A Beacon In The Night…

Say you’re marooned on a deserted island, or better yet, you wake up in a cave with broken leg only to realize that there’s a survival kit at hand with splints, instructions, food and water. But because you are pathetic, aged, and practically blind you are unable to read the instructions that tell how to administer the splints and inflate the life raft… did I mention the life raft? Well, I’m no longer worried about this possibly tragic end as I got these in the mail the other day…

Actually, my Mom was reading my blog where I was kvetching about the different strength reading glasses I use and that I felt I needed more powerful ones and she sent me a link to get these beauties. They’re 4.0 strength which is higher than I’ve seen in stores and the piece de resistance is dual headlights… and the two pair I got (buy one get one free) are in the haute couture crimson amber hue. Here’s another shot where it’s darker in the room to get the full effect…

Now I can finally work in the dark during an electrical storm. The bug and I took some short videos to discuss possible uses but as video sometimes does, things went off message. First there’s me and then the bug…

Sofia watched this one of herself and is disgusted because she says she doesn’t sound like herself…

OK, onward and upward. I shellacked all week and here’s some pics…

I’m really excited about the last two with the white terra sig over the black terra sig. Of course, I have no idea what will happen in the firing. I believe the white will end up translucent which could be really nice but it could also all but disappear. Last but not least here’s a bottle/vase that is down at KMAC that I hadn’t gotten a pic of before…

Tabula(e) Rasa(e)…

I traveled out of town last week to Southern Illinois to visit some very good friends of mine and we had a great time. One day I taught them how to play cribbage and oh hell and we played for hours drinking beer and sarcastically ribbing one another. This past monday, I swung into decoration mode from throwing mode and spent the week terra sig-ing and burnishing. The product is a table full of blank slates or more accurately blank canvases just waiting to get shellacked…

Here’s a closeup of freshly applied terra sig still wet (pre-burnishing). I would like to believe that the Italian/Spanish potters would refer to this state as terra sigillata mojada (sounds like supercalifragilisticexpyalidoshious)…

Under the heading of “Ripley’s believe it or not” I went to lunch with my friend Ray… you may remember a post about Sofia and I visiting him and all his new chickens here. Anyway, apparently having chickens creates certain conditions in the yard and in the coop. One is a hawk hanging around the backyard waiting for a yummy chicken nugget and another is mice… lots of mice. I guess this is because the poultry, despite their food supply not being paltry, still scatter the food as they scratch and fling it far and wide within the confines of their caged abode. So Ray says, “I go out the first day after setting traps and I’ve got two traps and both of them have two mice in each.” What are the odds of that? Then he resets the traps and the next day he found two more traps with two mice each…

Oh, I forgot to warn about the pic if you happen to be a bit squeamish. I simply cannot get over the chances of this not happening… what?, were they holding hands as they approached the murine guillotine? “hey, Minnie how ’bout we head on over to that piece of wood with the giant peanut butter buffet before we head out on the town for a night of gnawing through drywall?” Seriously, four times. OK, scrabble. My good friend Terry and I resumed our ongoing super scrabble tournament. We haven’t played in a while because Terry is becoming quite the pool player and tends to spend free nights practicing. Anyway, I gambled early and lost and got so far behind in the first 10 or 15 minutes that I actually considered forfeiting for the first time. I did manage to pull close toward the end but alas I lost yet again…

So I don’t know about all the other people who cannot see anymore and need “reading glasses” but they are one of the banes of my existence. I’ve gotten so that I need 3 different strengths, 1.25s for TV from across the room, 2.50s for throwing and 3.00s for detail work like shellacking. Of course, I can’t stand wearing things so I take them off the first chance I get and because of that, I can’t find them and if I have two pair on the counter I have to put one on to read the strength of the other one. I’ve been thinking lately of getting some 4.0s online since the strengths don’t go that high in any of the stores. Anyway, I found out that I can get 3 pair of them at this giant store that will remain un-named for 7.50 so I recently got 3 pair of 3.0s because my current 3.0s are covered with clay. When I purchased them, I noticed that the frames were metal as opposed to the plastic frames when I had gotten them before. Who cares, right? I’m only wearing them when I work. So I worked all week with my new glasses on and I kept thinking, these don’t seem to be all that clear. I kept taking them off and polishing the lenses on my shirt and holding them up to the window to see if static electricity was making clay dust adhere. But still, I had a general dissatisfaction in the overall clarity and just resigned myself that they were of inferior quality and that I was gonna have to get more expensive ones from now on. Then, on a lark, I happened to pick the specs in question up while wearing the old pair that was lying around and noticed something almost imperceptible…

There’s a thin protective piece of clear plastic on the lenses! What a dumbass. In other news, the bug lost another tooth…

It was really great having her home during the winter break. It seems that I prefer vacations from school just as much now as when I was in school. Here’s the bug with a “palace” she built with all her little creatures and some of her own that she made…

Sayanora.

Uke Ant Bee Serious…

T minus two days and counting… and all the hullabaloo will cease for a lovely forty two day stretch ending with another consumer-run-amok holiday where we will all be reminded that we really don’t know how to express our love for others and desperately need the help of a greeting card company, some blood diamonds and maybe some unfair trade chocolate. Wow, did that come out as stridently as it seems? See what this month and a half of nonsense does. On to more important matters, 2 be or not 2 be?…

The bug made a doll and I finally got it fired. Here she is in her Hamlet soliloquy pose…

She made another doll and I fired it but the arm broke off before we even bisqued it. She gave it to her grandfather for xmas and while he was unwrapping it, she warned him repeatedly to be careful because the gift was fragile. After he opened it, he joked with her and asked… where’s its arm? She immediately fired back… I told you it was fragile.

It seems that now that I’m 53 and am slowly (the key word being slowly) shedding some of the vanity associated with my appearance, I opted at the end of the summer to cut my hair off. I’m fine with it if I don’t see my reflection in a window or mirror accidentally and I have to admit that I’m loving the, not only low maintenance, but complete lack of maintenance involved in… well, maintaining it. Anyway, Mom loves it, Sofia loves to touch it (although she’s adamant about not liking the look of it) and I’ve gotten compliments about it but if I do look in the mirror, I see a grayer version of the little crewcut boy I was up until the 3rd grade… the one that desperately wanted long hair like one of the Beatles or any number of longhairs of the era. And just for the sake of context…

You may be wondering why I mention this. Well, after 45 years of having my hair in various stages of “long” and now having it very short I came upon this. It seems now that maybe I owe my past survival (and who knows?, maybe my catlike reflexes too) to my uncut locks and facial hair. So now all you Movember moustache growers have some scientific backup to nurturing that autumn chevron. So, a dilemma emerges… should I grow the mop back or should I flaunt the buzz cut and flirt with the disaster of going camping and being caught unawares while I sleep by a prowling bobcat, puma, or hell, what about a ninja? It seems extremely irresponsible to expose myself and family (if they’re camping with me) to this level of vulnerability. Next up, months back I got an email from a Mr. Sidney Swidler, who I confess, I hadn’t heard of at that time. If you are unfamiliar, Mr. Swidler collected POTS from the 80′s til the present and over the past years has spent much time arranging to bequeath his collection to a museum. The museum he chose is the Crocker Museum in Sacramento, CA. Apparently Mr. Swidler had collected over 1200 pieces and the Crocker got over 800 of them for the Swidler collection at their museum. Anyway, Mr. Swidler expressed interest in one of my bowls and I am now in Mr. Swidler’s personal collection. I was very happy to have been approached by Sidney and spend some good amount of time listening to his pottery collecting stories on the phone and am also very happy to be part of his collection. Here’s some pictures of the collection at the Crocker…

