Celebration Pottery Archives - Janet Francoeur Fine Art

Posted on December 20, 2021December 20, 2021 by janet francoeur — 6 Comments

Busy time

This has been a busy year for me! I bought a 100 year old house in December 2020. It needed foundation work to start with. When I bought the house it had 3 cracks in the plaster and when foundation work was done it had 100! But I have a good painter and he has a friend that does plaster repair so they all got fixed and the downstairs all painted. The upstairs is one big room with 3 closets and a bathroom. A perfect studio.

And the house sits on a double lot, the lot beside the house was very wet so my foundation guy put in a big french drain which moves the water to the street and to the sewer. The result worked perfectly but it wasn’t very pretty. I had my landscaper bring in some rock to make it look like a river.

The next project was to gut the downstairs bathroom. And redo it.

Then tear down funky weird garage and deck and put up two story garage and connect it to the house with an enclosed breezeway.

Which created a courtyard! My landscaper friend Arthur helped me redesign the sidewalk and get it planted. We worked on the other side too.

In the kitchen I just replaced the countertop. Then am added a master bath on back of downstairs master bedroom.

While this all was going on I spent the month of March in Florida, Put my East Front House on the Market, came home and turned around and went back to Florida camping for a week.

Then went to Colorado and Utah for 10 days and got a contract on East Front street house.

Moved furniture in the middle of July. Up until then I had been kind of camping out at new house.

Closed August 3.

Designed 2021 New Bern ornament for Carolina Creations, number 29 I think!

Left for a month long camping trip to the North East I wrote 2 blog posts about it. Link to Part 1. Link to Part 2.

Got home on September 17 then had to do my New Bern Christmas Card for 2021. I decided to do an image of Tryon Palace on clay for it.

Image for Christmas card, from a platter.

I spent the first night in my own bed in months on November 6. Am going to love my new bedroom.

Then someone asked for the 2022 calendar which I maybe wasn’t going to do this year if no one asked. But they did so looked through New Bern images I did on clay and used those.

And I hadn’t done the design for this years Christmas pottery either! When an employee told me I should do some Christmas pottery I couldn’t image how it would sell, that was 6 years ago, I was surprised how much of it I sell. Here is this years and another design from a couple years ago.

I was also the featured artist at Carolina Creations for the month of November – I posted some photos of those new pieces in my last post. AND I was on the studio tour!

I wanted to do the tour to remind people I was still around because rumor was that I had moved away. And I wanted to remind them that my work is still available at Carolina Creations even through I don’t own it any more. I DO have a website where I sell my work as well. http://www.janetfrancoeurfineart.blog but what I mostly do on this website is write a blog about my artwork and my travels. Mostly my travels these days!!

It was a very hectic year so didn’t get as much artwork done as I normally do but still did a couple big oils and and 3 new gouache paintings and tons of pottery.

This year I’m concentrating on oils. My friend Carol, who went to the same tiny college in Michigan I did, who moved to New Bern the same month I did in 1989, and I are having a 30 year anniversary of the first show we did together in 1992 at the arts council where she was the gallery director. It’s a big space so want to paint some new big pieces for it. I’m also working on garden sculpture for it as well.

Looking forward to a quieter 2022. But already have plans for 2 weeks on Virgin Gorda in the BVIs this winter (unless covid stops it), then a month in Ft Myers, Florida (I’ll go there anyway because I spend most of the month by myself painting, 18 days in Spain and Portugal (again if covid allows) and 2 weeks in Maine which I will probably do anyway because will be outdoors most of the time.

Looking forward to a quieter 2022. But already have plans for 2 weeks on Virgin Gorda in the BVIs this winter, then a month in Ft Myers, Florida, 18 days in Spain and Portugal and 2 weeks in Maine.

And I seem to be all over the place with my artwork, oils, watercolors, gouache, clay tiles, clay sculpture. It’s kind of exciting! Finally getting into this retirement business,

And while I’ve already planted a lot in my new yard I have 20 seed packets to find a spot for…. So much for quiet.

