New Times!

Life is changing, right?  Weird world.  New times.  All that.  About a year ago, I took a part time job  at wonderful antique store in Gonzales, Laurel Ridge Antiques & Inn.   It's a 3 story historic home and it is fabulous.  Barbara, the owner, has been an absolute dream - wonderful to work for, fun to be around and quite the mentor!  She gave me a huge opportunity after the new year and gave me some freedom to merchandise the two front rooms of Laurel Ridge.  Of course, I jumped on it and brought in wonderful artisans that Jim Bob and I have been doing shows with for years now.  If you stop by Laurel Ridge (827 St. Joseph Street, Gonzales, Texas 78629), you won't find just our work for sale, but you will also find 10+ other artisans.  Cool, right?  I am so excited about the path we are happily skipping down!

Check out Laurel Ridge's website:  www.laurelridgegonzales.com 

If you stop by the shop, you will most likely find us there (except Tuesday or Wednesdays).  You can shop the website too - we are shipping pots!  I don't have ALL of our stuff online but I am working on it!  

Come see us!  

Hope to see you soon!

Fresh work!  Come see us at one of our shows this fall!  I finally updated our show schedule, so everything is up to date.  Woohoo!


Bird Feeder
Bloomers (these go on a stick for your garden)

Hanging Flower Pot
Mugs


Are these new?

Jim Bob and I had quite the crummy 2017.  But have no fear, we are back and loving life more than ever.  Last year JB was diagnosed with squamous cell carcinoma and it pretty much rocked our world.  He underwent chemotherapy and radiation treatments and is now, officially, in remission.  Woohoo!  As many of you unfortunately know, those treatments will take it out of you.  JB didn't throw pots for about 9 months and focused on, first surviving, then healing, gaining strength, energy and trying to find a happy mental state through out it all.

Now we are back in the studio and we find ourselves ready for change.  When you see us at shows in the future look for our new majolica  pots.

JB is still throwing his beautiful, well crafted pots but instead of glazing and carving them, like he did in the past, he is now handing them over to me.  I am dipping them in a majolica glaze and using underglazes and "Stroke and Coats" to decorate the surface.  You will also see some mugs, bowls and wall hanging vases, along with the usual flower pots, bird feeders and bird baths in our booth.

New mug designs. 
We are always a bit hesitant to change our work because it feels like we work really hard perfecting it and starting over always feels counterproductive.  Now it seems we find ourselves in a different form of reality.  I think cancer or any other life threatening situation will do that to you.  Now we find ourselves in a spot where we want to share more of the process together and we are ready to take some chances.  Be more playful, maybe?  Not spend every waking moment doing the same design over and over... I don't know.  So far, we are  enjoying it and we hope you enjoy them too!

Sweet little tea bowl.

New flower pot design.  These are so much fun to glaze!

We call these "Buddy Bud Vases".

Still making those fabulous bird feeders.

The bird bath, always a favorite.


    

Need a Pot Right Now?


We are very excited that we are now selling our wares to a few nurseries, galleries and stores across Texas!  That's right, you don't have to wait for an art festival to buy a handcrafted flower pot, bird feeder or olla from us!  Now you can stop in and buy a Green Dog Studio original from a fabulous retail spot.  Pretty exciting!  


Dual Purpose Pots


We just got back from the 2016 Hummer-Bird Festival that was held in Rockport, Texas.  Like always, we had a wonderful show.  Lots and lots of folks soaking up fantastic information about all kinds of birds!  We went to a Raptor show and saw a falcon, a kookaburra, a barn owl and an awesome vulture named Ziggy.  Tons of fun.

While we were there, people would come into our booth and tell us that they saw our pots at Mrs. Harvette Green's house.  She was on the Hummer House Tour (you can tour a group of houses that have many, many hummingbirds zooming around and sit and watch the hummers). They told us how she was hanging her hummingbird feeders from our pots.  What a wonderful idea!  Isn't it awesome?  We love it too and can not thank her enough for expanding the use of the hanging flower pots. She told us how she did it and now we will have this option available in the booth.  Way cool!!!
Thank you, thank you Mrs. Green!  You are a smart bird!  :)

Is that a bicycle wheel?




Jim Bob is making these super cool wind spinnies out of old bicycle wheels!  What do you think?  I'm not sure where the inspiration came from to inspire JB to make these but they are consuming him entirely.  He is making the brackets, cutting the sheet metal for the cones, finding thai spoons on ebay....he is all about them!  I thought they were so cool we added one to our chicken coop.  I think the chickens are digging it.





Look at the video of a wind spinny doing its thingy:



All the cones are cut from flashing and bent to form the cones that catch the wind.


The cones are all bent and attached to the wheel.





We use random beads, forks, thai spoons, fishing lures...whatever we think would look cool, we string'em up!


We spray paint the interior of the cones to add some color.


Handmade clay beads, beads and some fishing lures add some fine detail to this wind spinny!


More fun!

The Bobbit Family bought a wind spinny from us in Edom, Texas.
 Thank you guys!  It sure looks pretty in your yard!





Aren't they cool?

Come check them out for yourself at our next show!

See you then!