Dill, Daisy and Scoop

I had to babysit my old friend Scoop on Saturday and afterwards went over to Amy's…they have 2 new dogs, Daisy and Dill, saved from a shelter.  DANG I want to kidnap those dogs! 

"everything's going to be OK…."

Our beagle has a flair for the dramatic, hmm?

You know I have been fiddling with a) the glaze, above left, a new light green celadon, and here it is next to my OLD light green celeadon and b) I have been fiddling with a stamped flower…well, looks good trebled, doesn't it? You never know… :)

Gorgeous, wonderful video :)

great expectations….

I love glazing, some potters don't. These guys went to 2200 degrees by 3:30 yesterday afternoon and around that time today I can hold them in my hands…more fun than baking peanut butter chocolate chip cookies and eating them!

"if my eye surgeon can ____, then I can fix the oven"

Not to be too melodramatic here, in light of yesterday's post, but it goes through my head "if my eye surgeon  can (fill in something incredible and TINY  here) then I can (fill in the challenges of my day)".

As the astrologer will tell you, Mercury is in retrograde right now, a time of funky mishaps big and small.  Or if you don't believe that, let's just say January sux.  ANYWAY, the oven caught fire the other day, and I calmly put it out (didn't need it then but get a fire extinguisher for your kitchen!!!!!!) by turning off the oven.  The element had shorted out.  I figured there would be some COSTLY replacement needed, but as she did with replacing the burners 6 years ago, the wife does the research, finds a replacement element and I spend just a FEW bucks for it, not the what, 600-to-a thou a new oven would cost.  Or 80-200 for a guy to fix it.

I knew I would feel like hot sh!t if I could fix it, and I did and I do :)

In other news, nice teapot, right?  Make something beautiful today!

glaucoma is a B!TCH

I think most humans, especially anybody lucky enough to grow older, has their health issues, and I am not writing this to get sympathy, just to express that it p!sses me off.

You may recall that I have glaucoma (an artist with glaucoma:  we all love our vision of course, but my eyes are my LIFE).  You may also recall that last month the doctor was trying the third treatment in 2 years and wanted to do surgery.  None of the treatments have worked, and soooo…I have 2 eye surgeries in the next 2 weeks. The surgery itself may not be much trouble, but what bothers me is this:

Glaucoma and vision are like holding sand in your hand.  You are only allowed the one handful of sand, ever.  And it is slipping through your fingers and you are trying to prevent losing more sand.  Ditto glaucoma:  treatment tries to prevent more vision loss, and it can't reverse damage done.  And to be clear, if treatments aren't working, you are losing vision, slowly but surely.  My doctor explains that surgery in my case has a 50/50 chance of helping, maybe 80 percent with new drug treatments too.  And we might have to redo the surgeries another time or 2. He also explains that this is your life:  something might or might not work, then we try something else, then something else…. and on it goes.

Glaucoma research may change from an eye issue to a brain issue:  since it affects the optic nerve, which is part of the brain, it is now being seen as akin to Parkinson's disease.  Perhaps, as with Parkinson's, one day stem cells will regrow optic nerves and you will regain vision.

For now, though, glaucoma is a b!tch.

(in other news, cute pinstripe mugs eh?)

half of 3.3 million bucks...

(trying out a pinstripe look with the flowers here….)

The astrologers will tell you Mercury is in retrograde, which makes things WACKY.  Like, the kiln shuts itself off yesterday for no good reason, well short of the intended temp.  Or the oven catches fire…yes it did.  Lucky I was standing next to it, heard the inside heating coil short, and turned it OFF.  I felt very calm at the time but DANG, what IF…?!!

The wife is very handy.  She says we will order the part and replace it …

BUT ANYWAY I had the wildest, best damn dreams:  part one, my neighbor and I were sharing a couple of lottery tickets and WON 3.3 million bucks…sure, we would split that then there would be taxes, but the remaining cash is SERIOUS.  Part 2 of the dream was the wife and me carefully making plans for that….modestly and quietly, because it is better not to attract attn. if cash falls in your lap….

Woke up feeling pretty lucky, how about you?

"we can be heroes, if just for one day…"

Dang, it was all over the radio Friday:  David Bowie's birthday! (Elvis too).  Two days later, aged 69, Bowie dies…RATS, he was my favorite. Everybody loves David Bowie! Yes, he was a hero of mine, innovative, creative, and well known as just plain NICE.

In other news, this cup and saucer just came outta the kiln looking quite fine…I added the splash of blue for that pond-ish effect…..

not exactly bamboo….

I wanted to make vases that were tall, narrower at the top, and had a
certain….wave to them?  Reminds me a little of bamboo…..have a great Sunday!
 

when cake is just like pottery….

