Pots of Life

I've been absent. But present. Busy, and not so productive. Lots going on, and not much to share.

Had a wonderful visit by Krystal's mother last weekend which kept me more or less out of my studio. But not completely. Here's an illustrated guide to the past 10 days of my life. Hopefully it's interesting. 

(Spoiler alert: I unloaded a glaze kiln yesterday, so those pictures are at the bottom of this post.)

Took some time off last Friday to take the Mom-in-Law down to the Rez and visit Krystal's office. Got to see some of my own (design) handiwork on display in their offices.

Krystal's (above) nonprofit is doing some really cool things in the community. You can read all about Hunkpati Investments here.

Took some great cloud pictures. Like these.

Had to spend a day driving to the airport. Here's "what's up" at the rest areas in South Dakota.

Krystal took "rest area" a little bit too far.

I enjoyed the fresh air and scenic vistas.

Loaded a bisque firing.

Tempy helped me glaze. She's very helpful.

Took her for a walk as a reward. We found a bunny.

Glazed some more.

Loaded up the kiln.

Watched it get warmer.

Unloaded. Thrilled about the blues. The Rust Red has been giving me a lot of trouble lately, though. Grr.

And threw some more bowls.

So that's been my week. Krystal's been out on the eastern seaboard and I get her home again tonight. Might be able to squeeze in a little more throwing before her plane gets in if I try really hard.

That's it for now, I suppose.

For the record, studio listening lately has included: the latest from Beach House, Bloom; new music from Alabama Shakes, Delta Spirit, and M. Ward; and I dusted off ye olde Les Mis this week after catching this at the theatre last weekend.

Take care, y'all.
Sent from my Verizon Wireless 4G LTE smartphone

To the Northwoods and Back Again

I'm pleased to announce that in spite of spending 22 hours on the road this past weekend I have continued my streak of productivity. Friday saw us headed North by Northeast to Duluth, Minnesota, for the wedding of my dear friend, fellow artist, and sometime-brother, Alexander. It was a wonderful wedding, with much merriment and mirth and dancing and such. And you should click on his name there to check out his work. One of those folks that just oozes creativity. Kind of makes you sick, actually. But seriously, he does some phenomenal things in digital/illustration/mixed-media/printing/typography that are worth checking out.

So we spent some time driving through the Northland and accompanying Northwoods. Beautiful country, beautiful time of year to be there (as opposed to, say, January). If only we'd had time to stop and hunt for wild blueberries, it'd've been perfect. 

The woods. There are roughly 10,000 lakes somewhere in that picture. I think. Stunning view.

In the Northwoods, you can even look stunning while chatting it up with your mother-in-law. Well done, Krystal.

In an attempt to avoid the myriad stretches of construction on the interstate between there and here (and for a change in scenery on this drive we've been doing oh-so-often) we pulled off and took the back highways for the last couple hours home. It included Krystal's first visit to the world's only Corn Palace. I've been before, but Krystal needed to experience it. I think it also fits into the "stunning" category. And to think, after all these years, nobody else has even attempted to take the "world's only" qualifier away from the Mitchell Corn Palace. I mean, really?

I'd like to know just what it is we're voting "yes" to in the mosaic up there.

For those not in the know, yes, that building is covered in corn. Ears and shucks and tassels and all of it corn. I hear tell that the exterior mural is redone every year, which is why it isn't all rotted out. And of course everyone there was thrilled to meet Tempy. Because she's perfect.

But yes, this is supposed to be about pottery, right? So, despite all that driving I still got to do some throwing and other sundry pottery projects this weekend, last week, this week thus far. I'm working hard to stay productive and harness all that road-weary pent-up anxiety into something positive.

I made more slip. And put it in a nice big jug. And put a pretty blue label on it. Yeah!

Threw these big bowls Sunday night after 7 hours on the road. That's what makes me a go-getter, I guess.

These bowls are all dried. Not a particularly "active" process on my part, but it's shows what I  produced last week, I suppose. I'd like to note that I spent a few seconds trying to turn "productivity" into a verb before I settled on produced. It's been one of those days.

My little corner. It looks like a potter lives here. Also, this vantage point shows you exactly how tall I am. Bam!

And that doesn't even show the trimming of large bowls or throwing of additional large pots or recycling of 25 pounds of clay that have occurred. Take that! I had a picture of this little vase from a different angle, but I thought the overhead shot of my workspace had a better feel. Artists call this "view point" or "perspective" and it tells you something about the "agency" of subject and auteur, but unless you're really into art you really wouldn't know anything about that. No big deal.