Also, if you’re on FB and a “friend” of J. Shiloh Gastello, he has many more picture from a trip he made to the Crocker here. If you’re really interested and not Mr. Gastello’s “friend”, maybe he’ll accept a friendship request from you. OK, xmas. The bug made me this box that I will hang in my studio. She was so excited to give it too me and spent about a week or so hiding it from me…

And no young girl should be without a pink ukulele…

And in the rock tradition of smashing instruments, here’s the bug feigning destruction…

It’s been awhile so here’s some bug drawings. A nice winter scene that hasn’t happened yet (it was 58 degrees today)…

And lest we think that the poop fascination stage is over, it’s more like it’s entered the hyper-poop phase…

I have to admit I love the expressions on their faces. Last but not least, I’ve been doing my excruciating physical therapy exercises and have increased my mobility although still have much pain during the exercises. That being said, I’ve been throwing lots of small things…

Embrace The Pain…

How’s that for holiday sentiment? Regular readers of this blog may think that I’m referring to the pain of enduring the holidays themselves (and there’s some truth to that anyway) but this time I’m referring to real physical pain. I finally couldn’t tolerate my shoulder problems and went to a “shoulder specialist”. I’m surprised that there are shoulder specialists and am hoping that in the future I don’t develop a need to see a “last joint of the pinkie specialist” or a “profuse earwax specialist” or maybe even a “graying moustache specialist”… oh hell, I already need the last one. Anyway the official diagnosis confirmed my suspicions elaborated in the previous post… frozen shoulder! Wow, to think I never even heard of frozen shoulder until months ago and now I’m lucky enough to experience it first hand. As in all things “medical”, the highbrow terminology for this is adhesive capsulitis and according to the May0 Clin1c’s website, it usually occurs because of a lack of mobility brought on in the aftermath of a stroke or mastectomy. I’m pretty sure that neither of these things happened to me recently but nevertheless, frozen shoulder it is. The bad news is that the treatment in my case is physical therapy which is highbrow terminology for twisting and stretching my shoulder till I almost pass out from the pain to increase mobility. Apparently I am “allowed” to stretch into the painful zone “as much as I can stand”… this is something that I have really been looking forward to 3 times a day. Considering the fact that I stopped cycling because I figured the pain was coming from a tear of some sort and that the cycling might be exacerbating this tear, the good news is that I was wrong and I will be able to cycle again when the weather warms in the spring. Hopefully my mobility will approach normalcy by then. Obviously, the really good news is that I don’t think my fledgling career in ceramics is threatened by this. Moving on, I can almost see the light at the end of the tunnel. That light being January 2nd… I’m using the shark method. Just keep swimming and eating. The benefit of all this hoopla that I wasn’t considering until today is that the bug is off school for weeks and it will be so nice to have her energy around the house all day. By the way, her energy is off the charts these days as she wakes up bouncing off the walls as though someone injected her with amphetamines first thing. We had the Xmas sale at the Mount last weekend and I’m pleased to report that it was better overall compared to the previous year and we think that it will continue to grow. Here’s a shot of the room…

And there’s activity similar to the xmas sale activity on Etsy as sales are better than last year but not nearly as good as I see on other potter’s blogs. So the trend is in the right direction. Here’s some new pots from the last firing (clicking first image goes to etsy, the others enlarge)…

I finally had a bit of success with that temperamental crawly glaze on these ewer forms…

He Makes Bad Decisions…

Well, as I mentioned before, I’ve got a bum shoulder. Maybe a “frozen” shoulder, although I never even heard of a frozen shoulder until recently. A couple months ago it hurt but not when I was throwing pots and I was thankful for that. I decided to start throwing again this week and apparently that “not hurting while throwing” thing is a thing of the past as it hurts like hell even while throwing. I’m trying not to become depressed about the potential for this to end my ceramics “career”. I’m heading to a “shoulder specialist” next tuesday although I’m not optimistic. The reason I’m not is because I’m never optimistic about any interaction with the health care “industry”. So anyway, the other day Sofia came in while we were waking up and asked me to throw her on the bed. She loves to get thrown. I was aware of my injury but agreed to do it anyway thinking that I would be careful. I picked her up (no problem) and gingerly threw her backward onto the bed. Mom was standing there and when I threw Sofia, she saw me wince just a bit and she started in on me… “why are you doing that?!!!”. I said rather sheepishly, I was being careful. Sofia turned to Mom very seriously and said, “he makes bad decisions”. It’s true I guess. Last week I fell down the last 4 steps on the stairs and without thinking (instinctively) I broke my fall with my bad shoulder. The pain was indescribable as I lie in the foyer writhing with fluid running out of my eyes, nose and mouth. Anyway, I’m sure the doctor will fix everything (much like I’m sure Newt Gingrich will fix our country’s problems). So, lets see, this weekend is the xmas sale at the mount, please come out if you get a hankerin’. There will be food and wine and lots of pots…

I also went to visit my good friend Jeff’s the other day and got to check out what he’s been working on. Here’s a dude that’s strung out on caffeine…

Here’s a woman in a chair sitting on a big hand…

Here’s an older piece (but finished) of a mutual friend of ours…

In other news we put up the tree last night… well at least Sofia enjoyed it…

I spent a lot of time last week taking photos, processing photos and uploading photos and at one point I had over 100 pieces in my etsy shop… that was a first. Here’s some new pieces (clicking the first one will go to etsy, the rest will enlarge)…

Don’t Grace Slick, I Mean, Don’t Glaze Sick…

See, I can’t even type correctly. It’s not often that I can offer up a truly valuable bit of information relating to clay but this is it… don’t glaze sick. Of course I’m sure this is probably obvious to most potters and sometimes we simply don’t have a choice, but if possible this will be a rule I adhere to adamantly. It seems that coming down the stretch during the holiday break from school, partaking in the holiday rigmarole and seeming like I needed to get all my ducks in a row (basically get a new load fired) for “cybermonday” (who comes up with this stuff anyway?) all combined with my nagging injured shoulder and my first verifiable sickness of the “winter” made for an somewhat excruciating couple of days. So who is this dude, Cy Bermundy? It seems he must be pretty famous because they’re trying to give him his own holiday. Anyway, since I wouldn’t be caught dead (or maybe I would be caught dead or at least injured) in a retail establishment this time of year and I’m mostly trying to sell online, I decided to just go ahead and pepper spray myself while fighting with myself to get at my own pots… and damn, they should outlaw that stuff. Anyway, we all have our little ways of doing things and this applies as much to glazing as to any other part of the process. One of my particular MOs is to select what I think are the nicest bisqued pieces and relegate them to a certain glaze that through trial and error I’ve determined to be the best match for the pieces. So I started my glazing session last week with a cold and an injury and the first act was to put the wrong glaze on the best pieces. After four or five, I realized what I had done and it was too late. I could have washed them off and waited for them to dry but I had already waxed the rims and it was gonna be a mess if I did that, not to mention that my self-imposed deadline would get set back even farther. Well, que sera, sera as the Cubans say. Aside from all that, I did get everything glazed, fired, photographed and I’m posting until everything is in the etsy shop. Here’s some new work that was not glazed incorrectly (clicking first pic goes to etsy, others enlarge)…