Posted on November 25, 2021November 25, 2021 by janet francoeur — 2 Comments

New Work

I’ve been busy this fall! The Studio Tour was the first Saturday in November and at the same time I am the featured artist at Carolina Creations. I realize my blog, lately, has been more about my travels than my artwork, but I HAVE been doing a lot of that too.

All my work is available at Carolina Creations.

Posted on May 1, 2020June 15, 2020 by janet francoeur — 2 Comments

Artwork Explosion During Lockdown

This was posted on facebook and it surely describes me and many artists I know!

That being said I have found the last few months to be very productive and inspiring. I have been wanting to do paintings of my travels but there are so many places to paint I am too impatient to do large paintings of all of them.

While I was in Florida for the month of March I found a little (6 x 8″) watercolor block (A watercolor block is a stack of watercolor paper that is attached together. The sheets of fine art paper are trimmed to some uniform size and then stacked upon each other. That stack of art paper is then attached to a backing board with a padding glue. This glue is applied to all four sides of the paper.) of hot press paper that I really liked. I also started experimenting with gouache (gouache is an opaque, matte, watercolor). Those two things together lit my fire and off I went!

I have been fortunate the past few years to be able to travel quite a lot to Europe and around the US and have always dreamt of having the time to put some of what I saw down on paper. Since I sold Carolina Creations I finally have the time to do that.

These pieces measure 6 x 8″, all except the middle one on the top row which is watercolor on board – another experiment! I keep doing more and post them on the paintings page on this site.

Janet Francoeur New Bern art Craven Street

Also while I was in Florida I saw this gopher tortoise. Gopher tortoises are found in all 67 counties in Florida and are an important species of the rapidly disappearing longleaf pine forest and wiregrass landscapes. The gopher tortoise originated in North America 60 million years ago, making it one of the oldest living species, and they may live up to 80 years.

This tortoise is called a Keystone species because more than 350 other species depend on their burrows for shelter and protection. This makes them a Keystone species – one without which many other species would not survive. (from the Nature Conservancy website). Neat!

I don’t remember how many days of lockdown I’ve been in but I think it started the middle of March. So what could I do but paint! In addition to painting paintings I was inspired to do some nature scenes on my pottery of all the neat things I saw in the swamps. The pieces are flying out but what I still have is posted on my Celebration Pottery page. I’m always doing new pieces!

Jan Francoeur Celebration Pottery Nature Series with egret

Celebration Pottery Jan Francoeur Nature Series with bee

celebration pottery nature wavy spoon rest

Celebration Pottery Jan Francoeur Egret Flat Vase

Celebration Pottery Jan Francoeur Nature Series square bowl with hummingbird

Celebration Pottery Jan Francoeur Nature Series square bowl with hummingbird dark

I should say that during the time we lived in Aspen, then a year in the Florida Keys, I did a lot of drawing of birds. I would do the drawing in ink then add color just to the birds. So this work is just an extension of that work – 30 years later. More pieces are shown on my paintings page.

Then I got a call from Carolina Creations asking me to do some Mother’s Day pieces so here are some of them.

Of course all my work can be found at Carolina Creations. Their hours for the time being are 11-4 Mon-Sat. with all the precautions necessary to create a safe environment. And their website is available 24/7. Carolina Creations Website.

A few more travel paintings…..

Jan Francoeur Blue Heaven Watercolor painting

Jan Francoeur Key West Cuban Food watercolor

And now I HAVE to clean my house!! That is one problem with living where you work or work where you are living you are constantly torn about where you are and what you are supposed to be doing.

I can’t wait to get out and about again, like everyone else. In the mean time I’ll travel in my mind and in my art!

If you don’t know much about me you can read my story.

Posted on October 10, 2019October 15, 2019 by janet francoeur — 6 Comments

New Bern NC Bench by Janet Francoeur

In ceramics things can be more complicated than they first appear!

