SHAR (@carrie_brad.shar) • Collective gay friends app

SHAR @carrie_brad.shar

Sculpture, Illustration, Jewelry I’m here for gay creatives & fashion lovers. Let’s connect & create. All pics are mine, unless listed under inspo.

There may be some good fortune coming our way... if everything goes right I’ll have some great art news for October!!🍜🍶🐲 also just really love this pic, it was the first time going to my besties place and his front door matched my outfit❤️🤍🖤

First try at making handmade artist brushes. So far I already sliced my thumb open 👍🏽🩸 The bamboo is local (freshly gathered), the silver fox from my recent trip to the Frontier (fine tip), the the burnishing horn (from Chinatown), orange rabbit hair (absorption), my hair from the cut (immersive).

Chopped off about 7in give or take. Feels a thousand times better & like the old me is back!! Funny story, I actually got the cut for free on grindr by a new friend who’s a level 3 master hairstylist not far from Jersey City. He specializes in dyeing and curls lmk if you need a rec! Luke’s the best!

The level of intricacy, and of historic gold lustre is anything like today’s that means that was red gold lustre drawn on top of matching red enamel... painting it would’ve been a bitch!! Luckily I don’t think that would’ve been the case they probably stained it for visibility. But today it would be!

Not at studio, so here’s inspo! I love scoping antiques, it’s an immersive way to view real attainable functional art with the past level craftsmanship. I love the seductive draw of cinnabar, this jar just pulls your curiosity, & radial design topped with asymmetrical melon vine knob just 🤤❤️

One thing to note is this intricate bowl & the previous bird are painted in overglaze which is extremely more stable & easier to paint in more detail than underglaze (which is what I work in). These strokes are either over or under the glaze layer, which puts it through different phases of process.

Went to MET today, favorite thing to do is go & analyze the craftsmanship in the old arts. I’ve always been a small person in my own work so things like this give me something to compare to since modern artists just really don’t value this level of minute detail anymore & instead chase scale.

Any NY/JerseyCity collective boys wanna hang out in the city sometime? Here again for a week or two, always in & out. Need artsy people who wanna explore shop etc.

Lil beaver I made for the wheel throwing instructor at the ranch. He said he was a beaver guy... so now he has a lil beaver to look at with a beret, a lil coffee, and a baguette with a bite out of it 🇫🇷🥖☕️👨🏽‍🎨 It was overlayed indiluted slip/glaze later tossed into the reduction and came out great.

A piece on display at the Soldner House Museum in Snowmass, CO. Not sure the artist or if it was his own work (doesn’t look like it) but the form was very intriguing. It was just posted above the entrance to their wine cellar (more like a wine bunker) in a row along other different style pieces.

Me on my first ever night back in MPLS, it was an unhinged, messy, almost got in a fight kinda night at the Saloon. My Labubu was blacked out somewhere, & my bestie stole this flyer & hid it in his pants. This used to be an average Thursday lol.

The Naborigama Kiln on the Randy Johnson/ Jane McKeachie property. Takes over 800 large works to fill it up!! Issa BIG BOY!!! Notice the shape & staggered sections, all this is used in retaining, and flowing heat in the directions needed.

View of the Naborigama kiln room of the Johnson/McKeachie Studios. These would have been doing fine art ceramics for over 50 years now & still going! It was a great experience to see the similarities between my studio & get so much advice from them. The quote resonated deeply for me.

Love collecting these! I got them in Aspen at an antique store that the Clintons used to frequent apparently. It was open for 35 years and shuts down for good October. It was full of large Arabian/indian/oriental antiques. I love the weathered look & maybe I should make some of my own in porcelain!

Out of every single piece (had 50 pots)... THE ONLY ONE 😂 to break was dis bitch. Hahahahahaha!!!!!!!!!! Does the universe send signs or what 💅🏽✨ It’s cliche but thinking Kitsunge (ikr but real gold luster) & add the tattoos titling the piece “Remains of an Avoidant” or “likeness of a broken man”

Piece made over a year ago during my residency (one of the first bodies) that sat in Minneapolis. This piece has a lot of sentimentality, it’s a body of my ex while we were still in a good spot. Saw him yesterday for the 1st time... with his fiancé & we both just completely avoided eachother. 🧡

My sister loading my thin, large, fragile, stoneware, hours of sculpting piece sideways into the Anderson Ranch train wood kiln🚂. lol it’s ok it’s a test piece but it is a very anticipated piece to see finished by many. Can’t wait may be awesome or awful or worse. That’s just the name of the game.

Some test pieces, will hopefully get in an atmospheric firing in time. Not sure how they will look at all. These are stoneware instead of my usual porcelain, but hopefully will look great once fired fully. I’m thinking of donating one of these to the auction here, not sure yet.

How it’s going... please please please give me your thoughts!!! This is a learning piece and my first large scale too so it’s definitely not my usual cup of tea. Also it will have heavy graphic surface painting on the smooth portions.

1/4 in thick, all slab built strips used in a mix of coil attachment and my own inside out sculpting technique I use for my usual work. This was a feat surprised me and my instructor🧡 love this art center I highly recommend.

Hiii! Any collective buddies in NYC next Sunday-Wednesday (6/15-6/17)? Will be in town visiting some of my favorite fashion, food, and art spots if anyone wants to go on an adventure. Also anyone in Colorado wanna connect as I’ll be road tripping to Anderson Ranch in Snowmass for a two week ceramic workshop. Lmk will have a lot of free time and nothing to do yet! Some cool pics will be on the way!!