When The Leaves Come Fallin’ Down…

This post is gonna be mostly pictures today. I’m hoping to get a bisque firing going tonight or tomorrow and have most of the greenware ready to go…

Moving right along, last weekend was the weekend with the weather we wait all year for. It was sunny, breezy and about 65 degrees. I took my camera when the bug and I took the demon dog for a long 3+ hour walk. First there’s the swinging and then there’s the flying (tarzana)…

Notice the tongue coming out during flight. Then there’s the lying around in the grass with the dog…

Then we found a soccer ball and came upon the holy autumn grail… a big pile of leaves. So, the piece de resistance…

The Queen’s Throne…

It’s always been silly to me that so much of the “literature”, tales, etc. for children is bound up in the rank and file of monarchies, particularly the british monarchy. Of course, there’s not much in terms of a replacement for all that but from nursery rhymes to contemporary children’s books, the king, queen, prince and particularly princess are omnipresent. Who knows how this deep seated nonsense has affected us all over the years since we broke with the english officially in 1776. Regardless, the bug is replete with the terminology. So last week, I was at a friends house and he sent me home with this wicker chair with a large back to it. When I got it home and unloaded it onto the porch, the bug knew immediately what it was… a throne. She assumed the throne and took on a queen’s persona…

Funny though, how at 7 years old, she’s got the monarchy down as she stiffened her posture, raised her nose a bit into the air snootily and proceeded to order mom around by telling her to get her some tea and sweep the floor. Here’s the haughty stare…

It’s been a week of shellacking just like the last week. Here’s various greenware pics…

Here’s a nice shiny burnished terra sig vase (pre-shellac)…

It’s a beautiful 70 degrees and windy and the bug and I are getting ready to walk the pup, she’s downstairs waiting as I type no doubt looking something like this…

We spent a lovely lunch together today, me crosswording and Sofia drawing. She just got some art books from our neighbor and decided to copy this closeup of a Diego Rivera painting…

I shot this pic at the restaurant and the contemptuous uppity look is what I’m gonna get for a while whenever I point the camera in that direction…

One more and we’re done…

Pushing The Envelope…

Part of the whirlwind is over, thankfully. Sofia decided months ago that she was going to be a superhero for halloween. Of course, many adults asked her over the past weeks what she was going as and she said simply… a superhero. Then, in every case, the adult asked… which superhero and the bug just looked at them like they were crazy. We obviously haven’t been keeping her abreast of the different superheroes and their associated powers, she just knows them vaguely as a group that wears capes and masks. So here’s the superhero…

And if that doesn’t strike the fear of jebus into you, this may…

And of course here’s the booty of drugs, no doubt the result of her super-adventures…

We did what we do every year which is to allow her to select about 10 or so pieces and then we pack up the rest (this year was quite a large bag) and give it to those who are not particularly interested in their health… mom’s fellow nurses at the hospital. Nothing like a pound of candy in between cigarettes. Two days later was the bug’s 7th birthday which is difficult for me to get my head around. I won’t even go into the cliches about how fast they grow up other than to say that I’m amazed at how much things have changed with her since I started the blog, here’s the first pic I ever posted of the bug when I started this blog…

Anyway, the family met at a cake and pie place to have cake and ice cream. Here’s some of the action…

Here’s trouble, cousin Rachel…

Opening presents, the bug got a basket for her bicycle but decided until we got home that it would serve as a fine chapeau (it might have made a good addition to her superhero costume)…

The big hit as far as birthday presents were these stilts…

During the summer of my first year of college, I came to northern KY (just across the river from Cincinnati) and got a summer job as an insulation installer. I remember two events about this job. In the first week the owner’s son was on the same job site as I was and when putting insulation bats on the ceiling, installers wore stilts. These stilts don’t have a rod that sticks up behind your shoulders, they have a brace that straps around your calf. I got very good at working on stilts but the first day I put them on (being about 30 inches off the floor), the owner’s son came up to me and pushed me over so I went crashing to the floor. He said that I had might as well get the falling out of the way right off the bat (no pun intended). So I was trying to show Sofia how to use them and Mom said… “oh Jim, don’t do that with your bad shoulder” (yes, my shoulder has not gotten better and is very easily re-injured… every day). I said, hell, I worked on stilts before. Mom said… “you were in the circus?” Hmmm, I guess to her that wasn’t difficult to believe… that I was a clown in a circus. Not to get off on another tangent but I remember the first day on this job. My friend, me and the owner’s son (who was driving the truck) headed out to a job site and on the way there the owner’s son lit up a joint in the truck. This presented a small dilemma to me because although I wasn’t averse to cannabis, it was the first day on the job. The other side of it was that it was the owner’s son and I didn’t want to get on his bad side. So I did what I thought best… I inhaled… repeatedly. So he put me in the kitchen of a new home that had been framed and the walls, plumbing and electricity were finished. I had a large sharp knife and bags of insulation bats which are big pink fiberglass strips made to fit snugly betwixt the studs in the walls that are supposed to be exactly 16″ on center apart. He explained that I was to put the bats between the studs and cut the extra off the end with the knife. Also the knife was used to slide down the edge of the bat, once in place, to make sure that any gaps are covered by smooshing the fiberglass sideways with the back of the knife’s blade. So as the owner’s son went into the other room and left me in the kitchen, totally baked (no pun intended), I proceeded to install. To this day, I would love to visit this house, rip out the drywall in that kitchen and view the perfect insulation installation that I did that day. I got completely carried away and managed to make every bat fit with German tolerances so that the final result looked akin to… what? Well, the best way to put it was that it looked as if a giant had tipped the house on its side and poured pink liquid into the wall and then tipped it back up. The pink insulation was a beautiful 1/4 inch from the edge of each stud, around each pipe and around each electrical outlet. I’m confident that a more beautifully insulated wall was never conceived… and that’s because no one would pay anyone to do it like that and it didn’t actually function any better than if it was done in 1/10th the time. What the owner’s son didn’t tell me was that the company had a site inspector that would go from house to house to keep an eye on quality control. So as I sat, content and stoned on the kitchen floor painstakingly manicuring the edges of large fiberglass bats to look as if they had been poured between the studs, the site inspector showed up and stood behind me at the doorway to the kitchen. I was oblivious to his presence until, in a thundering voice, he said… “what the hell are you doing?”. I was confused and eventually embarrassed as he read me the riot act about how long it had taken me to do one wall of one room (although to this day, I maintain was a real thing of beauty) and that if I didn’t get a grip I would be fired. OK that’s enough stilts stories, suffice to say that Sofia loved the stilts and is learning quickly. I spent all week shellacking. I have to sit in a strange position to keep my shoulder from hurting but I’m doing OK. Here’s some greenware shots…

Last but not least I’m posting a video. This is related to the title “pushing the envelope”. First I’d like to point out that I do not watch C0nan 0′brien but as your intrepid reporter I felt it necessary to post this to point out the state of network news coverage in this country…

If you watched the whole video, you will have found out that I’m not posting it because of anything to do with gay marriage but the absolute lack of diversity or even thought when it comes to delivering our “news”. These people are merely fastidiously coiffed, smiling dolts reading off teleprompters whatever is written on said teleprompters. If this isn’t enough to make people turn off tv news, I don’t know what is.

