when the facts match your imagination

Let's say it is a wicked snowy and cold winter and you are a potter and you take to doodling flowers all your pots...yearning and pining for SPRING.
You don't admit it in the public, but the flowers are not specifically violets or periwinkle or viola....just a vague mashup of those in your mind as you doodle on those pots...

WELL then spring finally comes, and so do the flowers! And you're like "THAT is what I have been thinking of!".

GOOD LUCK COMES in 3s....

OK, so on Wednesday?  I am walking the dog down the street, and YOU KNOW a)  that it was snowing heavily just over a week ago, but it is like summer now with green everywhere and b) there was my first five-leaf and four-leaf clover of the year because c) you know I am a four-leaf clover HUNTER.  I stopped counting years ago when I had found 500 of them.  I have a dictionary full of pressed four-leaf up to seven-leaf clovers.  I think the most I found in one day was 27...or 33, 37?  ANYWAY, now I generally give them away.
BUT yesterday was special and I am saving these--because then I found a dollar in the street!
Then I helped the wife with a little gardening (VERY LITTLE) and dug up buried treasure...a horseshoe! Our house is 150 years old this year and we dig up a lot of crap...but this is the best treasure so far....although the wife also found half a tombstone yesterday next to a huge tree we had cut down and we are thinking we don't really wanna dig around THERE too much....

skinny little guy

I was doodling this character and realized that a scary face was not best, and then aimed for a simple and friendly face. With a kitten on his shirt.  Then I put him onto a mug! Going into the firing today...you see also a lot of blossoms.  One thing I hadn't bargained on with doodling flower patterns on pots was that it would take ALL DAY.  It is fun, but takes like, hours.....rather than a quick dunk into the glaze bucket, it is first this color then that.... but FUN.

Have an awesome Wednesday!

STILL not all mine....

Right, like so I was saying yesterday:  all of the pets you see me posting online?  NOT necessarily mine.... Yogi was over on Monday and we took a roadtrip to see his girlfriend Kiko...imagine you are Yogi's family, away all day and you come home to pictures of your dog taking exotic trips and having fun while you were at work all day....

they are not all mine...

(me with Puffy...some say Puffy is psycho, but we get along...)

Sure, you see this parade of pets here....some people are new to my life and figure I have this huge menagerie of dogs and cats.  I did once, but not now--just Penny the dog and Spike the cat.

BUT as a full-time artist people knew I was around and flexible (sort of--I mean, I am working from home, but still WORKING, right?) and so they asked for pet sitting...

One time too many there was the junky souvenir for my 2 weeks of scooping cat poo and playing with lonely animals whose owners were whooping it up at the beach. The last straw were the people who didn't give me a stupid souvenir AND no THANKS either.

So I decided to charge for my time.

I wondered if it had gotten out of control last winter as I bravely walked one dog not my own after another in below zero temps.  But it is so dang FUN.   People like me caring for their pets, and I LOVE it.  And a little check goes a long way toward feeling appreciated so I do an amazing job of it, allowing plenty of time for their attention and exercise.

Then I come home and work on the pots again.....

CUTE can get away with it....

People have a hard time believing Penny and Spike hang out together.  They love each other! They cuddle, even on warm days.  Spike is a remarkable cat, very intelligent and friendly and, um, dog sized.  Penny has, as the vet said Friday when using the stethoscope: "she has an extraordinary heart" :)
Have an awesome Sunday!

blossoms

New cups and jar by Gary Rith to celebrate our first real spring week, HOT DAWG! Have an awesome weekend!

corgis: not just for queens anymore....

You will recall Penny's corgi best friend from across the street, Soupy! I babysit Soupy everyday.  BUT it has been months since Soupy could come over here to play (you will recall last week's heavy snows that we had...). DANG I love summer :)

the Queen is a pottery student and other such surprises....

I dreamt that I had friends in Buckingham Palace (various minor princes, princesses) and I was over there hanging out and found out the Queen wanted to meet me.  She was taking pottery classes and wanted show me what she had been making! She showed me a vase she was making that had little sculpted hands all over it. Surprise!  Who knew the Queen of England was so imaginative and down to earth ;)

In reality these mugs just came out of the kiln, and you are wondering why I put this guy on one side and the legs on the other.  I explained to the wife while twirling my finger in a loop next to my head:  "remember, not everyone is crazy".

Penny's tenth birthday ....

Many of you will remember Penny came to us 4/28/2007 from the shelter (click here to see the original blog link with pictures and story! God, the wife and dog look THE SAME but I look so different),  aged about two according to the vet.  We mark that as her birthday (although we can't know her exact age or birthdate, as she was a stray). She had gotten lost in an April snowstorm and ended up crying at a back door near us.  Otherwise she was healthy and unhurt and taken to the shelter to find a home.

