The things that go bump.. rustle... growl...

I am not afraid of spiders. I'm not. I used to be, but got over it. The studio where I apprenticed was an old building, and in the spring all of the little baby spiders would start hatching and spinning down out of the rafters. Well, I was doing production work and making 100 bowls a day, so there was no time to jump up and run around like a loon every time a few of them would ramble down your head, shoulders, or nose. Yes, I would have to stop if a sizable one plopped into my work, but other than that, just a lot of puffing at them to try to make the tickling stop. This studio is another story. We rousted the place last week in anticipation of new students, cleaning and reorganizing from top to bottom. Even got the bathtub out of there (hooray!). I never dreamed of the beasts that lurked. Forget my love of all living things, Ian, spray the heck out of that room!!! And I say this, not because of the wolf spider we uncovered that had a body as large as my thumb. The frigging thing growled at me, I could have sworn. It said, "go away!" We threw it outside, where you could hear it rustling as it ran through the tall grass of the field next door. The field, as Wren told me yesterday, which is full of snakes and poop. !?!?!? No, no, that son of aragog did not warrant a full room spraying. It was this beauty and his many kin that got the sprayer out:

just about life size

Yup. The place was and is a black widow haven. One look at the wiki page on the southern black widow and I was done. Neurotoxins and toddlers don't mix. I now have a fear of putting my hand under my chair and finding one of these attached to my finger. Shudder. I used to be afraid of the brown recluse, simply because I have no idea what they really look like. But, no, these things just look like they are going to take you down. And they can. Sprayer, don't fail me now.

my beautifully cleaned up studio

On a positive note, I am loading up the first finished painted giant pot and am working on the second as fast as I can. I'll give you a hint on the second, because it's a marvel. Reverse vine pattern. And I said it couldn't be done. Let me tell you, it won't be done on anything smaller than this, because it's a mental boggler. It has to be done almost entirely freehand, unlike most of my black background pots which I draw out the entire pattern before I start. I am so excited.

the first of the giant pots to be painted

I have reached a point in my big pot voyage where I can throw taller than I can fire, my kiln only being 26.5 inches deep. In desperation, I decided today to apply to the Arts and Science Council for a new kiln grant. I'll be working on this until the deadline, trying to make my case. I really do want to make huge, elaborately painted pots and have a big exhibition. Keeping my fingers crossed that I can make this happen. Otherwise, you're going to see me riding down the road with a three foot tall pot on my lap, praying that I don't chip it before I can get somewhere that can accommodate it. Urgh.

Spider Holocaust and Other Tales of Glazing Woe

Have I mentioned before that I loathe the glaze? Do not enjoy it. It is, undeniably, the part of my creation process that will mess a pot up faster than you can say, "WHY?!?!?" So, it makes me a bit nervous. And cranky. And anal retentive.

So, today, I had to glaze, seeing as how Pam is driving all the way over here to pick up a gargantuan flower pot. It would be nice if there was one finished, I thought. This involved mixing up more glaze, though. I had a big 50 lb bag of dry glaze that just needed water and a good sieving, so I set to it. Snapped on the respirator, got the buckets ready, and commenced dumping a pile of it into bucket one. Through the dust cloud, I poured an amount of water into the bucket and started mixing. As the dust settled, I had a what the hell moment. I thought that my giant whisk had gotten grass stuck in it or something, but more and more of it started floating up to the top. Upon closer inspection, I realized that it was spiders. All sizes. Lots of them, and by lots I mean dozens. I guess I hadn't sealed up the bag tight enough and they had colonized the area. I felt horrible, being a true trap and release person at heart, but there was nothing to do about it. They were gone. Good thing I was wearing gloves, because the sieving process left a significant pile of spider parts that I hadn't scooped out. No picture here, I really didn't want to share. You're welcome.

