State of the Studio
June 2023
Welcome to my site, and the inaugural State of the Studio blog post! (subsequently referred to as SOTS)
Happy (belated) Summer Solstice! Solstice is one of my favorite days of the entire year! I love celebrating the return of light and summer with fire, friends, and time spent in the woods.
This first SOTS post is in conjunction with the Grand Opening of my Online Shop for Jord’s Hoard! The shop has been a long time coming, as I’ve had it in the works for more than 5 years! But now, I’ve finally made good on my promises and launched it. Whew! Major thanks to those who have already bought something! Your support means so much, and keeps these hands fed while sculpting new things.
I’ll start with some highlights of the 1st half of 2023:
This spring I finally registered Jord’s Hoard as a business in Maryland. And so, I’ve leaped into pop-up sales and markets, striving to learn how to sell all these different things I make. So far in 2023, I’ve participated in 7 different shows! Figuring out how to not only set up a table, then a tented booth, but to find and apply for markets while learning to be a salesperson of my own wares has been surprisingly difficult! Making the wares seems to be less than half of the work in running a little business. As I look forward to at least eight more this year, I have a lot yet to learn and a ton of new ideas for improving my display.
Jani & Victor at the spring Greater Good Market in our monarch caterpillar t-shirts
I also had the pleasure of joining a woodfire with Tim Sherman thanks to my coworkers at Clayworks Supplies, and it was just as awesome as expected. We camped as a group over memorial weekend at a local quaker camp and fired three kilns at once. It was wild and incredible! I especially loved working the overnight shift, from the middle of the night into dawn. Dawn at a woodkiln is an absolute delight and I can’t wait to return.
Other than that, I participated in two woodfirings at Baltimore Clayworks - one independent, and one jointly with Towson and CCBC students. I’m no longer the woodkiln assistant, which feels odd, but it has been good to be back at the kiln while having more time to spend exploring in the studio. I’ve added in some gas reduction firing due to volume, which is a big change, but an exciting one! I’ve pulled some great pots out of the ^10 gas at Chesapeake Arts Center thanks to Cami Ascher.
Outside of the studio, this Feburary I had the opportunity to visit Colombia, South America with my partner Victor! We freedove along the coast for more than a week, witnessing all kinds of life under the waves. We also visited San Gil, where we could paraglide over Chicamocha Canyon. Exploring the oceans and the sky has been such an unexpected delight and source of inspiration. I’m exploring new art forms to capture all the wondrous life I’ve witnessed deep below the ocean’s surface.
Down to the business of it:
(I’m just figuring this all out as I go!)
In truth, I had some big goals for this spring. Namely, to make a ton of inventory to round out my offerings and stock up for the holiday market season. In the first major push of the year I set my sights on making over 100 skulls and 200 pots, let alone the tiny jewelry pieces and developing new items. Despite not reaching my exact number goals, the spring making period was a resounding success! Thanks to this difficult studio push, I have a ton of new items available and some overstock to start pushing for wholesale opportunities.
Some of my new items include porcelain coyote skulls, small human skulls, and maryland blue crab claws. I also dived headfirst into polymer clay! Pictured below are my new cicadas, monarch caterpillars, lightning bugs, and earthworms!
Take a look at some available items in my Online Shop!
After such a busy spring, I’m looking forward to some time off in the woods this summer. I’ll be exploring the White Mountain National Forest for a week and taking some much needed time out of the studio. When I return, I”ll refocus on what am I looking forward to in the fall:
Possible woodfiring in a new kiln close to DC!
More pop up markets including Overlea Artsfest (August 12th) and & Artsfest 2023 (September 16th & 17th)
More Brick + Mortar sales locations! (TBD!)
Outreach for commission and wholesale opportunities are ongoing. Recommendations for businesses to contact are welcome!
I’m also setting some new goals for the late summer in anticipation of a busy fall. I have some new bones to work on inculding a new red fox, white tailed deer fawn, coyote, rat and opossum skulls to cast. After all that, I’ll be uping the game with silicone mother-molds!
Throughout the fall, I’ll continue expanding the polymer clay insect jewelry line I’ve begun this year and making offerings beyond earrings or necklaces, including pins, bolos, and magnets. If there is any time left over, I’ll be experimenting with new mediums for nature inspired jewelry - perhaps copper electroforming and resin!
Newest skull - Opossum, found along the gunpowder river on 6/21/23
@JordsHoard on Tiktok