I will be posting a spotlight on each of the participating Farmhaus & Friends artists now through October 20th. This first spotlight features potter Audrey Cooper. We weren’t familiar with Audrey’s work until Ben introduced it to us and we are so happy he did!
AUDREY O. COOPER (b. 1971) has been working with clay since 2005. Born and raised in Philadelphia, Audrey graduated with a degree in literature from the University of Pennsylvania and studied sculpture at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts. She has studied with potters in Maine and Pennyslvania, and worked for two years at The Clay Studio in Philadelphia. She lives and works in Northern Liberties.
Audrey is interested in using local materials, creating as little waste as possible, and in the life cycle of materials. She embraces the unpredictability, combined with the control of craftsmanship, inherent in the ceramic process. For this project, Audrey made functional tableware, hand-thrown on her electric wheel. She fired one group of porcelain pieces in a wood-fired kiln, fueled by scraps from Ben McBrien’s woodshop. These pieces are unglazed, fired in the salt-chamber of the kiln, colored by the intense atmosphere created by wood fire. The other group was fired in her electric kiln. They are stoneware glazed entirely or partially with ash glazes she made by burning woodshop scraps, applied in combination with commercial glazes.
Check out all of Audrey’s pieces from Farmhaus & Friends online here but if you can, please come and see them in person. The photos do not truly capture the richness and beauty of the glazes PLUS they all feel great in your hands.
The lovely Julie Lange of 
We did a wonderful blog feature on Julie & her line of hand printed purses and bags. 
While your here, check out our HUGE SUMMER SALE which is taking up our entire back gallery space. We have Art, Clothing, Housewares, Prints, Ceramics and MORE priced to sell!
Being a knitter myself, I couldn’t wait to try it out. I wanted to make something for summer, since we got the yarn in a little later in the season. I decided to design a beach tote. I had intended on sharing the pattern on the blog, but I am not 100% happy with my design. The yarn knitted up really nicely but it ended up being a little bigger than I had initially envisioned. I am not a knitting expert by any means. I am still learning. I like how it turned out overall but next time I’d make it smaller and use a more sturdier yarn for the base. I felt the bottom of the bag stretched out a little more than I liked when I put in a beach towel, book & phone…… I might try a thicker cotton next time or maybe I’d use smaller needles to make it tighter. I also thought I could make the bottom (knit in cinnabar) out of fabric , maybe canvas or leather & then knit the rest. I really like how the strap came out though!
I love the yarn & with a bit of tweaking to my design, I think I’ll have a great summer beach tote to share with you all eventually. I can’t wait to try out the yarn on some other project ideas I have cooking up in my head.
