a rare family post....

I blog it all, right?  A lot anyway.  Not much family.
My niece, and I only have the one, grew up in the midwest, graduated from Harvard and is studying to be an adolescent psychologist ...I don't see her too often as she has moved to the Left Coast, but she visited my parents' house down the road from ours.... she is a sweetie pie.  Those messed up kids of the future receiving her care will be damn lucky :)
She had a chance to do COUNTRY thangs....like canoe...my parents have a rather schweet pond...and that is how you pick all the blackberries the little animals didn't eat:  you sit in the canoe and pick blackberries! More on that tomorrow.....


In other news, you will notice that I was babysitting Yogi yesterday...you will also notice there are no pictures of him playing with Penny.  The 2 of them were like "ooof, its too hot!" but then Yogi was like "I wanna see Spike..." and he came inside to play with the cat.....

BIG pots...

I don't work big too often.  I remember when I was a student "work bigger!" said the instructors and other macho student types were like "OH I can make a pot bigger than a hippo!" and I might say "I can make a hippo." A little one, anyhow!
I have made pots and shown them here that are nearly 2 feet tall.  They are sitting in the studio with BIG price tags...no takers yet, which is fine, because I like them :)
But, you know, I like the cute little things, my kiln is small, and I dig making cute little gems, as you hear me say, especially cute little teapots.
The pic below shows a very large bowl on my head that just came out of the kiln AND it may be hard to tell, a very tall jar, just made at the left of the picture.
I was like "I open a box of spaghetti, boil some up, then set the rest back on the shelf.  Every time I reach up there half of the noodles try to slide out.  I could buy a tall glass jar for the counter to hold spaghetti ......OR....!!!!".
Make a tall and narrow spaghetti jar for myself....I made this, and it IS cute...but then later I checked it against actual spaghetti....which turns out to be dissappointingly taller than I thought!  I don't think this will be big enough, RATS.
I shall make another...

oh my...

Cascadilla Gorge starts in downtown Ithaca and follows a deep course up the hillside to Cornell.  It is a deep and cool glen, the pathway has been under repair for awhile and recently opened.  Holy cats, can you believe this place is in the middle of our city, part of a huge college campus?   And there is a LOT more....
have an awesome Tuesday!

this chair is cat approved....

The wife recovered some of our kitchen chairs Sunday.
They are old fashioned, made in Milwaukee!  Actually, we have five chairs, 3 are sisters then 2 cousins.  You see below 2 of the 3 sisters and one cousin below.  The dark cousin was actually purchased.
The others were filched!

Well, OK, 20 some years ago the wife had the first cousin when we got together.  It still has "property of !!!!!! University" on the bottom.  But she got it at a yard sale! Near that campus...could somebody have filched it for their apartment and sold it later for 5 bucks?  It is a typical 70+ year old library chair.  Throw it off the top of a building (as frats might!) and it would still look good as new.

Then the 3 light colored oak ones, which you see Spike upon there, with one upside down.  We lived next to University ?????? for a few years and 3 of these oak beauties were on a dumpster....they say "property of YYYYYY University" themselves.

The last one, which has a wood seat and does not need recovering, I actually bought from an office store...it just so happens that the chairs match our oak table with lion's feet very nicely :) and, well, the cat matches the table with lion's feet too!

"little pitchers have big ears"

We were chatting with a friend the other day and her little girl was around.  Something gossipy was said about someone else.  My wife tells me later "I hope the little girl doesn't repeat what she overheard later!" and I tell the wife "Like when I was a kid, I was ALWAYS eavesdropping on my folks' conversations then bringing it up at inconvenient moments.  My mom would say 'little pitchers have big ears' and in my case, a big mouth too..."

Here is a pair of small pitchers I made and make sure you have an awesome Sunday :)


(pitchers by Gary Rith)

Gallery fortyone....