I find baking, aside from the eating aspect, to be just like pottery:  you make things because making is FUN.
You know I have weird dietary habits, so I bake or cook everything.  A sister is visiting and it is her birthday, and LUCKY HER I baked a wee layer cake (excellent gluten-free chocolate cake recipes click here).  I started to write in icing across the top and I was like "dang, this E is BIG!" so, well, her name was improvised….
You will remember last spring I threatened my mom "I am going to steal your egg beater if you don't give it to me" which sounds kind of mean and selfish and abusive, doesn't it?  But it is a helluva tool and my favorite kitchen toy when I was a kid…circa 1960, all steel, tough as nails, made in US! She gave it to me for my birthday….
the oven was hot, so I made some scones too….wowie the house smelled GOOD.
.

dogs haven't taken over my life….

Thursday was fairly ordinary for me…finish some pots, glaze some pots, 6 dog walks…only 6!  It was not always like this.  For many years we had 3 dogs and 2 cats, then some passed away, and we got MORE, so we still had 3 dogs and 2 cats…but I can't do that anymore.  For the sake of emergencies, I want to be able to carry my pets and I only have 2 hands.

But everybody else has dogs for me to love…Thursday I walked my Penny, then Soupy, then Nook then Kiko then back home to Penny again, her 3rd f the day… a pretty ordinary day! If only I could explain how wonderful they are in my life….

CRUSTY… a potter's workplace

Who could guess that pictures of my filthy workplace might make a good post? It probably doesn't, but I am doing it anyway, with Yogi! (Yogi being my neighbor's dog that I babysit almost as much as my own dog…more if you count the fact that Yogi works with me in the studio because he lies quietly and my own dog eats clay, cute and sweet as she is….)

Meesh mentioned that she had cleaned her tools to switch  to white porcelain work.  They use a dark clay most of the time, and porcelain is the whitest of whites, so you understand the need for clean.  BUT really, otherwise, what potter needs to clean up?????????? My wheel is 22+ years old and has never been cleaned….

I do use white stoneware, first of all, because it is a clay that doesn't look dirty when it hits the floor or covers a tool.

I thought I would explain my work practices.  First of all, nobody needs to eat at my workspace.  And it is actually a pretty tidy space, by some potter standards.  The fellow I apprenticed to never cleaned anything either, why would you?  The next day you're back in there making a mess.  Once a week I vacuum up the floor, and sometimes I clean my tools into the wheel's drip tray.  Which leads me to clay scrap:  all my clay scrap ends up in my drip tray, where it sits overnight, then I blob it onto a bat to dry a day or 2 then it gets wedged into the next pots.  That way I never accumulate clay scraps, you see?  (my main job as an apprentice was turning his 3000 pound pile of dry clay scraps into useable clay…can you see why I have a system where all scrap is made useable right away?).  As far as washing my tools, it is easier to just scrape a dry and crusty tool into the drip tray, why wash clay down the sink?

I am curious what other potter practices are out there? Are you uptight and scrub your wheel and tools every day and make tidy little piles or buckets of clay scrap?

4 days of winter...

My southern friends may be impressed by my intrepid self, looking like an Arctic explorer here….it was 6 degrees but clear Tuesday morning, and I run everyday.  Ice on the eyelashes makes for an interesting view of the world…..it gets warm again this weekend, which will be very welcome indeed….

In other news I added a bunch of cups and saucers and just plain cups to my easy shoppe (click here!).  What a cute bunch, right? Have an awesome day!

frozen margaritas delivered to your door….

No, we are not used to it at all:  winter! It has been winter for awhile, supposedly, but more like five months of a very pleasant fall.  Spring arrives in the form of rain and 40 degrees in a day or 2, but we are in the middle of four days of winter (if ONLY!).  Not being used to it, even in my heaviest mittens and long johns, 9 degrees and windy gets your attention when you walk dogs 6 times in a day…. you can see Yogi didn't care, but Penny spends the day under the covers….

I had a rather vivid dream just now, speaking of running around:  I was younger and lived with other 20-something guys and one of them had a delivery business he had fallen into:  a drunk guy gave him five bucks plus 20 for a tip and asked him to fetch a frozen margarita from a nearby bar, then the guy would call from time to time for more frozen margaritas….we all got into it (the item price plus 20 dollar tip, wowie!).  So, there I was, running around Manhattan delivering booze to the foolish hedgefunders too lazy to fetch their own drinks from the corner bar…. (IS THERE AN APP for that?  Is my fortune just WAITING for me and my idea????????? I mean, the hell with the delivery part, what I need to do is set up an office in NYC and open a margarita bar and hire all kinds of delivery people and have software so that I am a drinks kingpin…………………………..)

IN other news, have I told you how much I love oval boxes???? I love them dearly…..here are a couple of new pots….

holy CATS number 2 in the world...