I will share a picture of my latest proud creation, the mystical pizza stone. Some bugs to work out on this one before I sell them, but it turned out gorgeous. Story behind this one: Ian and I got a pizza stone for him with our wedding gift cards that he loved using. I didn't use it much because it was always getting pepperoni grease in it which made my vegetarian stomach turn. Not that it would have hurt anything, just kind of freaked me out. So, in Ian's mind, I hated the pizza stone. Fast forward to when we were selling our last house. I had to keep the house in showing order at all times because we were constantly getting people coming in and out. It was right after Christmas and I had made my usual batch of cookies, which were stored in a giant tupperware box on the counter. Someone called first thing in the morning for a showing and I started scurrying about trying to tidy up. I was trying to make sure nothing superfluous was on the counter, so I threw the cookie box in the oven. Weeeelllll, later that day Ian fired that thing up to pizza temperature without peeking in and we started to get fumed out. Yep, that box had melted, making a plastic-y oven rack/pizza stone/cookie sculpture you wouldn't believe. Of course, I had sabotaged the pizza stone on purpose. To make it up to him, this anniversary I tried throwing a pizza stone. Had a great time painting it with a man in the moon pattern and fired two of them (just in case). Good thing, too, because the one that I gave to him did this upon first baking. Nothing like picking shards out of dinner.

The second has held up through numerous pizza bakings, so I think it was just a fluke. Actually, I think I did something a little stupid in the firing and stressed it out unduly. I am not telling what. That's between me and the kiln. Anywhoo, here's the finished result. The jury's out on whether there will be another made to sell...

go big

I have been fascinated with people who could throw big ever since I tried my first pot. I especially marvelled at women who could throw big, and have held my mom-in-law's good friend Gen Groesbeck as a paragon of throw-ability. She can throw HUGE amounts at one time, then coils and throws until I could hide in the damn thing standing up. And they are thin. See, I've always focused on thin walls and as close to perfect form as I can get. Big never happened. Until now.

My dear friend Pam commissioned me to make a gargantuan flower pot for her orange tree, so I set to it, sitting at my wheel with my little 7 pounds of clay, thinking that I was going to work it out. Well, it worked me out. And it never got even close to being gargantuan, no matter how thin I pulled it. Boy, did I have some fantabulous blow-outs! Until I decided to try the whole coil and throw method. Behold the result:




There's nothing like this method for giving you the feeling of riding a bike successfully for the first time. That whole, "I'm up! I'm up! Oh crap, I'm going to lose it! No, no, I'm good! I'm going to make it! There it goes, crap crap crap, no no I"M OKAY!" My first two pieces were riddled with air bubbles, often threatened to wobble, and sometimes did for a bit. They are nowhere near perfect, but boy, were they satisfying.

Until the vase ate my head.

No, just kidding. That would be my husband's sense of humor and mighty photography skills. Remember while looking at these pictures that I am not a small woman, just in case you think they look perhaps not as gargantuan as I let on. I used to be almost a six footer, before child birth took it's toll (yes, it made me shrink a whole inch!). Anywhoo, finished my last mizuko, and am feeling much better about life in general now that we've all had a turn in the hospital. Yes, the plague of bad luck got Ian as well, but he is feeling much more human now. That should be my motto for now: Feeling Much More Human Lately. Well, now I'm just looking forward to making the perfect gargantuan super sensational rock star vase soon. Yep, just as soon as my local clay supplier gets it together and gets more clay in [ahem]. So... tired... of... recycling.

mizuko and miscellany

I was about to just write a post that said meh! I don't have time for this. And it would be true. But... I'm sticking with it. Not even going to try to catch up, but I will say that Christmas was great. We sported watery sniffling noses, but had good spirits and great times. Etsy worked well for me until the shipping cut off date, when all the sales mysteriously dwindled to a thumping screeching halt. Insert sound of wind and scuttling tumbleweeds here.

I had a fantastic success with my first Etsy Mud Team challenge by winning the valentine's vase challenge. I was relatively kerflummoxed by it, but really really pleased. It was based on a papercut valentine I did for Ian years ago, when I had a job with a LOT of down time. This year, I made him the only existing super large valentine's mug, with some hot chocolate to go inside.

The rest of 2009 has been, um, how shall I put this? Oh yeah, crap. Going into the personal here, which I normally try not to do, but has to do with pottery so I'm going forward. We found out that we were expecting a new little one in January, much to our excitement. Then, much to our distress, we lost the little one at 6 weeks. We had lost a baby before Wren at 6 weeks as well, so it wasn't out of our realm of experience, but still very hard. I tried to find something to help me wrap my head around the whole thing and ended up finding something online about mizuko, which are little statues that parents in Japan place at shrines to memorialize unborn children. Now, I don't subscribe to the rest of this thinking, and actually find buddhist thought that these children have to do penance in the underworld for the pain that they have caused their parents very disturbing. However, I liked the idea of a little memorial and set to making two of my own, a kind of healing process in it's own right. I took great care with the throwing and painting, and would have felt a great relief when I unloaded them from their final firing had I not had another great kick in the pants from mother nature. Actually, on the day I unloaded them.