2nd commission for the same client, duo piece thrown by my sister & I altered and will add the sculpture next, stoneware, with added individual rings detail (pushed in, not from throwing or trim), I came up with three ways to allow for wall hanging off the one foot (bitch to trim wet).

“Kiln Gods” the pieces that take refuge on the artist shelves for eternity. Holding crucial roles in spirit of the studio & protecting artwork from harm & misfortune, the gods hold tremendous energy that keeps the kiln alive & fruitful, while also blessing all the art as its offerings.

Glimpse at one of the platters. This glaze can be finicky (especially with a broken controls on my kiln atm) but we got it to work. 1 thing I need to work on is allowing myself to have fragility in my work again (I’ll explain more later). Stoneware, Cone 5/6, Electric Oxidation, slab, 2025.

That’s the contraption! Guess how much!?!? $1!!! As an artist the Amazon resale store is a playground for me, I get parts and parts of things and get to make new gadgets, this is made from three arms I found, and it can even switch to hold my IPad Pro in the air!! 🧡🤤🧡

Installed a new toy, this magnifying glass is 2 feet away from that less than half inch heart 🧡 This will hopefully take the strain off my eyes for all the jewelry I’ve have to make before my roadtrip to Aspen in a couple weeks. I’m going to stop & do some popups then take a workshop for 2 weeks!

1st attempt for a female body. Clearly I like dick so much that I’m pretty devoid of the female form 😅. She doesn’t seem like how I was hoping but she got a lot of attention and sold within her first two shows. The dripping glazes were a new test as well, & definitely helped.

Just thought the lighting looked real good✨

Southern Magnolia (Magnolia grandiflora) blooming by my barn studio. Several outside my kitchen window as a child. After moving the trees on our property never bloomed but seems like the size & increased light helped this one get large & fragrant finally💛 You can see many of them in my early work.

Time to arrange the pebbles, this will be tough because this is all the pebbles I have for 5 platters. Pain to make since I shape every rock & larger are hollowed out thin to put less stress on the plate during the firing. I must be strategic bc they stabilize/ground the limbs from being fragile.

I think this one got more of what I’m hoping for. Still made some mistakes, I trimmed early being impatient for it to dry so now it’s collapsing the foot. But I’m starting to understand patience & no inhibitions are big parts of this. Every mark needs bold confidence & embracing evolution of form.

I think I’m exploring brutalism???🧐🧐🧐 After a while I thought it just looked like a bird. 😐🐦‍⬛🪿🦅🦆🦩🦜🐦‍🔥🕊️ So much to reassess my norms towards... restraint, marks, silhouette, composition, dynamics. And rewire my brain to the Kurinuki ways. I must... become one.... with the clay. And not hold back.

Hope this one ends up the kind of piece I like once done. Just not anything like imagined (few min to position limbs before cracks). I wanted more transition to platters round shape, but they’re in their own world. That eye contact tho...👀 I was thinking “Seductive dance of the ‘Pus” for the name?🦑🦑😅

Taking a break from control. Trying my first ever attempt at a tea bowl inspired by the Japanese technique, Kurunuki. Got bigger than intended, but I decided to go excess which is more natural for me, especially when it’s this soft. The bottom will have a rigid foot to balance the look. Porcelain.

Raku pot testing out using clear crackle glaze. Everything worked out fine but future applications may be thinner. This would have come out better but the person firing did a huge NoNo and made things touch and got someone else’s glaze on the back...ruining a few hours worth of painting b/c of that.

Set of Raku vases thrown by my sister and fired by me. These ones came out great and got a lot of carbon trapping (the black parts and the colorful swirls). The combustibles did leave a lot of texture and marks but I think it adds to the interest & makes it more tactile.

This piece was a second attempt at this form which is pretty tough in my hands to do. Always makes my fingers cramp from the repetition. The glaze had issues attaching because of how thin it was. Slab-built Porcelain, Cone 6 electric, slip-trailed transferred and altered, Tallahassee, FL 2025.

An example of how heat and glaze can warp and constrict around thin porcelain. The glaze on this piece was so much stronger than the unglazed portions that it actually strangle the vase causing tit to more easily warp on the top where it was hotter. Porcelain, Cone 10, Wood-Soda-Salt, St. Pete, 2025

Trying to make movement is always the hardest part. I haven’t made one in a while so I tried redoing a pose I did before but it just wasn’t doing it for me. Sometimes the end result will be the real tell if a piece works or not. Have to add pebbles & ground the fragile limbs.

When the octobussy be drippin so much you need a pot(s) to carry it all🫢🦑💦

Finally making some Octobussy Platters 🐙🦑! Had folks wanting these for years but they’re a lot of work. Using my secret technique for making beautiful cheeseboard/platters (what about warping?😈) Also may have just sold a new benchmark piece with a funny story too!! ($####👀??) Tune in!! ~XOXO SHAR💋

Detail of naked bowl added to the firing. The mottled appearance is just the settled atmosphere of ash, salt, and soda on the bowl. In real life it’s very mesmerizing and one of my favorite to use for a nice small meal! The shape was a perfect circle but the heat sculpted the porcelain on its own🔥