All that to say that I've been staying busy and will continue to stay busy as long as allowed. Which might not be long. I'm getting tired of busy, to say the least.

So keep up the good work, and I'll see you here again soon-ish.

Busy Weekend (and still one day left).

I've had a busy weekend so far. But a good kind of busy. Pottery, non pottery. All good things. Well, mostly good things. There was the 30 inch vase that I had to trash, but it wasn't too much time loss (section thrown; pieces thrown quite nicely, quite quickly; went a bit too far dry before joining, too much weight in the top half; the pull of reshaping and the added weight caused some issues in the support on the bottom of the vase. I'll be trying again this week.). But productivity was not lost on me. This is what I woke up to this morning:

Them are glazed pots in there.

So of course yesterday was filled with the accompanying sort of messes of glazing and such.

Not the final arrangement: still playing with the best spacial arrangement.

It only took me 4 hours to glaze this kiln-load. Had the table cleared before dinner!

Speaking of dinner, the First Course: garden-fresh grape tomatoes and basil on an olive oil brushed whole wheat crust, topped with feta and just a touch of mozzarella. Grilled. Fabulous. Needed more tomatoes, which we had. Had I known, it would have not been a problem. As it was, hardly a problem.

Among the other things that happened yesterday: we started the morn with a 14 mile run. My longest run to date, Krystal's longest run in nearly 7 years. When we were within a mile of home (we were delirious - debating whether or not rhinoceros are hoofed mammals or not. Because seriously, if you've determined that you're trying to guess a horned, hoofed, herbivore native to the African plains that isn't a cow, buffalo, antelope, or goat, this is an important point. I'm pretty sure they're not hoofed, and I convinced Krystal* as such, but seriously.) - so, let me restart this thought. When we were within a mile of home I observed to Krystal that the Marathon will just be this, twice. Not too shabby, I say. I think I can do it. I think it will not be fun. I think it will hurt. But yeah, I'll get medieval on those 26.2 if that's what it takes.

I also asked Krystal, somewhere around halfway (so, we've already run 8 miles) if going out and running for hours on end ever just seems stupid. She just gave me the look.

All that to say, by noon or so we were all cleaned up and ready to tackle the day with the rest of our tasks, like glazing and groceries and teaching Temperance how to dance. Because she's awesome.

Our dog is an awesome dog: she trains with power and love, our Dog is an Awesome Dog.

So that was our day. Running for the better part of the morning, teaching our dog to dance, buying groceries, glazing pots, grilling pizza. Ready to do it all over again. Except with less being on my feet. Cause I'm sort of done with that. Here are a couple more pictures of things that have been happening this week and last week and such that never got photographed or posted.

This one's actually in the glaze fire already, so a bit behind the times.

This one's drying. Discovered I have sore few of bowls in this style for October show. Time to kick it up a notch. BAM! (Must be channeling my inner Emeril this morning. Don't know what's up with that.)

Bigger mountain vase. Pretty nice balance to it. And the camera's autofocus needs some help apparently. Sorry!

Well, that's all I've got for now. Still working on shots of the last firing, and there may be new pots in view by bedtime tonight. As you saw above, the kiln is still glowing. In fact, it needs to drop about 2000 degrees before I can open it yet. So that may be awhile. But I'll certainly keep you posted.

Thanks for stopping by, and don't forget to keep your Sabbath holy! Or at the very least, restful!

___________________

*in Krystal's defense, when we play the "Guess the Animal Game" she normally goes places like "Grevy's Zebra" or "Reticulated Giraffe." Most people are all like, "Horse" or "Cow" or "Bear."** So, she's hardcore, don't think otherwise. I'm willing to say this one was just misstated.

**In my defense, she has met her match. She may know the rare specifics of Blank Park's collection, but I'm all like, "Amur Leopard, BAM!" or "Narwhal, BAM!"*** Yes, in fact there is such a thing as a European Bison, and that's why I kick butt at this game. And I've got a secret weapon for the next time around. Been saving it for years. She'll be like, "What? Can't be!" and then I'll come home and bust out or Guide to Wild Animals of the World and be all like, "Read it and WEEP!"

***I'd also like to point out that she required three (3) reliable sources to convince her that Narwhals were real and not just fantastical. Yeah, take THAT!

A real post?

Well, the wifey's been out of town for the last couple days which means I've actually had time to devote to clay and such.  There it is, there are pros and cons to bach'ing it for a few days.  Mostly cons, though, I'd say.  Tempy and I sure tried to stay upbeat, but it's hard with our Krystal absent.