I had just finished a class with Michaela and wanted to finish throwing a set of plates for us to use. Yes, I have never made myself dishes because anything I take enough time to handpaint, I need to sell. But I finally found a glaze and clay body combination that rocked me, so I set to it. To those who do not know me well, I am not a mad glaze chemist. Hate trying new colors. Hate mixing them up and hoping they turn out right. Hate the whole guessing game. This is a huge step for me. Anywhoo... I digress. As I was throwing, I started to feel strange. My back hurt, and it felt like the pain was going straight through to the front. I just felt really off, so I threw eight as fast as I could and went inside. Well, things went downhill from there, with the pain getting worse. I called my doctor who thought it was a kidney stone and told me to take some painkillers and see him on Monday morning. I had a really rough night, with the pain not letting up and even going into my chest, then awoke to another positive pregnancy test. I called my girl doctor, really freaking out and she told me that the pain was probably unrelated and to see her on Monday morning. Hmm... I sense a theme. I digested that for about and hour, then took myself to an urgent care, where the doctor told me to come back on Monday morning. Just kidding. He wouldn't touch me. He sent me directly to the hospital. So, I got my mom to come up to take care of Wren and drove to the hospital. After a bunch of tests, they found that I was bleeding internally and rushed me to surgery. I had an ectopic pregnancy which had ruptured and pretty much shredded my left fallopian tube. This week has been healing and trying to get a grip on everything that happened. I feel much better, even went out and loaded the kiln and threw today. Which made me wonder if something about throwing, the way I was using my muscles and such, contributed to the rupture. Well, I suppose it doesn't matter. Right now, I'm off to make another mizuko.

Indian Summer and the Crash of Fall

We've been revelling in fall and all of it's really good things lately. To start, Halloween this year was the first time that Wren could actually participate. We didn't go all out, seeing as she isn't even two yet, but did let her go to a few houses around. She is now mad about candy, as seen here clutching packages of dots like she's won an award.

We were actually surprised by the lack of trick-or-treaters in our new neighborhood. It seems everyone goes downtown on Halloween in this part of Concord. Oh well, more dots for us.

We've had a beautiful Indian Summer, where we frolicked outside to our heart's content, basking in the sunshine and taking walks to the grocery. I was in painting mode, so I didn't get to spend as much time throwing as I would have liked. I did get an amazing amount of stuff finished , even if it did mean staying up until the wee hours waxing and glazing. I actually did a firing on Halloween (which worried my little superstitious heart) and it turned out beautifully, despite an agonizingly long firing time. Yes, I had the thing jammed with plates and packed to the hilt. Then came the cold again. I didn't have to look at the kiln to know that winter is right around the corner. That would be 37 degrees inside the studio.

I'm relatively tough if I have a bucket of hot water and a space heater, I can handle it down to freezing if need be. This past week has tested my limits, though, and taught me a thing or two. If I wasn't such a dingbat, I would have been able to puzzle this out before I wasted a day of throwing. I spent Tuesday making dinnerware sets and was so proud of myself, never thinking that there might be trouble if the highs were only in the 40's. I put myself to bed without a care in my head, went out the next morning to tragedy and massacre. Guess what happens to wet pots if the temps get down to 18 degrees? Give you a hint: ice does horrible things to most everything.

I was actually impressed by the destruction after I had some time to get over it. Hey, every day's a new lesson, right? Anyway, one thing that I had tried on the day of great freezing that was so much fun was Christmas ornaments. I had forgotten how much I liked to throw wacky shapes for kicks when I was apprenticing until I stumbled upon this idea. Of course, most of the ones I tried were broken up or had a weird scaly, almost furry surface, so I ran out today while Wren was napping and tried again. I got about ten of them done before she awoke and felt completely refreshed. Nothing like a completely non-functional goofy challenge to put a new perspective on your working life. Of course, mugs are going to seem such a chore now. sigh...

