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

Tuesday, November 22, 2016

dragons and snow...




This pic shows our snowstorm as of yesterday morning…and it kept snowing all day! Overnight!  And is s'posed to continue into today….all of this is normal for us between now and April, what hasn't been normal is the warm 70s that preceded it.  I was kinda enjoying the warm 70s….

I just read and enjoyed the kids' book "How to train a dragon"…I have sold a million piggy banks, a million elephant cups, but GAWDAMN the red dragons are becoming bigger than that….I was fiddling with some paper yesterday and made a bookmark…..it seems timely when things are so topsy turvey around the world that we would turn to dragons...

Monday, November 21, 2016

a foot of snow….




Like I said, we had about 73  on Saturday until a sudden change dropped the temps. and Sunday it snowed off and on all day…now, looking out the window, we have 8-12 inches lying on the ground, with more expected to fall through Tuesday! Feeling Christmassy……
Pictures showing our back yard and the bridge by our house over the river.

Sunday, November 20, 2016

it was HOT while it lasted….




(funny, the things you find on the camera--the cat crawled into the wife's skirt…)

Yesterday we knew the weather report:  "70 degrees until rain and snow blow in this afternoon".  We took Penny to the dog park and walking on Cayuga Lake..it was HOT…we got in the car around 3 and in the short time it took to drive home the temps fell to the 40s…in minutes, and kept on going until 6 pm when snow started…ANYWAY, weren't we smart for hiking in the hot weather?  We probably won't see that warm again for 6 months or more, and YES, there is snow on the ground out there, more predicted each day until Wednesday….

Saturday, November 19, 2016

dragons and skulls...

I was idly thinking, as I have before, "wouldn't it be funny if you had a dragon eating a skull?" and if you google image it you come across an alarming number of scary tats showing just that.
I'll spare you.  Mine is a CUTE version, right?

Dragon eating a skull, wall piece by Gary Rith.

Friday, November 18, 2016

flying dragon redux….

The flying dragons I showed the other day with black wire…well, it was suggested that I should get some clear line…so I did.  And in going out to gt a phot, like the Beatles said, here comes the sun, and….NICE :)

Thursday, November 17, 2016

an uptick in dragon futures….


dragon cookie jar by Gary Rith


I have made types of green dragons for a while, but good GOLLY, the flying serpentine dragons in red I have made lately??? Whoa.  Selling FAST.

My knowledge of dragons, what they are and why anybody would like them dates back to when I was 3 and liked Puff the Magic Dragon.  Is it OK to admit I did not grow up playing Dungeons and Dragons?  That I got bored reading Game of Thrones???  My knowledge of dragons is still back where it was when I was 3, but I that is changing fast….

dragon cookie jar by Gary Rith

Wednesday, November 16, 2016

flying dragons!

flying dragons in the air….

dragons just sitting there….
Yes, I am putting red dragons of different sorts on pots, but thought I could make a few small ones (fits in the palm of your hand) that could hang from the ceiling of Christmas tree, cute, hmm?

Monday, November 14, 2016

musings upon bullying and fear….




Just a word or two about fear.

We moved a lot when I was a kid, and I was the subject of some merciless bullying when we got to new places.  One example is Mike Waller who sat behind me in 6th grade music class and hit me over the head with his book when the teacher’s back was turned...repeatedly.  For weeks. The 25-30 kids in class tittered.  I didn’t cry.  I never told anybody. I was the new kid, I was shy, and what authority would listen?  And as teens will tell you, if you speak up your ass gets kicked ten times worse. The little...well, she is not so little anymore as a fifth grader...daughter of a friend of ours has all these Diaries of a Wimpy Kid books at home.  It is about that sort of sh!t, and about trying to do the right thing in a world full of bullies and social stigma.  I can see why kids would like that stuff, because the kid can be a hero and set things right in the end.  I don’t know if Mike Waller died young of some horrible and painful, disfiguring disease, but if you believe in karma, he will get his.  Except, so often, really, bullies don’t, they go on to lead happy and prosperous lives.  Sometimes those guys even get elected president of the USA.

We didn’t put an HRC sign in our yard, because, secretly, I was afraid.  Afraid of the pickups that drive by on our very busy road, including (although we live in the NORTH) some with Confederate flags.   Those dudes might have guns.  When HRC ran for senate here in NY some years ago, my next door neighbor’s yard sign was flattened by a pickup that drove across their lawn to do so. They didn’t want to put up signs anymore.  They have kids in the house.