So forlorn, sitting in the rain, waiting for our Krystal.

Somehow being pathetic is cuter when you're a thirteen pound fluffball.  So we're ready to not be alone anymore.  But as I said, I got to do some potting of substance.  In no particular order:

A veritable smorgasborg of plates.

Some bowls to match the blue-trimmed plates.

Plate to match the blue bowls.

Plates trimmed and footed and drying.

Recycling clay! It's really not that thrilling at all, except that it's been a long time coming and needed to be done and it's been a while. So these are the things that excite me these days.

Bowls to match the plain white plates.

So that's what's been happening in the studio.  Lately I've been enjoying the tunes of Foster the People's full length debut Torches as well.  We heard one of their songs on an iTunes alt-rock radio station a couple weekends ago and were intrigued enough to look up who they were.  Picked up their album when it released later that week and have been enjoying it pretty regularly since.  Electronic-minded dance rock - Maroon 5 meets The Killers on tour with Kylie Minogue.  Check them out below - "Pumped Up Kicks" and "Houdini" are favored tracks off the record.  Good music for a morning run or a stretch in the studio.

Also in heavy rotation lately: the latest from Paul Simon (funky, enjoyable!), Bleach's eponymous "couch" album (10 years in, it's still on my desert-island discs list, on account of I'm never NOT in the mood for it), and I'm still rocking Foo Fighters' newest, Wasting Light pretty regularly, too.

So there you have it. You should check out any of these four musical recommendations: because I said so.  Good night, and have a pleasant tomorrow!

Post #151!!!

Apparently my last post was the monumental post #150.  But I didn't notice, so I didn't mention it or do anything awesome to mark the milestone.  But I'm here to make up for it!  I'm finally home without any plans for travel in the near future.  Granted the last couple trips out of town have been for funerals, and thuswise out of my control, I'm looking forward to some downtime.  Or at least hometime.  And also because it is time to introduce to you my new studio assistant!

Ladies and gentemen, I proudly present to you Miss Temperance (Tempy) Langholz!

Yeah, I know that's Krystal.  Tempey is the little fuzzy one.

She's cuddly.

Ferocious.  Yeah, that is a Tyrannosaurus she's owning there.

And of course, as my new assistant, she also exhibits those most all-important traits such as dilligence, responsibility, go-getter-ness, and, clearly, is a VERY hard worker.  We're very excited to have her on board.

She's still of course on a probationary period before she'll be handling any studio responsibilities, but she's a very quick learner and expect great things from this young creative prodigy.

That said, she's keeping us busy.  Add to that a visit from the inlaws (love you guys!) that coincided with her arrival, and we've had a very full week.  Without nearly as much sleep as I prefer to get.  And certainly not enough potting.  But I did get into the studio today to take care of some pots from last week?  last fortnight?  Something like that.

Yeah, thought I'd try another rainbow pot, with some carving.  We'll see.

Also, there's been some studio changes for me lately.  Namely my decor decided to descend from the walls, so now there is none.  Trying to come up with a creative way to get these cork sheets back on the wall, because clearly the little adhesive pads aren't cutting it. 

Rebellious cork squares.  How am I supposed to draw inspiration from an empty wall?

I also swapped out ye olde folding chair in exchange for a more pottery-suitable stool, courtesy of my folks.  This may not sound that exciting, but boy, let me tell you, it really is!  Thrilling!  Stools are the only appropriate thing to throw pots in!  Also, this stool has been in my family for as long as I can remember.  Like, literally.  At least 22 years.  I don't remember Dad assembling it, but otherwise it's always been a family staple in his music studio.  Rearrangements at home (and perhaps in his lumbar vertrebrae?) have resulted in a different studio arrangement for him (a real chair) so I got this beauty:

Isn't it great?  Adjustable legs!  Now it fits my wheel perfectly!

There you have it.  Post #151, full of excitement.  Also, it's been sunny and warm all week.  What more could you ask for!  And all sorts of great music this spring!  Have been grooving with the new Radiohead and bopping with the new Strokes record (it was streaming all week on their website, here!)  So that's awesome.  And I'm looking forward to some new Foo Fighters in April, not to mention NPR's insane amount of live concert recordings from the SXSW festival in Austin, TX (find them here!).  Post #151, you didn't fail to deliver.  It's been an awesome week full of wonder and excitement.  Next: moving on to a full docket of glazing + more wonder, excitement, and discovery galore!