I ran into the house and scooped her up, took her outside before it got really cold again, and had a blast raking leaves. I made huge piles for her to jump in (leaf piles are meant to be jumped in with wild abandon and anyone who would deny a baby that is just wrong), and found a bounty of nuts underneath. I now have an entire Trader Joe's bag full of pecans, and there are still plenty on the trees. I sent a bag home with my mom today, begging her to shell some and promising many more to come. Finding them is better than a daily Easter egg hunt, but shelling them is a different story. Especially with so much to throw and so much to knit!

cold, inspiration, and the pursuit of the white squirrel

I'm always amazed at the suddenness of fall in North Carolina. It will be 85 degrees for an eternity, then wham! It's freezing and breezy without warning, usually right before Halloween. Although, there have been a few where I've been handing out treats barefoot. This past week or so, the cold has come upon us with a snap, forcing me to drag out the space heater and fill buckets with hot water to try to stave off the inevitable chapped knuckles. My studio is unheated, uninsulated, and very charming with it's open rafters and visible daylight at the join of the roof and the walls. It's excellent to hear bird songs in. A bit worrisome when I think of trying to fire up the kiln when it's that cold, though.

I'm a girl that gets into her groove and stays there a long time. I find shapes I like, designs I like, and stick with them with very subtle evolutions. Lately though, I've been getting new ideas and inspiration like crazy. The latest few have come zinging in from etsy, since I bucked up and joined their clay group (clap clap clap). I'm also not good at joining things, so this is a big step. They have all of these events and challenges which just make my brain go nuts. I'm not used to being challenged, but I like it. Not going to try a holiday pitcher, seeing as I can pull of neither holiday nor pitcher effectively. The valentine's vase has really set me going, though. I actually tried to alter a form last night. Note to self: practice altering forms. You suck at it. Good try, keep going. I've got to go get to it again now that Wren's asleep. I actually have deadlines to meet right now and must turn out some mugs for galleries asap. My work, cut out for me:

One of the more interesting wildlife in our neighborhood are the tribe of white squirrels. They're the only ones I've ever seen in this area, and looking at them one cannot imagine how they can survive predators being so visible. One has taken up residence in our yard and I cannot for the life of me get a good picture of him. Actually, due to six huge pecan trees in our yard, most of the squirrels in the world are either camping out or living with us. Here's a sad attempt at capturing his likeness:

Must run, either to paint mugs or a set of butterfly wings. Or both...

new respect

I definitely have a new respect for photographers, web designers, and those who have the kind of brain that understands computer talk this week. Seeing as how my help went to the beach this week, I got the kiln loaded (packed slam full, you may say) and decided to work on some technical things.

The first was to redesign my web page. The first one had a great concept, but was, how shall we say, technically challenged. I did it in Publisher, a great program with which to design brochures and fliers. Websites though? Perhaps not. Ian wanted me to try Dreamweaver, which was great but completely user unfriendly. I use the stumble blindly around mashing buttons form of learning new software. Dreamweaver is not suitable for this kind of thinking. Frontpage, however, was designed specifically for this dunderheaded technique. I managed to recreate my original idea and it turned out fabulous-ish. If I say so myself. There's one picture that's gone awol, but I'll find it and slap it back in. Later.

I also needed new pictures of my pots, both for my website and for etsy. Ian suggested that I make a light box so I would have a controlled environment to shoot. Great idea. I could have it in the studio, so I could shoot things right after they come out of the kiln. I'd use the same lighting and background, so they'd all look the same. Brilliant. I found instructions on how to do this really effectively online at http://www.studiolighting.net/homemade-light-box-for-product-photography/. So I made my version, set up some clamp lights, and took a bazillion pictures. I ran inside, downloaded them, and sat down to a bunch of yellow pictures. Gross. I called photographer friend Jeff McCullough, who pointed out that most digital cameras have an auto correct feature, instead of buying fancy light bulbs. Upon the first attempt of stumbling and mashing buttons (oh yes, this technique spans all technology in my life) I found a tungsten setting. Mashed it and POOF! Instant daylight in the camera. No more yellow. Ha Ha! So I set to work taking many many pictures of many many pots at every different angles. Wow. Photography is hard work. Get up, move pot, sit down, look through, move camera, take picture, repeat ad nauseum. I was sweating by the end of it and my body was tired in about three different major areas. But boy, were my brain and eyes satisfied! And the light box is going to be so useful! Yay!