The town of Owego is down the road a few miles and Gallery Fortyone's membership committee asked me to apply to be a member.  It is a coop, members run the place!  You get to play store....
I did not know anything about this town until recently, and man, is it CUTE!  Old buildings downtown full of shops and galleries....I was getting trained Friday, unloading and filling shelves and find out it is the town's Third Friday Art Walk (par-TAY!) Friday evening... I picked up the wife and away we went..... oh my, twas awesome.  I will be the shopkeeper myself down there in coming days and you will see more....
Look at my expression here.... believe ME: I was halfway to a smile, NOT a sourpuss!

a long and windy post about CATs, CUSTOMers and 'QUE

You get your money's worth with me and this blog, right?
FIRSTly, Trevor across the street gives us a stack of gorgeous yellow squash he grew, Bronwyn gives us these gorgeous purple onions SHE grew and ditto Terri Ann, and the poblano peppers from HER garden.  People think vegetarians are humorless people who eat sawdust in the winter and raw veggies in the summer NOT TRUE!  We get to burn sh!t on the grill just like any other grilling fool....
I chopped them lovely veggies and marinated them all day in a mix of a little soy sauce, lime juice, olive oil and hot sauce with more spice...then made a pot of rice and beans with MORE hot sauce and spinach and carrots and onion....
TRY TO TOP THAT utter tastiness meat eaters! Sooooo yummy....

In other news, Tiffy has written a number of times that Baby Alex (no longer a baby, and now he has a wee baby brother!!!!) who has one of my cow jumping over the moon pieces needs to complete the whole fairy tale:  the cat and fiddle, laughing dog, dish, spoon....and I was like "NAH, I don't sculpt cats very well, sorry!" but she kept asking and asking.
Last week I got to thinking "what if I sculpted a cat like I draw them????" The result was extraordinary success which you will see below...

BUT yesterday I had a request for a very specific special order.  How do I respond to special orders?  I always try to listen, and consider, BUT I have a hard time with them, even for Tiffy and baby Alex.
This is what I replied to that person yesterday, and the wife tells me I should have written a polite sentence rather than a whole long and boring reply that says too much, (and I have not had a reply!) but here it is:

It is nice to hear from you, thanks, and I am glad you like my work.

I am afraid that an order like this is, from my perspective, fraught with peril.  I remember reading in the 1990s that a potter should NEVER take custom orders, and 16 years later I understand why.  The customer often has very specific needs and goals, and I make something and it is not quite right, then I make another, all of which has taken a lot of time and becomes frustrating.  I also usually make what my heart is most interested in making then put it out there for people to see...like a peach tree.  You can't tell a peach tree "I want this, I need that".  The peach tree makes the best peach it can and moves on.

I also work smaller than you require, and to work bigger would mean an enormous jump in price.  Lastly, the glazes on those bottles are no longer in use in my studio--I found them tricky and  have not mixed them this year.

I am not sure where you live, but if there is a potter near you, it may be wiser to talk to them in person and describe what is on your mind.

Thanks so much, please tell me what you think! Gary

Anyway, thanks for reading so far.  Look down to see Tiffy's pieces (which she asked for repeatedly for MONTHS before I figured it out) and the cat I gave to US and that very cat who inspired it all....

purple tarts with pink b00bies??!!

Purple tarts with pink b00bies makes you think "ah, a buxom space alien who likes to party!".  That was the SECOND lewd description of my baking. The jokes have been flying around here, vis a vis my blueberry tarts.  I looked at these and first told the wife
"these look like purple b00bies with pink n!ps!" which led to....well, anyway...
she will be appalled that I posted all that, but she won't see this post until this evening :)

I have awesome guests visiting Wednesday and STILL blueberries and raspberries are EVERYWHERE which requires a person to bake TARTS.  You can BE a tart, you can have a TART tongue, an apple can be a little sour and described as TART or, we can actually MAKE A TART.

Dead simple, and gluten-free! ****




****

Gary's gluten-free berry tartlets! Ridiculously easy.