I have been into a synagogue only 3 times in my life, although I have known Jewish people all my life.  They look and act and think exactly like me.  Except I am a Quaker and know very little about Judaism.  The 3 times I have been into that synagogue I have wondered at the likely difference of being any ordinary American who might go to Temple one day and a swastika would be painted on the door.  Or a window smashed.  Or a bomb thrown through the window. These things happen to Jews all the time around the world, and in America too.  It has been decades or centuries since anybody has harassed Quakers in meeting, as far as I know, or gone out of their way to be simply violent to us as a group.  So when I was in that synagogue having fun at a holiday fair, looking at little kids who are like any other little kid, I wondered what kind of person could hate somebody as a group.  Not even knowing them, you could just throw a rock through the window, or a bomb?  I asked friends from that synagogue about security--they have cameras, and procedures for safety.  Quakers don’t.  Do white Baptist churches worry about these things?  Presbyterians?  Do they have wire mesh on the windows and security cameras everywhere? How about black churches?  Why do we hear of so many burned to the ground here in the US?  What sort of devil would do these things?

We have an African-American neighbor married to a white woman...how on Earth do they feel?  Scared as hell.  And this, on the edge of what has been called the most liberal city in the USA.


I don’t have to face those sorts of things as a straight WASP male who didn’t even have an HRC sign in his yard.  I just want to be left alone to make my pots.  Shouldn't everyone be left alone?  But sh!t, a whole lot of people don’t have that luxury right now, because the fucking bully WON.  He is on his way to the White House.  

green on green!




Fiddling around, as usual, and thinking I really REALLY like this particular combo:  a spring green inside and emerald green outside with the grooves…suits a frog, too!
Have an awesome Monday :)

Sunday, November 13, 2016

dreaming of fish mugs...

This is not a very good picture, for some reason, but I dreamt a week ago I should put fish on some mugs, and at breakfast figured out how I would do it.  Then I did it…and I am pretty thrilled with the results!
fish mugs by Gary Rith

Saturday, November 12, 2016

Whoa, this has never happened before...



I remember years ago visiting a potter who had these 2 items fused together (by accident) sitting there….it was like a farm stand sort of place: a sign instructed you that if nobody was around, take your pottery purchase, leave the money…stuffed into one of the fused pots.

I should have double checked (ALWAYS double check everything in life, right?) when I was putting the shelf atop the lowest level in the kiln and I thought I heard a small thump.  Now I know what that small thump was, a mug shifted somehow, and because it ended up touching a pot on each side, well, now they are conjoined triplets.

I do not consider these a wonderful joke or souvenir and will not be saving them.

Friday, November 11, 2016

Cute dogs and pots may not save the world, but they are fun!



Working like a madman, how about you?
Take care of yourself….

Thursday, November 10, 2016

just plain AWFUL



The people who push bloody revolutions tend to forget that many will suffer along the way.  I am a WASP male, the people who have been wielding the power in the US since the beginning, but yes, I am terrified too:  I am not a minority or other easily targeted group, but I am slowly going blind with glaucoma and I have Obamacare.  The clueless would say "go ahead then, get a job with health insurance!".  But is that so easy?  Even Smallmart does everything it can to avoid giving employees health insurance, and how many employers want an older guy slowly going blind? Nobody is gonna grab my pussy, and compared to most people I don't have anything to complain about, but things look like sh!t around this nation…

Americans just put a bad joke in office. Speaking of WASP males, the guy at the gas station, the guy at the PO giddily try to start happy conversations about the election, NUH uh, I'm not talking with YOU about this, bro. You and your ignorance and hate are not my tribe.  All day long my belly felt like I had eaten a five week old burrito left out in the rain, a new feeling, do I have to get used to it?

For the moment, though, I am the luckiest guy in the world, as I have pots to make, and what I am making is dragons. Lots of dragons.  This dude was sold before it was even fired….and making more is  great therapy in very troubling times.

dragon cookie jar by Gary Rith

Wednesday, November 9, 2016

Talk about a "Day of Infamy"….

There is so much to say, and I keep saying it and deleting it, but I am very disappointed in the American people.

Monday, November 7, 2016

c'mon, America

America is NOT a place of ignorance, hatred, bullying and violence.

See ya Wednesday…….

Sunday, November 6, 2016

Cooperstown….



I had to deliver pots to Cooperstown Art Association's yearly holiday sale (nearly 2 months of gorgeous arts to browse through!) and that was a quick stop followed by FUN.  I went across the street to the Baseball Hall of Fame museum and was thrilled THRILLED that the scoreboard had the Cubs world series on there….I bet the last time the Cubs won in 1908 the museum wasn't there! Then we went up the lake to Glimmerglass State park, which I had never been to, and HO BOY is it amazing.  Well, Otsego Lake and the surroundings are pretty enough, but the park includes Hyde Hall….when built 200 years ago it was the largest house in America…and the covered bridge that leads up to the house is the oldest in America, how about that….

Saturday, November 5, 2016

dragon goblets!




I rarely make goblets, right?  But with dragons in the air and everybody digging my RED dragons, I wanted to give it a whirl…...

Friday, November 4, 2016

red dragon mugs, dragon bowls….



In recent months, there had been some good interest in my green dragon pieces, but golly, this red is flying off the shelves, I mean, RIGHT AWAY.  And the dragons themselves are evolving (although last night I dreamt I should make fish on pots….).

ANYWAY, I am having fun, hope you are too and have a great weekend!

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