Imagine my surprise, I wake up this morning and a friend has seen that THIS BLOG is not only a top blog of 2015, but second place! And what are the chances the number one and 2 spots are both given to people named Gary????  Must be a conspiracy, you say….

Just imagine how disappointed everyone will be to discover how stupid and pointless my blog is, how self-centered, narcissistic, misleading, silly, and egotistic while containing very little anything about pots.  BUT, just like the Kardashians, maybe it is entertaining   ;)
(remember I mentioned yesterday I take about 50 pics a day?  JUST IMAGINE how much more BORING this blog could be ;)

So, just like the Oscars, I should thank my readers….this year, BTW, marks ten years blogging….you probably know me pretty well by now….and thank the usual subjects of my posts, the long-suffering cat, dog, and of course, the wife, who refused to be pictured or written about when I started, but has slowly given in………………….

SO, enough of that, back to business…..the wife and I finished six days of cleaning the house.  It seems like it is already time to start again.  I like things tidy, but am NOT a tidy person by nature.  But every year I suddenly get sick of my mess and wade into it and try to bring some order to it all.   Yesterday, as I had mentioned, included sorting the last of my snapshots.  A lifetime's worth.  Well, up until 4 years ago was pretty well organized, now all of them are. But in cleaning the rest of the house I seem to have TRASHED the studio…and cannot work today until that is cleaned…it NEVER ends, does it….

15,000 photos a year…..

OK, so you are probably wondering how our big house cleaning is going.  It is going OK, last day today. It is one of those things that is boring and no fun to do, but the alternative is WORSE.
Friday we were looking for the wife's knitting thingamabob which had been Spiked (stolen by the cat to play with) and we ended up cleaning under the couch and oven..probably the first time in ten years.  (yep, there goes an allergy and asthma attack..) We didn't find what we wanted BUT did find the wife's favorite pen, missing a year, having last been seen on the table next to the sleeping cat….

I am down to sorting and mounting photos.  I was surprised to find I had done so 3-4 years ago and was better organized than I imagined.  What fun, looking at old snaps…I seem to have been good at getting snaps my whole life, according to this box of albums, but obviously having blogged ten years there have been quite a few to sort recently.  (luckily I don't print them all).  I had used my last computer about 5 years and had about ten thousand (!!!) photos on it.  I take up to 50 a day, right?  Which is winnowed down right away.  So, basically, if you do the math, before the first edit I take over ten thousand pictures a year….anyway, cleaning all ten thousand remaining pics off the old computer was easier than I thought.  I have maybe 80 or 90 actual pics to mount, and saved 350 images to a disk.  That's not took bad for five years, is it?  As in all my life, the philosophy seems to be "throw the spaghetti at the wall, see what sticks…"

IN other news, I have listed a couple of groovy new mugs at etsy, have a look, start buying now for Valentine's and Easter!

bubbly: not just champagne….

A month ago Sandra's granddaughter was messing around in the studio, and wanted to glaze her bowl purple and green, a FINE idea which I then did on a few of my pieces…who KNEW that the purple and green overlap would be a groovy funky bubbly moonscape????

SO, Sandra sees a mug of mine here a couple of days ago and wants one, but green and purple,  "bubbly on the handle" she tells me,  and I happened to be glazing some items…just out of the kiln…wild, eh?

2016 seems like a BIG number….

A few thoughts on a new year….I was sound asleep, per usual, pretty darn early yesterday evening…the highlight of the day had been cleaning the house (day 3 of 6 days!).  I was pleased to note that the Marie Kondo system of organizing my socks and undies had lasted all year….

Other items of note:  my weight is the same  as a year ago and I probably exercise more now, so my new year's resolution, as I mentioned yesterday is not conventional.  I already eat healthy and don't watch TV.  I am full of flaws, and I read that it is wise to have only one resolution. So, as I say, it is to try to treat every day like the last chance to make something beautiful.

But, I have ambitions for the year….non-binding, helpful guiding principles….
-fly kites!  I have such a great collection! My fear of ticks needs to be overcome and I need to take advantage of windy days…
-play with Spike:  Spike is a chubby cat and he loves to play.  He needs to keep his skills sharp in case a rodent wanders through…
-work on drawing, esp. my comic "Tiny Central and Sammy Twolane"
-groom the cat and dog daily:  neither needs it but both love it
-stretch more seriously:  the wife likes to do yoga straight out of bed, and I am usually too stiff to WANT to…which is why I should take it more seriously
-quality not quantity…in everything, right?
-say it with a smile :)  why the hell not……

AND this is the year I turn 50…I have always looked and acted like a 15 year old.  I feel that changing slightly… ;)

In other news, I had some elderly bananas to use and so we had banana buckwheat gluten-free pancakes for breakfast, and then I baked some gluten-free banana nut scones…both recipes are so foolproof, easy and tasty you wonder why you don't make them every single day…..