more clay (how appropriate, right?) than I’d really like, but I didn’t really do my research into how to remedy this issue until after many new plants were already in. I’m hoping that my compost tea applications, and additions of perlite (to help loosen up the soil a bit) with each new planting will be enough to improve things over time.

As of today, 5 days later, many of those plants are not doing as well as they are in the photos. I am, so far, chalking this up to a hopefully mild case oftransplant shock (I did harden them off a bit, but I was pretty lazy about it) and hoping for the best.

We also continue work on clearing out weeds and the big concrete/dirt pile. Orin made a sifter so we can remove the little concrete chunks from the soil, and only dispose of those. These is still a goodly amount of that to do, but we’ve made serious progress. I plan on planting some flowers in that end of the yard in order to attract pollinators, particularly honey bees. (I love bees.)

The prickly pear cactus is currently blooming…it has gotten so much bigger since we moved in four years ago! It’s huge! This year we want to harvest the fruits and eat them!

Ignoring weed plants and most unidentified relics from past gardeners, here’s a rundown of what we’ve got going in the garden:

On top of that, I’ve got the following starts just waiting to go in:

This has been such a fulfilling experience so far…if I produce only 1 single vegetable, I will be absolutely ecstatic. But of course I’m hoping to grow a lot more than that!

In 2008, I first visited one of the most beautiful, secret places in the whole world: Cayuga Park, in southern San Francisco, tucked in a quiet little neighborhood and nestled beneath the BART train overpass. Lovingly tended for 30 years by gardener Demetrio “Demi” Braceros, it was filled with flowering plants from his native Philippines, and–here’s the best part–full to the brim with painted wood sculptures he made from felled timber. The gardens were full of handmade benches, railings, arbors, arches and forts, the trees nestled with hidden surprises like woven living vines and little carved snakes and birds. It’s without a doubt the single most amazing work of folk art I’ve ever seen.

Sadly, Demi retired just a few months before my first visit, and local volunteers were struggling to fill the huge gap in maintenance–the park department didn’t hire a replacement. They seemed to be doing well at that time, but over the last three years, the park has fallen into a very sad state of disrepair. I was also terribly worried on my last visit, because nearly all of the sculptures had disappeared, and his murals on the concrete columns, retaining wall, and storage container had been painted over. All of the trails were so overgrown, they were nearly impossible to make out, too.

Well, the silver lining of the story is that after doing some research, it seems that the missing sculptures are currently being kept in storage while the city is in the process of expanding the park and improving its infrastructure, after getting a large sum of bond money. I’m assuming they covered up his paintings because they had gotten too defaced by graffiti. They are going to eventually return the sculptures, and hopefully hire a new caretaker to protect them.

I am keeping my fingers and toes crossed that things will turn out as hoped, and Demi’s beautiful work will again get to be seen by anyone who stumbles upon this little slice of heaven. In the meantime, I leave you with some photos I took that first day in 2008. There are about 250 in all, and they’re slowly making their way to Flickr; you can see the entire set, and watch it grow, here.

I just want to share a little project I’ve been working on ever since we first started getting a few sunny days around here: gardening.

We have a nice big patch of very healthy soil in the back yard of our apartment building, full of earthworms and salamanders. I’ve been wanting to put in a garden of my own out there for years, but never got around to it. For a while, too, another neighbor was gardening there and I didn’t feel like sharing.

Since she moved, though, the garden had gotten to a state of jungle-like overgrown wildness. It was pretty darn intimidating. Also, our landlord did some remodeling last year and dumped a big pile of dirt and concrete on one side of the garden patch, which now needs to be moved. It took us about a week to clear all the accessible weeds, but we’re still not through with the massive dirt pile.

In the meantime I’ve been babystepping my way into gardening. I used to help my grandma weed and tend her roses when I was a kid, and I’ve read a lot about gardening, but other than a few houseplants and such, I have no hands-on experience with what I’m doing.

Fortunately, our garden does have some lovely plants that survived the weeds and make the place look less bare in the meantime. We’ve got 2 rosebushes, a HUGE jade plant, an even HUGER cactus (which is currently blossoming), mint (which recently got invaded by caterpillars, but I think we’re beating them back), an oleander (which I hate but am willing to keep until we need the space for something else) and 2 or 3 other plants I haven’t identified as of yet.

So far, I’ve planted a small lavender and a bell pepper plant (both of which weren’t looking that great for the first couple weeks, but have now suddenly decided to GROW), as well as 3 basils–1 of which died, 1 of which is barely clinging to life, and 1 of which may just pull through. I tried sowing some radish seeds straight into the soil, but I think the slugs or snails got them before I even saw them. So now I’ve started a bunch of different seeds inside, and so far so good.

Soon I’ll share some updated pictures of the garden, including the potato tower, as well as what we’ve been doing to combat the neverending tide of snails!

I’m still convalescing, though I felt a bit better today. In an effort to cheer myself, I put some recent photos up on Flickr today, focusing on a nice warm day at the beach.

Tire Beach, that is.

I’ve been pretty much down for the count for the last few days with strep throat (only a week after getting over the flu). So, because it’s a relatively immobile activity, I’ve been using my convalescence as an excuse to re-photograph some of my older pendants, which were in dire need of it.

I also spend some time last night getting a little maudlin about “happier days” when I wasn’t seemingly perpetually ill. In particular, I thought about April 3rd, when I got to spend a whole long awesome perfect-weather day with my husband and my kitty doing whatever I wanted. What a day it was…