Gary's Third Pottery Blog

When the going gets tough, dragons gonna get going....

Gary's third pottery blog

WRITE TO ME! garyrith@yahoo.com Come see me! Open studio HERE! November 25-26 (11-4 each day); Aurora Art and Design, daily until 12/24; Cooperstown Art Assoc. daily until 12/24; Ellis Hollow Community Fair, 12/10; December 10, Little Red Wagon at the Space at Greenstar. All material on this blog unless stated otherwise is copyright Gary Edward Rith 2016

Saturday, October 31, 2015

Sammy Tulane....


(new teapot by Gary Rith)

I could say that Halloween is just another day here, but that is not true:

I will watch the Snoopy Halloween program with great delight....starring, of course, a famous beagle.....

AN UPDATE on a couple of things:  one, Sammy Tulane.  I was reading somewhere that you get your p0rn star name from your first pet's name then the street you grew up on (are there a lot of "Fluffy Elm" or "Maggie Main"s out there?  Perhaps "Digger State" or "Max First"s????).
Sammy was my cat, and having lived on MANYmany streets as a child, I could only remember one: Tulane.  Sammy Tulane, c'est moi!  Sounds rather good, doesn't it?  But makes a better name for a PI, a detective than a p0rn star THANK GOD.  Much classier.

Two:  knitting.  I am finding I do not have a lot of patience with my progress (nothing new THERE in my life).  I keep doing things wrong.  My grand scarf project?  Unraveled.  I think I need to a) try bigger needles and b) just mess around with small samples.  I need some immediate gratification here....

have a great weekend!

Friday, October 30, 2015

a patient and fortuitous cat....

SPIKE! And me....


  Image result for google image patience and fortitude
The two lions in front of the 5th Ave main branch of the NY public library are called Patience and Fortitude..... our cat Spike is indeed a very patient cat, and his coming to us 8 years ago was a fortuitous event for all of us ;)

Speaking of cats, how about these new mugs, just out of my kiln?  Cats chasing all over them and the mouse hiding on the handle!
 In other news, I was in the mood to try making elephant pitchers, and so I did....have a great weekend!

Thursday, October 29, 2015

knitting: teaching that OLD dog OLD tricks....




(new teapot and cups by Gary Rith...featuring Penny the beagle, for one....)

You will recall some discussion here about my LAST knitting project, a sweater I was working on for the wife back in 1992...I set it down...for 23 years.  It was 2/3 finished, and frankly, I faked myself out:  it was a complicated pattern I had devised, and over 23 years I forgot how to knit, and whenever I picked it up I was too intimidated to try again.

The wife exorcised THAT demon, bless her, by turning it into the awesome pillow you see the dog sleeping on here.  Like I say:  complicated.

I knit several sweaters in the 80s, sprinkling them across the galaxy of my dating life ( boyfriend who did NOT wine and dine you, but did give you pots...and sweaters....maybe I seem weird....?).

MY GOAL now was two part, since I no longer felt I had to finish the sweater:  a)  relearn knitting and b) knit tea cozies, like a penguin shaped tea cozy!  That may not happen this week, but I pestered my wife, just as I had pestered my mom when I was 18 and had my wisdom teeth out, to teach me how to knit again.

I was a horrible student to both with my snotty "what the hell are you doing?!" and "THAT is not how you do that!".  It should be noted, as you see here, that she is a very accomplished and experienced knitter making herself a very complicated cardigan....and I should be a nicer student ;)

ANYWAY, I dipped into the yarn bag and...
she:  why are you using those needles, where did you get those?
he:  I dunno, these are the only knitting needles I ever used
she:  Where did that come from, why are you using that yarn???
he:  It came from the bag, I bought it in 1988, and there is a lot of it! that is why I am using it.

I knit an inch.  I want to make a double wide scarf and then fold it back and stitch the edge, making a normal width scarf that is IMPOSSIBLY THICK AND WARM.  I figured it would be 50 stitches wide.  NO.  80 looked good.  Now I have an inch! If I do an inch a day (and take my vitamins, eat right, exercise, brush my teeth, clean the cat box, sweep the floor, do the dishes, walk the dog and EVERY OTHER DAMN THING I HAVE TO DO each day, plus work TWO JOBS) I figure I will have a scarf by, what, Memorial Day or the Fourth of July?????????

