It’s that time of year again. Trip to Des Moines, Halloween, Sofia’s birthday and this year the now infamous cross-country state championships. I traveled to my friend Ig’s house last week since he is visiting from his two year overseas trip. On the way there I stopped off in Champaign-Urbana to visit with Mr. Don Pilcher. I didn’t stay too long but got a peek at his new work which was very cool and we sat and talked for an hour or so. The trip to Iowa was filled with coffee, dinners with friends and long nights conversing on anything and everything. The last night there, Ig hosted dinner with good friends Loulou, Mark and Tom. Here’s a shot of my good friend Mark…
Always a pleasure to hang out with Mark. Ig brought home a couple of Tibetan “singing bowls” which are hammered brass and are used in conjunction with meditation. We all played with the bowls for quite some time. To make the bowl sing, one must take the felt-covered rod with a handle and rub it around the rim much in the same manner that people rub their finger on the rim of a crystal goblet. Once the bowl starts singing, the pleasant ringing sound is sustained for a remarkably long time and apparently meditat-ors/ers try to match the tone to the pitch of their own OM sound. Here’s a link to a video of Ig and Ellen banging on the bowls, they’re upside down but it’s posted just to get an idea of the sound. Unfortunately, wordpress won’t allow me to embed these videos anymore (or else I’m unaware how to) so if you’re interested you’ll have to go to the following link…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VqXHWN1Xg1c&noredirect=1
Of course, not being satisfied to simply bong the bowls and listen, I tried to have this all happen with it on my head and had trouble concentrating on the sound as I was sure the heavy brass bowl would topple off my top…
So after driving all day Friday to come home, Saturday Sofia and I had to drive to Lexington for the state cross-country tournament. I agreed against my better judgment. We left 2 hours early to arrive one hour early and after leaving the interstate to travel the last 8 miles on a two lane country road, we got to about 2 1/2 miles from the entrance to the park where the event was taking place and the traffic came to a halt. We inched along and made it to her school’s “tent” to sign in one minute after the race began. So that was bust and we headed back home. Here’s the bug… “hey, you lookin’ at me?”…
Later this week is birthday and Halloween and then a couple free weeks before the insanity of holiday bullshite. Before I left on the trip Sofia and I spent a bit of time at a workshop at U of L where Christyl Boger was demonstrating making figurative work using coils. Here’s a couple shots of Christyl…
Ran a bisque before I left and haven’t finished unloading it yet but here’s some shots of the greenware…
Until next time.
Sofia's Dad's Pots 
November 2, 2013 at 8:56 am |
Nice bowls! You sure know how to have fun!
December 8, 2013 at 3:38 pm |
when I see work like those above, it reminds me of how excited I become about ceramics… it’s inspirational. Thank you.