And So It Begins…

At the expense of appearing curmudgeonly… oh hell, I’m not just appearing curmudgeonly, it’s full on curmudge now. Let me reiterate if I haven’t said it explicitly enough in the past. I hate the holidays… I hate all holidays and even though of all the holidays, halloween is the probably the least offensive, its commercialization is in hyperdrive and even if it wasn’t it signals the beginning of the holiday season. If I were king of the world, every other year would have no holidays at all… just regular days. You know, like tuesday. In anticipation of the most common reaction to this suggestion is that we would all still get the same days or the same amount of days off work as any other year. Clearly, I’ve spent too much time fantasizing about this utopia of mine. I used to duck as much as possible but there’s this other person in our lives now…

So Friday was dress up like a word day at school and today is a halloween party day at school, followed by pumpkin carving (yeah I know, dragging our feet there), followed by trick or treating. Then wednesday is the bug’s 7th birthday (having trouble getting my head around that) and another party, followed by her birthday request of a friend sleeping over. And then a couple weeks and we’re right in the middle of the thanksgiving shite and the xmas shite. Like, totally, like, gag me with a spoon. January 2nd seems so far away. OK, enough of that. The bug and I went to a reception for Aaron Calvert at the Mount on saturday evening. There was a fire outside the gallery and my clothes still smell like smoke (maybe I should change them?). On another smoke related tangent, when I returned from Iowa my clothes smelled like sandalwood because my friend Ig has incense burning at his house and Sofia kept burying her face in my shirt and sweater saying how much she enjoyed the smell so we stopped the other day and got her some sandalwood incense for her room (so now the fish can ponder the smoke). Anyway, the reception for Aaron was nice and although I was a bit under the weather, I did manage to get some pics of the work. It’s all about ants on Aaron’s pots and I wished I had felt better because I wanted to chat a bit more with him about those ants. In my pre-dementia moment, I was trying to ask him if he had read E.O. Wilson’s book “The Ants” but I couldn’t for the life of me remember his name. Anyway, bring on the ants…

That’s Aaron on the left with the hat. Here’s some platters…

In other news, I’ve been terra-sigging pots starting the long slow decoration process. Here’s what the terra sig looks like in the bucket. I’d like to get that kind of effect in glaze…

Here’s my iron ts with the white over the top and shellac over the top of both…

Adieu, adieu, as I brace for the onslaught.

Hindoo Boobs And Eye Candy…

I know, for some that’s redundant. I just got back from one of my annual pilgrimages to Des Moines to stop off at AKAR, but more importantly to visit my great friend Ig. Part of his summer’s adventures ended up with another shipping container from the far east. The dumpster was still in the driveway as I arrived and evidence of his travels was everywhere. Let’s just begin with those hindoo boobs. As a sculptor from way back, I don’t think I’m going out on a limb to suggest that of all the ancient sculptors that carve depictions of deities throughout history, none consistently do better boobs than the Hindus. I first became acutely aware of this after a visit to the Smithsonian’s Freer and Sackler galleries. So as I pulled up in the drive, here’s what I saw…

I know, I know, these statues are not old (just carved actually) and not made by Indian sculptors but still, check this out…

Am I right or am I right? I mean these are definitely not Michelangelo’s pomegranite boobs…

Hey, I love Michelangelo as well as the next person but I have to give credit where credit is due. OK, moving on from the nonsense. Like all visits to my friend Ig’s, there was much food, wine, movies and best of all great conversation… especially at a couple dinners where friends showed up to socialize. As the camera sat in the kitchen (just like my last visit), I completely forgot to take pics of the guests… bad blogger. So on to the eye candy. Here’s my favorite new vase of Ig’s (it’s not all that old but I sure like it)…

Dreamy! Here’s some new masks…

Here’s a big blue and white vase (not all that old again but not new either)…

More pots…

One of my faves…

Here’s a cute little one…

Ig also has a bunch of petrified wood and then there was this petrified shell. Look at my foot to see how big this thing is…

Now let’s switch over to contemporary. I stopped into AKAR to swap out some inventory and took the opportunity to get some pics of work. I always like to visit AKAR’s gallery because there’s so much great stuff all packed in there…

Here’s Jeff’s…

And Ms. Yoppolo…

Mr. Michael’s…

Mr. Snipes’, not so hot of a pic as the pieces were tucked back in a bit of shade and looked bad with the flash on so this is what I got…

Ms. Coleman…

And Adam Field, never saw his before in person, beautiful pots…

Last but not least, Mr. Chung…

Of course, there was some fun and games. At the dinner party, Ig got out his “cheese cutting board” (not sure why that’s in quotations) and in the box was this “cheese saw”. I was wondering what kind of cheese needed such a lethal gadget. I tried to shave with it to no avail…

More Moh And Wackipedia…

Here’s a new vase/bottle…

Well, let’s see… I don’t consider myself an intrepid reporter by any means but occasionally I come upon something that seems to warrant a bit of attention. So, wacky wikipedia is the subject. In a way, it’s become a de facto standard for research on the internet. I’m fine with that and find myself looking things up there often. Anyway, a friend and I were looking up L0uisville St0neware (a long standing pottery located in Louisville) on wackipedia a week or so ago and they have a typical page with brief historical data and short synopsis of factoids. If one clicks the “edit” tab on any article, one can find out the author and if the author has his/her own page, one can look at that also… this is what we did. Now over time, I think wackipedia users take for granted the legitimacy of what’s written and in wackipedia’s defense, they have tools in place when someone has an agenda or represents one side of a debate, etc. But, here’s the page of the main author for the L0uisville St0neware page…

Click and enlarge to get the full effect. I’m particularly fond of the picture of the author and his description of himself (I wish I could write stuff like this). Here’s a snippet…”He is a penguin. Born in the highlands of Louisville over three decades ago. He is alone; there are no others like him. Always good, never evil. For decades he has battled the forces of stupidity, with reading his only refuge. He cannot die, unless you take his penguins, and with it his power. In the end there can be only one. He is Bedford, the Falklander.” As much as I’d like to believe that wiki contributors are all self-proclaimed geniuses dressed as Santa Claus, it does kinda call into question the accuracy of something written by this wackipedia author or any other for that matter. OK, glad that’s out of the way and I feel better at having done my civic duty. Now for the eye candy… I went to my friend Sebastian Moh’s opening on Tuesday. Here’s Sebastian…

I tried to take a couple shots of pots at the opening but they are dark and shiny and I couldn’t get any that even remotely showed the wonderful glaze effects that Sebastian is achieving. So, I glommed these from Seb’s FB page…

Last but not least, it’s been a week of mostly cups and mugs here in the studio…

(sh)It Just Rolls Off The Tongue…

Here’s the cutie pie, I took this pic on the porch before school and it almost makes me cry to look at it…

Not sure about this, but I think the cooler weather has hit the bug and the dog. Sofia wakes up with so much energy that it’s as if she drank 5 pots of coffee and the dog is pretty energetic too. I’m so envious… if I had that much energy, I’d be the king of the world (hey, maybe it’s a good thing I don’t have it). The little bug is growing up. She’s been saying funnier and funnier things (at least to me). The other day she was playing with the demon dog before school and, while frolicking, some saliva drooled out and landed on her dress. Pretty soon she was dancing around the kitchen singing… “I got spit on my dress and I don’t care, I got spit on my dress and I don’t care.” Then the other day she had her friend over and they were going in and out to her treehouse in the backyard. She came in while Mom was in the kitchen and said, “awww, Mom, I got dogshit on my shoe”. It was so matter of fact without the usual awkwardness of youngsters cussing for the first time… hell, I didn’t say shit in front of my dad until I was 32. So I guess I’m swelling with pride at her budding command of the language as she cussed with no pretense or embarrassment and the delivery and context were dead on. Next, of course, is to make sure she understands the consequences of speaking freely. I haven’t solved the photography thing yet but it’s still on the agenda. Here’s some snaps of a new bowl in my studio from the last load…

