Well, summer finally arrived in spades for the last week or so of August. Triple-digit temperatures made for a tough job for our warehouse & delivery staff. The heat also challenged me…As you may recall, last month, I competed in my first triathlon here in Lawrence. This month, tomorrow, in fact, I will be competing in my second – the US 5150 National Championships up in Des Moines. I’m thinking there will be some kind of September special that will relate to my finish time or place or something, so stay tuned to our social media for more info on what’s in store there. In my spare time when I haven’t been training, I’ve been working on some new sections of the Bracker’s Blog. I think they will be fun & informative, and I’m really excited to share them with you. Watch for information about the first one in a couple of weeks….it’s *almost* ready, and it’s going to be beautiful!
August Recap…
Back to school season begins! This past month our delivery schedule really heated up, but things went very smoothly because Anne W always starts planning for this month sometime in May. It also helps that she’s been doing this for over 30 years. 🙂 We enjoyed hosting Josh Novak in our studio this month as our featured artist for August. This Fort Hays third-year Graduate Student demonstrated several techniques, including the sodium silicate surface. We shot a short video of that one:
Looking ahead to September…
If you haven’t already circled the second saturday of EVERY month on your calendar with a big silver sharpie, you’ll definitely want to put a giant red star on this month’s second Saturday. Join us September 13th for our annual Fall B’Raku event! Dave will be benched as a fire master for B’Raku because he will be competing in his first triathlon the very next day. Don’t worry, he’ll still be around to answer any questions you might have, but keep in mind, his answers are usually given in the form of a story, and I think we all know that no-one can spin a yarn like Dave! New glazes of the month, and other specials are planned for September, so stay tuned!
Vivacious Videos…
New on shop.brackers.com
We’re very excited about the new line of low-fire metallic glazes from Spectrum! They are already up on our website and our first order for stock came in on Thursday. Click the picture on the right to go there! You can always find the freshest additions to our website by clicking “NEWEST Products”, AND, just to the right of that, “FEATURED Items” will contain all of our current specials, so you’ll never miss a great deal!
![Jordan Alexzandra is currently studying art at Millersville University. In addition to Ceramics and painting, she also studies psychology, anthropology, and English. “I’ve been an artist throughout my entire life, but it wasn’t until recently that I called myself a ceramicist. My work has gone through a long journey of finding the perfect medium, which is now clay,” she writes. She’s just starting her journey, taking her first ceramics class in high school, but I see so much promise in her. Her experiences with clay give her many teachable moments in patience, planning, and time management, which she applies to her full-time studies in Psychology.
During a Summer break and away from the clay studio, she found herself without a rudder and focused her angst and her energy toward exploring naturally dyed silk and yarn. She found solace in the world of textiles and fiber art. Her minimalist pre-Columbian clay forms mesh well with the purity of cotton and silk. Her current body of work is titled, “Cotton.” In addition to the sampling of photos included in this profile, there are many more at her website (link in our bio).
Jordan said, “I desire that this work also sparks conversation of African - American history. The embodiment of being one of the few Black students in college in most of my classes, it is a conversation that follows me. Clay as a direct connection to the multiple cultures that make me who I am, to cotton that cloaks not only a dark history but to the environmental costs of the plant.“ [by Anne]](https://www.brackers.com/wp-content/plugins/instagram-feed/img/placeholder.png)