Below:  sweater by me turned pillow.....



Wednesday, October 28, 2015

karma...or Kiko, is gonna get you.....

You know I moonlight as a dog (and cat!) walker. I must be good at it because the phone is always ringin'....and it is DAMN fun. Tuesday I brought Yogi over to see Kiko...Kiko has a LOT of energy. Yogi does too, but he goes home and sleeps all day after a morning's romp....Kiko is ready for more...I have never seen 2 dogs have more fun.

Tuesday, October 27, 2015

for the love of a good cat...and veggie burger



HOW TO:  I was reading yesterday about how most veggie burgers are these boring and rubbery, yet dry, hockey pucks.  It doesn't have to be this way!

I have a favorite veggie burger recipe that is easy and wicked good.  I made them yesterday to put into tortillas with guac, but they were big so we didn't bother making the tortillas to go with them, just laid them on greens with tomato and the guac.  so they look like boobies.
GADDAWN that is tasty ....

Gary's guac: lazy way--slice and dice the avocado into a bowl, then add some salsa and/or hot sauce, lemon or lime juice, mash with a fork.

Gary's damn easy veggie burger:  boil a cup of brown rice, per usual but with some extra water, adding a drained 15 oz can of black beans, spice, and some veggies about halfway through (and more water if you need it---the veggies I added yesterday was some spinach, and a couple of small handfuls of frozen corn and broccoli). (there will be more rice mixture than you need)

For 2 people, use a covered microwave dish with a TBS of water in it, cube a sweet potato into 8-12 pieces and microwave:  first for 2 1/2 mins, stir pieces, then about 1 1/2 mins.  It should be hot and soft.

Scoop the sweet potato pieces and some spoonfuls of the rice mix into your blender or whatever, and give it a whirl.  It should be pretty well mixed, sticky and mushy. I like to make sure it still has nice chunks of rice and veggie.

Form into 4 patties and fry like any old burger!



Monday, October 26, 2015

microscopic pottery....



My favorite part of pottery has always been the fiddling part.
Throwing on the wheel is, I am sorry to say, maybe the least interesting part to me.  I KNOW a lot of potters get in their groove when they throw, but to me it requires a lot of planning and forethought:  "oh, I gotta make this and that, then later I gotta do that to it and....".  Basically, it is the writer with the blank page to fill, all the decisions to be made.
I guess I kinda like the parts that come next:  putting it all together and decorating.  Because that is the meditative part. I sit there all afternoon fiddling with the bits, putting them together (or lately, also painting flowers, etc on things) a totally mellow meditative dream state.  Like knitting.  OK, I am sounding like a flake, but there it is.

I spent Sunday making a number of sculptures.
It is remarkable how much time that takes.
I could have made 2 dozen bowls in the same time...really.  MORE than 2 dozen.  But that would have been as boring as watching paint dry, to my mind....not liking too much repetition.  ANYWAY, I am entering a competition in less that 2 weeks and need 3 wall pieces....one of the wall pieces is a new idea, the other 2 are types I have made before, like the elephant and hippo teaparty I was finishing here....I could have taken the one off the wall where it hangs by our kitchen table but I LOOOOOOVE it...so I made another like it, of course....with tiny tiny cups and a teapot.  You know the appeal is that Mr. Elephant has that trunk to pour with, a totally amusing bonus....



Sunday, October 25, 2015

apples on a stormy day....



Do you see that flag down there????  YES, it was that windy yesterday and overnight....I don't know if I have ever heard a louder rain storm than last night's....I was looking at the weather map for the US, thinking to self "could this possibly be Patricia????" because the wind was from the SOUTH, which we never get.  And yes, the weather map shows that, Patricia or no, there is a straight line of storms drawn from Mexico to upstate NY.  No, we are not getting the kinds of flooding Texas is getting, of course, but DANG!