I’m very happy with this bowl as it is a combination of my shellac with my experiments with terra sig. In other news, check out what Mr. Troy Bungart sent me (thank you Troy!)…

I knew from Troy’s etsy shop that he was making beautiful tools but in person, it is so beautiful that it’s gonna be difficult for me to actually use it and get it all grunged up. I will though. In case you’re wondering, it’s made of wenge and the wood grain is lovely. It’s hard wood and should outlast me easily. If you have a hankerin’ to check out Troy’s tools go here. I stopped over at my good friend Jeff’s place the other day to see what he’s working on and things are coming along nicely. Here’s his first larger piece that he’s slowly drying…

The bicycle piece is about 30 inches tall. Here’s the one he’s in the middle of which will be even taller, the person will eventually be sitting in the chair that’s in the background…

Can’t wait to see how these get finished and fired. My other good friend Vern sent me his last photo collage…

I’m looking forward to seeing this print in person. Last but not least, my buddy Sebastian’s opening will be this friday. If you’re in the area and have a hankerin’, check it out…

What?, Can’t Hear Ya There…

Finally got the kiln fired and have a couple pressing tasks to attend to before getting the photography done, not the least of which is to see if I can locate a backdrop similar to the one that Michael Coffee talks about in his photo setup on this post. Here’s a glimpse with a couple non-professional pics…

I had a bit of a rough patch with an ear infection last week. I thought initially that an ear infection was an easy thing to attend to and went to an immediate care place to try and save the money of an appointment with my doctor (this is the same doctor that suggested I work in a hazmat suit). To make a long story short, I got a prescription and after 2 days, I was losing the hearing in my left ear and the whole left side of my head was in pain. No doubt the hazmat suit probably would have prevented the whole thing. In desperation, I ended up at an ENT and he put this thing in my ear, said lean your head back on the headrest and this is going to be uncomfortable. Now as someone who lives in a constant state of discomfort, I’m here to tell you that what ensued was in no way something akin to discomfort. This device was sucking out my ear and the pain was the worst in recent memory… it may have been the worst since I fell off my bike and landed on my hip or when I walked full speed into the coffee table causing a hematoma. It’s much better now but his little technique brought me to my knees in pain. As I was leaving the ENT dude said, water is the enemy so you need to plug your ear when you take a shower. That was news to me… water is the enemy? I thought picking in my ears with dog poop on my fingers was the enemy. He suggested I get a cotton ball (not a cotton boll) and put vaseline on it to keep the water out but I had neither lying around and decided to improvise…

It’s not as glamorous as the cotton boll setup but it has been working ok. There was a big workshop at the mount this last weekend at the Mary Anderson Center. There were three potters, all of whom teach at universities, and they refer to themselves as “the firm” (there’s actually a fourth guy but he wasn’t there). The origin of this name has to do with a passage in a 1950s boy scout manual and is too long of a story to elaborate here. Their idea is that exhibiting and doing workshops together is more likely to be successful than flying solo on everything. Here’s a couple shots of them working and their names from left to right are Steve Heywood, Mike Schmidt and Brian Jensen…

They made quite a bit of work and it was interesting to watch them all working side by side and cutting up together since they’ve known each other since college. Here’s a pic of Steve followed by some work he made and finished pieces that were in the gallery…

Here’s Michael followed by some of the pots he made and some finished ones in the gallery…

I don’t have a shot of Brian standing by his pots because he wasn’t around when I had my camera out but here’s some of his workshop pieces (Sofia’s favorites) and some finished amorphous pieces in the gallery…

The bug showed up on the second day and was pretty mesmerized by watching them make stuff…

She’s been busy lately playing and making stuff…

Here’s one her latest drawings…

Eeww, Gross!…

Hmmm, where to start? Here’s some more greenware…

I ran a bisque last night and it’s still cooling. When I turned on my enviro-vent which is the fan attached to the steel stand that my kiln sits on, it made a loud clanging sound similar to the sound of the radiator fan in a car smashing against the radiator while it’s turning. Not sure about replacement, it’s 150$ and I have to disassemble the kiln to get at it. I’m sure I’ll warm up to the idea after some time has passed. Here’s the newest addition to the household, meet “king”/”polychrome”/”angelfish”…

I really liked polychrome as a name but the bug changed it to angelfish at the last minute and I thought she might move on to another but now it seems that she’s settled on that. This is a betta fish and I found out after we got it that they are so aggressive that if you hold a mirror up to the edge of the fishbowl, the fish will think it’s another of its kind and attack it. I’m wondering how many generations of fish that have had the result of the mirror being held up to them and, after attacking, hit their nose up against glass will it take before they evolve to a species that simply expects to hit glass when they see another of their kind. We were out walking the dog the other day and the bug picked up a squarish rock about the size of a baseball and was carrying it around with her. At one point she put it under her shirt and called to me… hey dad, I’m pregnant. Although hearing this is not always something a dad doesn’t want to hear, when your daughter is 6, it seems like a premonition. Anyway, she kept up with the pregnant stuff until she “gave birth” and the stone came out from under her shirt. This was short lived as it immediately went down her pants and as I turned around, she was walking with both hands holding the stone through her pants saying her baby was in her pants. Eventually, she let go and the rock slid slowly down the inside of her pants (she had tights on) and eked its way out at her ankle. This wasn’t all that unusual in the shenanigans that kids are always doing but coincidentally, it is a perfect segue into another somewhat related story. I would like to preface this by stating that if you are easily offended or unduly reverent of celebrities, you should probably stop here. A good friend of mine and his wife met at the K3ntucky Fr1ed Ch1ck3n technical center 20 something years ago. Back then they were in their 20s and there were people at the tech center that were much older than they were. On more than one occasion, an older worker related a story to them about the famous c0l0nel (you know the one I’m talking about). By the way, if you examine the company’s signage, the ol’ c0l0nel gets younger every year. But anyway, the story goes that the c0l0nel back then would occasionally attend company events and everyone seemed to be reverent of the famous… not sure what to call him. Anyway, at a reception of some sort the c0l0nel, standing up, starts to wriggle his hips in an unusual way and the people near him became curious about the movement when suddenly he shook a… hmmm, how should I say this?, oh hell, a turd out his pantleg and onto the floor. Now, it’s entirely possible that this is fabricated but knowing what I know, I think not. This begs the question… what does this have to do with ceramics? All I can say is that from my experience, potters are truth seekers and I feel it’s my duty (my duty not the c0l0nel’s dootie) to relay a hidden truth whenever possible. That now will segue into even more grossness. So, my friend Steven and I were having java yesterday morning on the outdoor patio of a coffee shop near our homes when a bus pulled up suddenly. The bus had a front door and another door toward the back. The back door swung open and a woman with a coke and a purse stood on the bottom step (still on the bus) and threw up 3 times onto her purse and the road. We tried not to look… really, but it was like watching a train wreck. OK, you’ve had enough. Here’s some greenware, all in the kiln which I will unload tomorrow…