New Bern NC Bench by Janet Francoeur – A couple years ago when we were at UNC Hospital I saw benches in the garden. I knew immediately who did the metal work, one of our artists (we used to carry) at Carolina Creations, and sure enough when I called Cindy, she said yes, they had built the bench and a potter from Chapel Hill had made the tiles.

I asked her to make two of them for me. Cindy said they wanted to make a few changes on the design and after a few months they arrived at our studio. That was a funny story in itself. These benches weigh A LOT! They are made of heavy gauge steel, zinc galvanized to prevent rusting, painted with high quality marine grade epoxy paints, and like I said are heavy.

The trucker got them off the truck and onto the sidewalk. After some head scratching Michael and I got out two hand trucks and we managed to inch both of the benches closer to the studio door. It was a lot of work and we finally sat down on one of them to rest. Just then two young ladies came along and said “do you need some help?” They picked up each of the benches and carried them into the studio!

Then our lives got really complicated and they have been sitting in our entryway ever since. I’m finally at the point that I can tackle them. On one of the benches I decided to do a new bern scene like I’ve done for some back splashes and platters. The only problem is I use earthenware for the back splashes and platters – and it won’t hold up outside in freezing and thawing conditions.

So you would think I would just go and get other clay. It’s not that easy. There are lots of kinds of clay and they all are not appropriate for tile making. So you have to do a lot of testing, will they fire flat? Will my glazes hold their color at a higher temperature? If there is too much grog in it will I be able to draw a straight line?

Well the first clay I tried had way too much grog in it, I couldn’t get a smooth enough surface to draw on. I’ll use that clay to make some totems with. So I eventually bought 4 different kinds of clay and finally found one I liked.

The clay shrinks as it dries then more again when fired so I had to figure the shrinkage out. The people that blend the clay give you a shrinkage rate but like everything in ceramics you need to do your own testing.

I rolled out a strip of clay and marked it off by 1/2 inch increments. Then I could use that to measure the bench opening to see how big my clay slab needed to be (also considering room for grout lines between the tiles).

So you can see in this photo that from wet to being fired to cone 5 it had shrunk by a whole inch .

I made a test of my underglazes to see how the color holds up at the hotter cone 5. Usually the reds burn out but these Spectrum underglazes seemed to hold up. I had to find a clear glaze to go over my underglazes, since the one I’m used to using will not fire to the cone 5 that I need. I glazed half of the tiles with the cone 5 clear gloss and half with cone 5 clear matt. The right side is gloss the left mat, I like the gloss better. In some glazes you can’t see any difference in others you can.

I got the tiles made….

dried them, fired them to cone 04 then I drew the image onto the tiles with pencil…then colored with underglazes…

then covered them with clear glaze and fired to cone 5, which is the vitrification temperature of this particular clay.

Vitrification is the hardening, tightening and finally the partial glassification of the clay. Vitrification results from fusions or melting of the various components of the clay. The strength of fired clay is increased by the formation of new crystalline growth within the clay body, particularly the growth of mullite crystals. Mullite is an aluminum silicate characterized by a long needlelike crystal. These lace the structure together, giving it cohesion and strength. (from The Big Ceramic Store Website)

Then there is the issue of attaching the tiles to the bench. I needed to build up the base and was not comfortable attaching them directly to the metal so I used Wedi Board, Wedi Board is lightweight, easy to cut, and a completely waterproof tile backer board.

I attached the Wedi Board to the bench with a urethane adhesive…I had to figure out what was the best for that – it had to be suitable for a wet application and outdoors.

…then I covered the board with adhesive and attached the tiles leaving even (well kind of even) grout lines.

Once the adhesive had dried I applied grout that I treated for outdoor use.

And DONE! It only took me a couple years to do.

Like I said, things sometimes are more complicated than they first appear.