Anyway, it started mid-afternoon yesterday, just before we got apples and vacuumed out the car....there is a delightful little orchard on Cayuga Lake we like, on our way back from delivering pots to Aurora Art Design, an awesome gallery up the lake a bit....then it was time for applesauce with the OLD apples already in the fridge...I make it with cranberries, mmmmmmmmmm...


Saturday, October 24, 2015

save it for later!

handmade blue piggy bankpenguin bankhandmade hippopotamus bank

The first step toward SAVING is to buy one of my cute banks....I have several piggy banks at my etsy site, and just added these, a penguin and hippo bank!!!! Get 'em while they're HOT (click here!)

Friday, October 23, 2015

the cat just ate half a spider plant and....



...whoa, here it is again....at least he won't have a tummy ache.
New mugs by me.
The cat ones?  I have an idea how to make them even cooler next time, just watch me!


Thursday, October 22, 2015

not exactly junk food.....

 (New pitcher by Gary Rith)

Yes, the morning glories are KAPUT, having had temps in the 20s.  But they live on here on my pots, right?

Messed up night of dreams:  I dreamt I was going through a school cafeteria line.  I put a load of salad WITH dressing into my backpack, then tossed in a baked potato for now and 2 for later.  When I got to a table and began eating out of my backpack I realized I would have to launder that thing, and soon.....

Wednesday, October 21, 2015

party like it's....1990....

(my graduate school ID, I graduated in 1990)

I just saw that today is BACK TO THE FUTURE day... I was not a fan.

BUT I was dreaming last night that the wife and I went back in time to 1990....to a shopping mall. (why do my dreams send me to a shopping mall????)
There was more crime, so a person would be more alert, maybe, than these days.  And the Gap and Banana Republic were big deals, and we were giddy to see them again in their heyday....also a big deal was a very successful bookstore. While I waited for the wife I read a magazine...not an unusual practice even now, but the ONLY option back then.

I have been very fortunate in many things, but do not live in the past and don't want to go back, except I wish I was a nicer and less confused person.  But maybe that is the goal of life:  always try to be nicer and less confused!

Groovy new teapot came out of the kiln Tuesday.  I told you a couple of weeks ago about this decorating scheme....which also came to me in a dream.... have a great Wednesday!


Tuesday, October 20, 2015

the press is ON

Yesterday I spent cleaning and reorganizing the studio.  I have a big wholesale order to deliver, so I needed to gather that stuff and organize the rest, then I got a rather SATISFYING second BIG wholesale order, then put a bunch of new things on etsy and I have some fairs and another open studio coming up...and suddenly you realize, as you do every year around now, "HOLY CATS IT IS THE RETAIL HOT SEASON", and you're really stinkin' grateful because you gotta fill the bank with a few dollars before the new year....

Have a look at my new etsy items, click here !!!!!!handmade pair of green mugshandmade flamingo mughandmade mug with dogs

Monday, October 19, 2015

24 and snowy....



Just a trace on the ground, but snowy off and on Sunday...but DANG, it was cold.....we always get a little snow in October, but that doesn't mean we love it....

Sunday, October 18, 2015

a visit to the farm...

Some of you remember my parents have a farm an hour from us, it has a pond, creek, river, barn, house, garage, woodshed, and is 2/3 forested and one third hay meadow.  It is also quite hilly and surrounded by thousands of acres of public forest land, so it seems bigger than it is.

ANYWAY, you can imagine it is quite gorgeous, especially on a nice fall day.  We had a little snow falling, but then the sun came out. (overnight we had enough snow to leave patches around out there, it is 25 degrees right now!)

The wife and me in front of the pond.


Woodshed.


Their apple trees havn't been properly cultivated in years, yet still produce a huge number of apples....which the deer and my sister's dogs are enjoying.






My sister lives 2 days' drive away but is visiting this month with her pugs.




They have a LONG driveway...


The river bank.....

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I am a full-time studio potter, sculptor, and dog walker, married to superhawt Missus Tastycake.