Summer Daze…

Here’s an update from squiggly headquarters…

Let’s see, where to start? You might remember a post I did a while back about a backfired practical joke using glasses with no lenses here. Well, the chip off the ol’ block had similar ideas and got a pair of my broken reading glasses and paraded around the house with them for a day or so, stopping frequently in front of mirrors…

On Tuesday of this past week a very good friend and I went to his parents’ lake cabin on Cumberland Lake, which is on the border of KY and TN. We just stayed one night and it was extremely relaxing and just what I needed. Apparently, his parents got a tract of land years back and started building the cabin. Lake Cumberland is really a reservoir created by damming the Cumberland River in the 50s. The dam has had chronic leakage problems and apparently right after my friend’s parents got started on their cabin, the lake was drained and the water receded from the tributary that lies directly in front of their cabin’s view. Here’s the view from the deck overlooking the ravine that was once lake…

So originally they were told that the water would be restored to original dammed up depth within 3 or 4 years and I guess it’s been more like 7 and still the leak and therefore possible dam breach have not been fixed. Here’s a shot looking off to the left from the deck which you can see the lake in the distance…

Although the lack of water has damaged tourism and has dampened the desire to use this cabin, my friend and I made our way down to the previous lake bottom and hiked the tributary down to where the lake is now. It was a wonderful walk and I was amazed to see how nature is taking back the holler within the short time span. There are tons of trees that look like bushes from the deck but are in fact a good 10 to 15 feet tall already. There were egrets, geese, ducks and heron. Insects abound and in the pools from the almost dry creek there were lots of little fish and snakes. I was particularly interested in the stratified rock formations that lined the walls of the ravine and were once submerged…

All a subsistence potter would need would be a good pulverizer and some way to haul a couple ton rock out of the valley to have some mighty interesting glaze tests. There was also tons of chert on the lake floor so it would have been a veritable wonderland to the flint knappers. On to cycling and my shoulder injury. As depressing as it was for me, I took over two weeks off from cycling because I thought my shoulder injury might be related to riding. I took some friends advice and lowered the front tire pressure and bit the bullet yesterday and went for a ride while Sofia was at the movies with her friend. The word’s still out on the shoulder as it feels no worse for wear but the hiatus from cycling did not make it better and the riding did not make it worse. More interesting to me is that I managed to do what I always do which is to overdo it. It was very hot yesterday and there was a heat advisory and an air quality alert. I figured I’d go out 15 miles, turn around and be done with a 30 mile ride. At 15 miles, I felt great and thought I’ll go 20 and turn around. Then at 20 I thought, I’ll go 25 and turn around. The problem was that my bike speedometer’s thermometer was pegged at a whopping 111 degrees fahrenheit for more than an hour straight and the average temp was about 104. I ended up going 50+ miles and after about 35, I hit a wall and wasn’t sure I was going to make it home. Apparently the temperature is higher wherever the blacktop is because the black is absorbing the sunlight and the heat is simply radiating from the paved roads and bike paths. Speaking of blacktop, I heard an interesting etymological story on the radio about the origins of the word tarmac. So there was a man named McAdam who invented a procedure for paving roads in the 1800s that consisted of laying down strata of stone aggregates starting with course and ending with fine and coating with a binder. Since his name was McAdam, this kind of road surface became know as macadam (which I always thought was pronounced with the accent on the first syllable but it’s the second). Later tar was introduced as the binder and combining tar with macadam yielded the word tarmac. So there you have it… who knew? Finally, more greenware. I posted the first pic at the beginning of this post because FB apparently will no longer give me a choice of which picture within a post to display as a thumbnail. Anyway, lots of shellacking going on…

Oh, I almost forgot. I’ve been working on a little sculpture and came up with this piece. I think it looks kinda greek and was contemplating calling it Venus or something similar. I decided to leave the arms off because I really need practice modelling all those little fingers…

A Bird In The Hand (Or On The Head)…

Well, school started this week, albeit a couple days late. We were all geared up for it to start on Monday but on Saturday night we had one hell of an intense storm that resulted in the power going out. Luckily our power was only out for about 8 hours but it was out all over the city and in many places was out for days. This resulted in having the first 2 days of school off and Sofia didn’t go until wednesday. It’s only been a few days and we already miss having her around all day and the house is quiet quiet. I walked her to school on Friday morning where we overtook a grandmother who was walking her grandson to the same school. She was older and walking slowly and as we got abreast of them, she said hi. We said hi and she asked, “what grade are you in?”. I said, “I don’t go to school anymore”. As is typical with me and maybe it’s my delivery, this was not immediately understood as a joke, more like that I had simply not gotten the fact that she was talking to Sofia. What can I say, I keep trying. This week the bug and I had another whirlwind weekend, the climax of which is evident in this picture…

Here’s some shots I took at lunch beforehand…

Before I get to Silkies and Polish chickens I wanted to update a post I did a while back about my continuing inability to communicate in broken spanish to the people at the mexican restaurant that we go to sometimes. This link goes to the the original post where I tried to explain what I did for a living to the guy at the cash register by using the word arcilla (clay). If you happened to read that post you will remember that apparently no one involved seemed to have ever heard of the word arcilla and I was a bit dumbfounded. As a small vindication, I saw this post on FB one day from one of my international “friends”…

In that pic not only is the word arcilla used but it’s followed by the english translation. But onto the story. I go up to the register to pay and the woman at the counter is a very short, smiling, round woman. There’s a moment of awkwardness as she runs my credit card in silence and being the king of small talk, I venture out with a “it sure got busy all of a sudden”. The woman lit up and agreed. She immediately asked, “where’s your wife?” to which I replied, “she works on weekends”. “What does she do?” Me: “she’s a nurse”. This is followed by a couple questions about what hospital and then… “so what do you do for work?”. I remembered the last arcilla fiasco so I opted for “I’m a potter”. Her face pinched up in an expression of bewilderment. I said, “arcilla?”. Nope. “ah porcelana”. She seemed to know what porcelana was but couldn’t figure out how it was related to my job. As I stood there making throwing gestures which I’ve come to believe no one recognizes except other potters, she just stared like I was pantomiming something completely fictional. Finally, a younger woman came up who also works there but speaks fluent english. She manages to explain as I’m hunting for a business card that might have a picture that is explanatory. Suddenly, the short round woman gets a flash of recognition and the younger woman leaves to do something. Now the woman starts pantomiming a kick wheel kicking her foot in the air. I nod in agreement and start to explain that my wheel is electric. She just keeps kicking her foot in the air and I decide to let it go. So she looks at me and says what sounds like… “sexy job”. This is where my mind starts swimming (like it always does) and I figure since she said the two words so quickly that maybe I misunderstood. I shrug a bit and she says… “sexy job”. Now I’m thinking really? sexy? Maybe she saw “Ghost” or something but really, what’s so sexy about kicking your foot? Lost in reverie for a moment and apparently not responding quickly enough she says… “sexy job” again. Sorry but I threw in the towel and simply agreed with her and she seemed happy that we understood how sexy being a potter is. So there you have it. After lunch we went to my friend Ray’s house who had just gotten some chickens a couple months ago and we went to see how big they had gotten since we had first seen them (they were very young and small then). He has two different kinds”, silkies and polish. Here’s the coop and run that Ray built complete with a ceramic roof (not quite finished yet)…

Although this one is not necessarily named Phyllis Diller (one of them is), most of the ones of this breed share a likeness to her hairstyle…

Here’s when they opened the floodgates…

Sofia had a ball chasing them around and setting them on perches, tossing them to get them to flutter down to the ground and petting them until they fell asleep. Here’s some more of the shenanigans…

Here’s one set on a tree limb perch…

Ray has a big yard with a big garden and a three stall composting area which is nirvana for the chickens. They all made a beeline to the compost heap where they immediately started scratching and digging for worms and other tasty critters…

Here’s the bug with her new friend…

Here’s the bug feeding the bunch of them with a handful of mealy worms…

Last but not least here’s dad relaxing on a lawn chair when Sofia decided to catch as many chickens as possible and set them on me…

I was just hoping none of them decided to soil my shirt. We also spent some time in the studio this weekend where I decided to see if Sofia was interested in the shellac technique (she was)…

We also blew up some balloons inside of some old socks and dipped them in casting slip, (we’ll see)…

Here’s some of the bug’s tiles after the shellac technique was used…

That’s all I got, sayanora.

