6 Year Blog Anniversary and Miscellany…

Well I’m quite out of touch with the blog of late. This has been driven home by the fact that the anniversary date has come and gone and I just realized it. Like all previous years, the anniversary is accompanied by yearly pics of the bug holding the first piece she made for Mom six years ago. Without further ado…

Let’s see, in other news I just returned from the Alabama Clay Conference for the 4th consecutive year. This year’s artists were Patti Warashina, Nick Joerling and Peter Rose (who I kept thinking to myself was Pete Best). Without belaboring the point too much, I had to get a new computer this summer (due to forced obsolescence) and now my old computer has two versions of photoshop on it and my new one has none because apparently ad0be now charges by the month. Regardless, carrying the thumbdrive back and forth from desktop to desktop has proven too tedious for me so some pics haven’t been processed in my normal OCD manner. I state this as a sort of apology to Nick Joerling that I have only one image from the show and none from Pete Best. I have a few of Patti Warishina’s though…

Here’s a lovely platter by Nick Joerling…

In short the conference was fun as I’ve come to know several people over the years. The highlight of the conference itself was the incomparable Ms. Warashina who was very entertaining and brought to mind a female Puck. While wandering the Birmingham Art Museum looking for the show of the presenting artists I came upon a Bougereau…

I became familiar with Bougereau (in person) when I saw another of these large vertical nudes at the Art Museum in Omaha, Nebraska. Although in my opinion, the one in Birmingham doesn’t possess the awe-inspiring flesh of the one in Omaha it is still wonderful. Here’s a pic of the one in Omaha…

On an interesting note, while there in Birmingham, I went to lunch with Scott Bennett and Daniel (I don’t remember his last name) who as it turns out used to be the director of the museum and when I brought up the Bougereau he said that during his tenure they had attempted to get all 4 of the large vertical nude Bougereaus together for one exhibition. The snafu that occurred was that one of the four paintings is in Cuba and try as the might they were unable to convince the Cuban government that they wouldn’t simply keep the painting. So the show never materialized. Maybe a couple cases of Cuban cigars and the Bougereau delivered to the White House might help the thaw betwixt our countries. Might as well throw in another tour of the remaining Afro-Cuban allstars.

When I got back from Alabama, I met Mr. Troy Bungart here at my house. He was in Louisville to do a woodfire with Mr. Rademaker and stopped in to see me and get some wood I’ve been hoarding for 25 years or so. When I was a woodworker and amassing hardwood in my basement I came upon some exotic wood in Indiana that was apparently from a defunct veneer factory. The two species are brazilian tulipwood and bee’s wing sapel. I don’t do woodworking anymore and have grown tired of storing and (this summer) hauling this wood around. I figured I should give it someone who would actually use it and Troy seemed like a good idea. Troy left the next day and has already made one of his tools from the sapel and here’s a pic…

And here’s the booty I traded for…

Of course when the camera came out, the tomfoolery ensued…

Here’s Sofia spoonfeeding her Dad…

And all three of us…

Part of the reason for the lack of blog action is mostly that instagram is so much easier and less time consuming. As Ms. Carole Epp once said (I hope it was Carole), “instagram is the crack cocaine of social media”. It is fun to see potters from everywhere post all sorts of pics daily but I’ve also come upon other stuff that is fun. My favorite so far is a user named “gummifetus”. Here’s a couple pics from his feed…

Lastly, here’s some pics of some pieces from my most recent firing…

I almost forgot, the bug and I did another pottery comix. Tried to post it permanently with the other one in the right column but it wouldn’t let me. Here’s this year’s (you might have to click on it to get it big enough to read the text)…

Tags: Alabama Clay Conference, Nick Joerling, Patti Warashina