-preheat oven to 350, grease 9 of a 12 muffin tin, put a spoonful of water in the other 3, 

OR double recipe here and make 18

-mix one cup oat flour with 2 1/2 teas olive oil and 2+ TBS water to make a nice dough, adding a bit more water or flour as you stir to get a perfect, soft, not dry or wet and sticky dough

-divide into 9 balls, use your hands to form them into thin and flat rounds about 2-3+ inches wide, fit each neatly into the greased muffin tin

-prick the bottom of each with a fork a couple of times, bake in oven for 10 minutes

-in a saucepan put one cup of berries, 1/4 cup of water, 4 teas of sugar and 2 teas of corn starch 

-heat berry mix 7-10 minutes on medium heat, stirring frequently and it will break down and become a nice jam-like mix

-when the 10 mins in the oven finishes, spoon the fruit from the saucepan evenly into each pastry cup-- bake about ten minutes--when they come out, you can push a fresh berry into the top of each tart

-let them cool in the muffin pan 30-60 minutes, then gently use a knife to remove them to a wire rack

the all-POTTERY post you have been waiting for....

You ever feel like this blog this full of horsesh!t?  Or maybe just recipes, dreams, dog walking, pics of my cat washing his belly or taking a nap?  Ever say to yourself "Gary has been blogging now...wow!  7 YEARS this week!****  But for a "pottery" blog, there sure is a lot of horsesh!t!  His dog is cute, though..."
WELL, here it is, just pots today....stunning pots, right?  Can I say that?  These items out of the kiln a couple of days ago, more in the kiln cooling today.... and thanks for listening to my nonsense :)

(pottery by Gary Rith)
****TRUE!  I started blogging anon. on myspace and sending that blather out to friends.  I don't even remember my "name".  Then these blogs, links to the earlier 2 below, both of which I used all the memory up before learning how to save pics on FB first to save memory :)

that dog, that house!

I was dreaming a minute ago that we had to sell this house.  SO, then we had the money, but had to figure out where to live.  And we were finding that to buy another house would be more than we could afford, and we were living in an expensive room in a nice rooming house with shared bathrooms.  The dream was ending when I wanted to use the bathroom, and there, I swear its true, dozens of people already in there and....
luckily I woke up!
And was relieved to find I still live here, it is still ours.... :)


In other news, I REALLY like the idea of little drawn animals on the lowest half of a mug, nice huh?  I liked it so much I started doing it on tiles too--multi-purpose tiles, they have little feet on the bottom and work as either hot pads on the table, serving dishes for 3 cookies or olives or cheese OR hang on the wall....have an awesome Tuesday and I SWEAR I will try to visit all your blogs today!


(new pottery by Gary Rith)

in which decorative objects are either SEXY or fun....

I am down at a favorite antique store chatting with Adam the owner, an old friend.  The wife is out of town and I am about to leave saying "lot's of beautiful things but nothing I want today" when I SEE THEM.  A pair of wineglasses with nekkid ladies on them!  OH SO BRILLIANT And wonderful.
I tell Adam "this is one of those things that men think is wonderfully clever and pretty and the wife thinks it is like dogs playing poker..."

Actually, she likes them....

MOREOVER, my hippo bank came outta the kiln, don't you love it?  Goes well with its friend the hippo bowl...have a great Monday!

KILLER BEAGLE

A local politician with his clipboard and pen comes by Saturday while Penny and I are outside installing the last tile atop my fence.  I tell him "watch out for the killer beagle!" and he is like "killer bees?" and I point at the happy, wiggling tri-color menace at his feet, showing her belly to be rubbed "killer beagle!" and proceed to show him my tile.
A beagle attacking Godzilla!
I told you our picket fence posts are chopped off wood and need protection and decoration.  I miscounted and needed to make a 12th, which I decided could be EXTRA special (some are frogs, most are just stamped with swirls).
The last one came outta the kiln Saturday! Our yard is complete...and badass!


In other news, our flood subsided...remember yesterday I showed you an underwater park near our house? The river had come up 5-10 feet in spots, above the top of that picnic table....  This is it Saturday morning...



Finally, the wife was out of town for the day in NYC, and Penny and I hiked a zillion miles....have a great Sunday!