Horsing Around…

Well, where the hell have I been? Right here actually, somehow summer has become a very busy time… must be the longer days or something. First off, I need to relate one of my “yes you are in Kentucky” moments, inadvertently making contact with other human beings. I was over at B1g L0ts buying gel pens for the bug. They had a set of 50 for 10 bucks and I got it for Sofia. After a week or so nearly two thirds of them were out of ink. So we went back to see if they still had them (because that’s the way B1g Snots is). Luckily there was one set left. I set the gel pens on the counter to pay and the pens are all spread out within the plastic wrapping so you can see all the colors you’re getting…

So there’s this guy behind me in line and he keeps eyeballing the pens. He was really a big Frankenstein-ish fellow… about 6′ 6″, hirsute with a mismanaged beard-like growth on his face. He comes up close behind me and says, “lek at them pins, you ‘n artist or somethin’?” Now when I was younger I probably would have just stared off because of that irrational fear that somehow replying would mean that I had to be friends and that he’d be showing up at my house later on asking if we could hang out or go fishing. As I’ve gotten older, I realize that I don’t have enough time to keep up with real friends and that talking to gregarious strangers is not a threat in this way. That being said, I ignored the question about being an artist and settled on, “yeah, there’s a lot of pens (pins) there (thar)”. I was distracted because Mom and the bug were wandering around and I wasn’t sure they were gonna pile another item on the counter for me to purchase and I think Frankenstein sensed my distraction and backed off a bit. After about 20 seconds or so, he steps forward again and says, “so ya get you some pens thar, you ‘n artist or somethin’?” I said, “well, they’re for my daughter” and pointed off toward a scurrying bug. Then, the piece de resistance… he says, “if ah had me a pin and some paper right now, I could draw three horses, all goin’ in three diffrent directions in… 6 minutes.” In retrospect, I came up with all sorts of things that I should have said or done… not the least of which would have been to take him up on this boast and time him drawing. But, such as is the case whenever this sort of thing happens, I’m stunned by the fact that I could never have come up with something so great on my own combined with several other things racing through my brain all at once, such as… how apropos to suggest horses (is it because he’s from KY and if I was in FL would he have said gators?), why the three different directions? (this suggests that he’s been taken up on the challenge so many times that he’s thrown this in for all the people over the years that have agreed to the 3 horse challenge but were disappointed when he simply drew the same identical horse 3 times), and then there’s the 6 minute time limit. This suggests that you’re average gel pen buyer would have a pretty narrow, not to mention, preconceived idea about how long it takes to draw 3 horses going in 3 directions and it ignores another detail that Frankie no doubt will add to his challenge in the future which is… how detailed are these drawings going to be? One shouldn’t need 6 minutes to draw 3 simple contours of horses with a dot for the eye regardless of whether they’re going in three different directions or not. Add to all these things swimming around my head that I can’t wait to get to the car and relate the whole story to Mom that I stammered out something unintelligible in reply which I don’t even remember and Frank realized I wasn’t interested in his feat and got back in the line.

Moving right along, the weather has broken and we’re sleeping with the windows open again. I have finally broken the 1000 mile mark on the bicycle. With that milestone, I am down almost 20 lbs. and I have somehow injured my right shoulder. This is not a good thing if you’re a potter. I’m not sure it from the cycling but I went out on a 40 mile ride the other day and it seemed to be related somehow. I think it’s from holding myself up on the handle bars for long periods and hitting all the bumps in the road with my tires inflated to 120 psi. (no shock absorption). I went on another 60 mile ride last week and that’s almost 4 hours of holding your torso up. By the way, on that ride my speedometer’s thermometer registered a whopping 106 degrees for over an hour on the ride.

On to the terra sig. I’ve been working with the terra sig (ts) now for a bit and I’m trying to figure out some ways to exploit it. At first I was simply buffing it up a little with some plastic bag material but lately I’ve started burnishing it a bit. I’m fascinated with the way it looks on greenware but haven’t gotten any fired yet. I have been questioning why ts and especially why burnish aside from the fact that I just like the way it looks when it’s unfired. On the surface, it seems like a waste of time (sometimes it feels that way too) but there are some relatively esoteric things that I think are advantages to doing it. For instance, when it’s burnished the surface is so dense compared to the surface of a regular pot that the shellac, although it is absorbed sufficiently, doesn’t soak in as much and the result is that the brush strokes during application can be longer which is a limitation that I’ve had since I started using shellac. Also, after the glaze firing, the glaze is thinner on the ts portions of the pot when compared to the regular surface of the pot… this is just an observation but I do like the way it looks. There are some hurdles that I’ve been struggling with including the extra time involved with burnishing (like I need another long step in the process). I’ve had some trouble with adhesion that (I think) is caused by two different things. One, from rubbing too hard when burnishing and two, from incompatible wet/dry surfaces. The whole burnishing thing works much better and is easier when the ts is still damp and it adheres better if I dip the piece in water prior to dipping or brushing in or on the ts. Anyway here’s a couple errors in the trial and error. This one started to flake when I rubbed too hard so I dipped it again and it bubbled up and made it worse. I started screwing around with it and it will be a good experimentation piece…

Then on this one I had a nice black stain ts with an iron oxide ts stripe that was looking good but when I was sanding the slopped ts off the foot, the foot broke (due to dampness I think) and then I cut the foot off trying to salvage but haven’t decided if I will spend any more time…

Here’s a bowl with the white ts that looks like thick enamel paint…

Here’s a bowl with iron oxide ts exterior waiting…

This is one of the severed bowls…

A group of vases that are almost finished being decorated…

I particularly like this one…

Last but not least is this smaller vase with the iron oxide ts burnished underneath…

And of course the bug became enamored with the polishing process and worked up a few pieces of her own…

Crushed Glass…

Last weekend, the bug and I traveled up to Mount St. Francis for the clay center’s outdoor jazz evening. I was thinking that it was gonna be very trying because it was an extremely hot day but when we got there and got down by the lake (where the quartet was), a nice breeze was coming off the lake making it seem much cooler than expected. The band was very good and it’s always hard to beat jazz by a lake outdoors with wine. Here’s a shot that our friend Jennifer took of Sofia and I…

In this particular picture, I’m striking the “you see dear, that’s a UFO over there” pose. I was also alerted to this picture this week from a fellow potter who received one of my favorite beer glasses for an anniversary gift (I think it was anniversary). Thanks John for posting as it’s always nice to get feedback and pics of pots…