Posted on September 21, 2019November 22, 2019 by janet francoeur — Leave a comment

New Paintings, Calendar, and Christmas Card

I know some of you have already seen these images on Facebook so sorry for repeating. I want to thank you all for receiving my blog updates!

For the past 10+ years I have done a calendar of New Bern scenes.It’s small, a desktop calendar in a CD case. Here are this years images. Some I am also doing prints of and all originals are available. I’m trying to get enough new work for a show at Carolina Creations of paintings from my travels and New Bern paintings but decided I’d go ahead and show these now, I’ll just have to do new ones for the show!

Watercolor – Benjamin Ellis Bed and Breakfast

The Calendar in its case measures 5″ x 5 1/2″. Here is a link to them on my blog. https://janetfrancoeurfineart.blog/product/2019-desk-calendar/
Thank you for being interested in my work! This year I am feeling really inspired and am producing a lot ot new work. I can’t wait to show you.

And here is my Christmas card for this year.

And a link to them. https://janetfrancoeurfineart.blog/product/new-bern-christmas-card-for-2019/

I hope you have a wonderful day! – Jan Francoeur

Posted on January 23, 2018May 9, 2020 by janet francoeur — 2 Comments

More custom Celebration Pottery pieces

One day (years ago) a customer asked me to put names on a platter for a wedding, that was just the start!

Since them I’ve done hundreds of churches with names and dates on tiles and platters…

CC12 CC10 CC3

houses…

CC9

CC5

baby sets…
baby1 baby2 baby3 baby4

new bern scenes on things… pot2

CC8

special pieces given to visiting dignitaries….

CC7

back splash….
CC1
and lots more!

Posted on January 2, 2018May 9, 2020 by janet francoeur — 2 Comments

How a piece comes together

I’m often asked to do commemorative pieces to be given as gifts for retirements, birthdays, weddings, etc. The piece I’m showing here was for someone whose career lasted over 30 years and she was involved in many of the projects that have shaped the way our downtown looks today.

First we started with a list of the projects…

…I took reference photos…

…I built this pot using slabs of clay…

…bisque fired it to 1950 degrees…
…did rough sketches of the places that were to be included on the pot…

…figured out how they could work together on the piece…
…sketched them on the pot – btw the pencil lines burn out in the kiln…

…using underglazes painted the image then outlined the image with black line…

…covered the entire pot with a clear glaze…
…fired it again, this time to 1911 degrees…
…and it’s done!

A one of a kind, special gift.
If you have an idea for a special gift for someone let me know! In my next post I’ll show some other pieces I’ve done for people that aren’t quite so elaborate!

Posted on December 2, 2017December 12, 2017 by janet francoeur — 5 Comments

Garden Sculpture in the works part 2

So instead of just finishing the sculpture I decided to also do a bird bath, so got the bowl for the top built and now letting it dry. Actually its not unusual to have many pieces going at once, since I’m building for out doors the pieces have to be somewhat robust (thick) so take a long time to dry. Even when I think they are dry – room temperature to the touch, the piece is cool to the touch if there is still moisture – I put them in the kiln and heat it to about 150 degrees and shut it off. I’ll do this a couple times until I put my head in and my glasses don’t steam up!

For the totem I decided to make 2 tops for now, a simple round topper and a bird. Both are in the drying stage.

My glaze samples all turned out – very unusual! These are Potters Choice glazes.

My favorites are

I think earthtones are more appropriate for outdoor sculptures so am going looking for a few more greens/yellows/browns. Of course I could always just fire this clay to vitrification with no glaze or just a clear glaze.

The neat, well one of the neat things about Steve’s technique is that I can add or take away components depending on how tall I want it to be (or how much money the customer wants to spend!).

Posted on November 4, 2017November 18, 2017 by janet francoeur — Leave a comment

Celebration Pottery Current Work

I’ve been busy trying to get caught up and trying to get holiday pieces finished. This week, in addition to doing quite a few commissions, I managed to get these pieces done.

spoon rest blessings