It was physically evident she had just given birth to puppies.  Nobody was ever looking for her, nobody  knows what happened to the puppies or where she came from.

The way I like to think of the unknown backstory is this: Penny had a litter of puppies in some nice family's kitchen but when she went out and saw a squirrel, she ran 100 miles and got lost.  BEAGLES ARE WANDERERS and this is how they act off leash, GONE!

Anyway, I don't think I have ever loved a creature as much as I love this sweet little dog.  Ten. Or our 8th anniversary at least :)

We celebrated by getting a box of Greenies doggie treats (holy CATS, 35 bucks for the big box...) and hiking the East Hill Rail Trail.

bowled over!

Some new bowls that I made, I am pretty pleased.
The best part is that the flowers these decorations are modeled after, apple/cherry blossoms and periwinkle, ARE ACTUALLY STARTING TO BLOOM.
Twas a long, cold, snowy winter.  Have a great Tuesday!

baking banana bite muffins with beagles, gluten-free goodness!

I read gluten-free on a shoestring's blog and have 2 of the cookbooks...she came up with this fantabulous little bite banana muffin recipe (recipe, click here!) which was so cute and tasty looking, I had to try....and guess what?  Just as tasty as they look...I added the nut on top for a jaunty look, but the wife reminds me it would also be tasty to add diced nuts to the batter...although, to me, then they wouldn't look like they each wear a party hat....
this recipe is so darn easy, just toss banana and wet ingredients in the blender, stir the dry and bake, mmmm :)

AND, in the couldn't be easier category:  you have seen me make chocolates before, and when I saw my Smucker's peanut butter lid had a new recipe for chocolate peanut butter clusters I was like HO BOY! (recipe click here)
Basically, melt some chocolate, mix in some peanut butter, almonds, dried cranberries OHMYFLIPPINGGAWD.....
have a great Monday!

mine, all mine!

I got a cappucino milk frother earlier this month for my birthday.  Works with soy milk! DELISH.  It is just a little plunger in a creamer type thing, you vigorously pump it several times and voila! Froth.

I got in mind a particular cup and saucer I wanted for it.  Straight sided, ridgy, with little spiral stamps, so I made it and gave it to myself....outta make more like it....have an awesome Sunday!

no Kardashians or Jenners here, nosireebob....

Just a cute pair of vases by me...have an awesome Saturday!

gawdamn SNOW....

At one point we had 2 inches of snow on the ground and the road looked BAD.  But then most of it melted.....my southern, California and Australian friends may be surprised to hear we get snow into the month of May....well, so does the north pole and most of
Canada, right?  So what am I complaining about...

out of the dungeon and into the studio....

You will recall that the last day or 2 I have spoken of AND shown pictures of my studio's annex, the basement, being gutted. Enough of that. This is the reason I had it done, so I can make things like these....new pots by Gary Rith!

DUNGEON: before, after, and after THAT

(Yogi at the entrance trapdoor from the studio down to the basement where I keep clay and glaze supplies and mix glazes--there is also an entry door directly to the outside on the basement's other side)

OK, you have been listening to me talk about the momentous MESS going on down in my basement, now you can see how it turned out and how awful it was before this began.

The reason for doing this are pretty simple.  The basement does not need to be beautiful or perfect, but I do some work down there plus storage and it was bone-crushingly dirty and depressing.
And rodents LOVED it.

Basically, the house is 150 years old and there was some junk down there dating back to the Civil War.  Nothing like a bag of gold coins, only dirt and coal and bits of pipe.

Some owner had added 3 false walls in the 1970s.  I could see on 2 of the other uncovered basement walls that the foundation is very nice and dry stones.  I wondered what was behind those icky false walls where 50 year old pink insulation fell like vomit from above and rodents spent warm winter months crapping and burrowing.... GAWDAMN I was right! The false walls revealed clean and dry stone walls behind, and soooo much more space!

The before.  I mix glazes there. The house was originally a one room log cabin.  That beam at the top of the picture is a log.



Door to the outside and DISGUSTING old insulation.  I couldn't take it anymore...



Gaze supplies and one of the walls nobody had messed with...



Third false wall.  It did nothing but make the space darker and smaller.  BUT, the only treasure of the whole demolition was I saved the planks.  Some splintered but 3 of them are rough cut, beautiful and wide old growth wood which could make a beautiful table or something....




I know.  Would you want to work down here, or even store your paint cans???????? Watch out for Bela Lugosi....


In progress, filling a van with junk.




OK, next 2 pictures give you a pretty exact look at before and after of the whole space.


I was so thrilled! It is so clean and pretty (in comparison) and spacious! I was sad to move my supplies back into place, but you can see it is messy materials and supplies made more orderly but WITHOUT the vomity, rodent infested false walls.... the guys asked if I wanted Lang's garage left up back there... I did....



OK, let's cleanse the palate with these pretty flowers outside the studio door, thanks for listening!