The text below the pic describes the subterfuge to keep Mr. John from catching on to what his gift might be. This picture turned up while looking for something else…

I made these lamps quite some time ago (almost 15-20 years), the “shades” are made of copper mesh sheets folded into the shape, I now realize, of a cardinal’s chapeau and grommeted into place. Also there’s cedar driftwood from the Falls of the Ohio and two pieces of foundry white pine shapes that I got from the American Standard (the sink/bathtub company) factory when it shut down decades ago. On the terra sig front, I decided to make a new batch out of grolleg kaolin instead of ball clay because I wanted some white white terra sig. It didn’t settle the way I thought it would or should and was about to consider it a failure. Then I mixed some of the thicker with some of the thinner and started experimenting. Anyway, I got really excited when I started goofing around with it because it buffs up very easily and looks almost exactly like thick white enamel paint. Of course, I have no idea at this point how it will hold up after firing but it looks very cool at this point…

I thought I was done throwing vases but I kinda go where the wheel takes me and it took me making more vases this week…

And here’s the obligatory glamour shot…

So here’s the adventure of the week, a biking adventure so if you’re against reading long posts, stop here. It was very hot all week but on Monday, I decided to go out for a longish ride and see how I held up. I got to 15 miles where I would turn around and come back making 30 in total but I felt great so I decided to go to the 20 mark which would make 40 total. When I got there I still felt great and went to the 25 mark and finally decided to go to the terminus of the bike path which ends at the historic Farnsley-Moremen House. At the parking lot my odometer was at 30.1 and I turned around to return the way I came. Earlier that day, Alicia had told me that she was on call which meant that starting at 7, she was to be available to go in and work which means I would have to be home by then because of Sofia. As I turned around at Farnsley-Moremen, I glanced at the clock on my speedometer and it seemed as though I had plenty of time although 60 miles would take almost 4 hours. As I rode, I thought… did I “spring forward” on that clock or is it an hour off. Then I figured even if it was wrong, I’m 30 miles from home and I can’t go any faster than I already am. So as I was coming back into the downtown, I went around a corner and my rear tire felt like jelly again (this is the fourth time this year) and I look down and my tire is almost deflated to the rim. As impossible as it seemed (all four times), the tire stopped deflating at about halfway flat. I thought that if I sat down on the grass and changed the tube that that would cost me another half hour and I was already late so I decided to see how far I could get without changing the tube. I went another 5 miles or so and thought it felt like the bumpier parts of the road were actually touching the rim and I didn’t want to ruin my rim so I stopped. I figured that if the tube was holding some air, that if I just gave it a blast of CO2 it might get me home. Now, I have one of these…

It’s called a Red Zeppelin and it is quite a handy gizmo. Of course there are other brands I’m sure that are essentially the same thing but seeing as how I played Houses of the Holy so many times when I was 17 that I practically wore through the vinyl of the LP and made it so that, to this day, my brother can’t listen to Led Zeppelin, it seemed inevitable that I would choose this one. Anyway, there’s the CO2 cartridge with a red insulator around it so your pinkies don’t get cold when it releases the gas and there’s a nozzle/valve. What one does is screws the nozzle to the cartridge, breaking the seal, then screws the other end to the air tube’s valve and when everything is ready, one opens the red knob slowly and that releases the CO2 into the tube… easy right. Well, I was in a hurry and had already ridden 55 miles but excuses aside, it’s really because I’m a dumbass but the last time I used the red zeppelin, I left the red knob valve open. This means that when I broke the seal on the cartridge the gas started whooshing out and I desperately started turning knobs trying to stop the flow. As it only takes seconds for all the gas to escape, I was soon standing there with a cold spent cartridge and a flat tire. I looked up and across the road from where I stood was a mercedes mechanic’s garage. I thought, they have forced air and went in and asked it they could inflate my tire. Sure was the answer but their compressor had only a tip for the standard tire valve and not the presta valves that are on most road bike tires nowadays. They spent about 15 minutes looking for a converter tip but couldn’t find one. Meanwhile, time’s a wastin’ and it’s already past 7. Finally, I asked if I could use their phone and called Alicia… no answer. I called my friend Ray who only lived a couple miles down the road… no answer. Now last year I got stranded downtown as elaborated in this post and I ended up walking 6 or so city blocks with my bike shoes on that have the clips on the fronts of the shoes and this set the healing of my plantar fasciitis back years so walking with my shoes on was out of the question. So I took my shoes off and clipped them to the pedals and stuffed my socks in my pocket and hit the road barefoot. The road must have been about 130 degrees and my tenderfeet were burning and I could feel the blisters forming. I walked quite a ways (at least quite a ways for me) and eventually a serious cyclist stopped as he was passing me. I could tell he was serious because his legs were shaved. I haven’t gotten to that point yet because there are so many other things slowing me down that have to be taken care of before I start shaving. Anyway, he had a cartridge too and offered it to me. I gave my tire a blast and it held so I put my shoes and socks back on, thanked the man (Frank) and headed a slightly shorter route home. My ride ended up being only 56 miles instead of 60 and when I got home I lied down on my stomach and let Mom and the bug pierce my blisters with a needle. I really can’t say that I wasn’t prepared but when push came to shove, I made one stupid mistake and that was that. On wednesday, my friend Vern came over to ride the route I take for the first time and I was complaining that I’ve had, I think, 6 flats this year. After about 10 miles, he said that considering how much broken glass was on my route, it was a wonder I’ve only had 6 flats. So I’ve decided to name the ride the “Crushed Glass 60″.

Driven Up The Walls…

I’ll just shorten all the complaining about the heat down to this… it’s too damn hot. It’s been driving Sofia up the walls…

The bug is getting proficient on her bicycle which means we will soon be able to ride together and I think she’ll be very excited when she gets on the actual bike path as opposed to streets and parking lots. She’s also gotten proficient on her scooter which she took on our walk with the dog this morning. There was a catch though. When a child starts losing teeth, there’s no shortage of people suggesting that they tie their tooth to a doorknob and slam the door and many have but the bug has invented her own method of dealing with a loose tooth. In fact it’s also good for loosening the tooth in the first place. I didn’t realize this but when a kid is trying to go fast on a scooter and pushes backward with her free foot, her head bobs down (bobs down?) when the foot is thrust backward. If she kicks hard enough, it will drive her head, in this case her open mouth, against the handle bars of the scooter. This is precisely what happened this morning and after the blood and tears stopped, the bug had one less tooth. Here’s the toothless wonder…

And here’s a more contemplative shot…

I didn’t get much riding done this week but did manage to go for a 50 miler on Monday. Apparently, I’m getting to the point when two jugs of water isn’t enough to keep me going well so I guess I’m going to have to start bringing some kind of food or electrolyte replacement with me. I felt good that day though. We had our first meeting of Club 54 on Thursday night and I forgot my camera. As if to exaggerate the passing of years, the birthday boy showed up limping… Al twisted his ankle at the Falls of the Ohio and was on crutches for a couple days I guess. This did not inhibit his (or our) ability to drink beers though. I haven’t studied my glaze testing tiles yet but have pulled out a couple of my favorites. Here’s the one’s I like so far…

Unfortunately, these are not new glazes but older glazes that have a different glaze over the top but I’ll take what I can get. I got stuck severing pots this week and poking at them from the inside. I guess I’ll see where this goes if anywhere…