Moving

Good things about moving:
Making a space you never imagined living in feel like home.
Redefining what "home" means.
Leaving something that has lost the "home" feeling.
Bad things about moving:
Purging even more things to make the move lighter.
Adjusting to a new normal.
Leaving memories (and hoped for memories that didn't happen).
Not caring if anything breaks because you've moved so much all "treasures" are gone anyway.
Changing your address...again.
Finding young people with good backs to help.
Stairs.
Using plastic containers instead of boxes because you realize nothing is permanent.
Being the kind of person who needs permanent.

I don't like moving, I want a forever home that no one can take away from me...I want to plant something and see it bloom...I want people to use ink to write my address in their address books (does anyone, other than me, still use an address book?)...I want to plant asparagus...I don't want to eat it...I just want to be somewhere long enough to harvest it.

The Experiment Cups...I Love Them!!!

This morning the bats were all asleep in the roof so Winter and were able to go check out the things from the kiln....these cups are my new favorite...ever!
They're really much prettier in real life...camera phones, bad lighting, shaky hands.....anyway, they're a nice crunchy brown, with a matte green glaze that has a little goldish line where the green glaze meets the brown clay
These are small, for juice or wine (big girl juice) but I love them so much that today I threw 6 larger cups (for tea or beer) and a couple of bowls (for pasta....or a lot of oatmeal)....
I like it when things turn out like I imagined!

Mobile Vomitorium, Squished Frogs and Too Many Bats

So, here's how today went....and it isn't pretty.

First off, I needed dog food...well, I didn't need it, Winter did.
Dog food is in Franklin...I live in Dillsboro (30 minutes of serpentine roads and a sharp turn to the right away).

Also, I had decided to go look at a house in foreclosure (I do this occasionally) and asked my Mom and Dad to go with me....they live in Franklin...which was on the way to the foreclosure house in Scaly Mountain.
This all made sense at 7:00 this morning.

The last thing Annie said to me as I left this morning was that she hoped Winter didn't hurl on Mom.
Winter doesn't get car sick.
....so I laughed....
Ha!...like that.

Just as I reached the sharp right turn into the vet's clinic, Winter started that lunging, gagging, hacking thing that never ends well.
As I made the turn I grabbed the only plastic grocery bag in my car from the pocket of the door and stuck it over his head.
Needless to say, this startled him.
He shook his head free and spewed his breakfast all over the dashboard, the door, the windshield, the seat and himself. Pity it wasn't filmed.
It was epic.

The vet's office was kind enough to give me paper towels (I used them all) and Lysol.....I only had the one plastic bag....which had already been compromised...clean up was sketchy.

I bought the new food (which was difficult since it's costly and he could spew Beneful just as easily...but he is my only dog),  put Winter in the back seat and headed up to Mom and Dad's.

As I turned up their road I heard that sound....gagging, hacking...
Yep....all over the back seat....but wait there's more..
...he slid through it as I made the turn.

I met my Mom at the door with my vomit covered dog.
She rushed to the rescue with the hose...which Winter is terrified of.

That didn't go well .

Mom went to get a basin of water we could dip him in which worked out much better.

All cleaned up, I started inside to put Winter on the porch so I could clean up the car when...OMG...gag me with a spoon..... I stepped on something....
something really squishy....
like jello in a bag....
it made a noise like a whistle and then there was a pop under my shoe.

It was a frog!

I don't know, how often does one step on a frog...and totally ruin it?

Mom came out with the bucket of pinesol and sponges for the car clean up as I was doing the I-just-stepped-on-something-freakout dance (which was somewhat hindered by the need to keep Winter from exploring the ruined frog) and looked at me like ....who's gene pool are you from?....

I got the back seat clean and touched up the front seat...and dashboard...rinsed out the sponge, cleaned the pinesol bucket (and my shoe) and went in to check on Winter...and Mom.

I realized I hadn't hugged my Mom properly since I arrived (we hug and pat backs...like burping babies...it's a Patton (!) thing).....only there was something in my hair and I went to swat it away and PUNCHED my Mom in the FACE.......

We decided a glass of wine on the porch would restore us.
Only there was a big schmooy pile of poopage right next to my chair!
(This is really much more horrific than it might seem as there is no trash pick up in the remote parts of NC.)
I put all the fomites (look it up) in a giant ziploc baggie and put it in the back of my car...until tomorrow...because the dump is closed on Wednesdays (?)

Totally purged, Winter settled in for a nap.

Mom decided to keep Winter  (rather than sit in the back seat with him) and let Dad and me go look at the house.

We got a bit lost.

Dad suggested I get an air freshener for my car.

It was a great house...alas, not the house for me.

Which leaves us with the bats.

Annie fired the kiln last night and unloaded it while I was cleaning up vomit and murdering frogs.....I really want to go down to the studio and see how the new glaze/clay I've been trying turned out, but the bats (I lost count at 52) are streaming out of the roof  and I just can't handle a bat in my hair...not tonight.

I'll look tomorrow.

Midnight Train Wrecks, Silly Fears and Play Ball

I don't know if other people even think about the End-Of-The-World but it's one of my top ten worries...along with becoming a bag lady and living in a cardboard box under a bridge with bad teeth and mismatched shoes.
When I can't reach a "Good Christian" person on the phone I immediately think I've been left behind and all kinds of crazy worries go through my head.

I'm pretty sure this isn't normal.

Anyway, the night before last, my fine puppy,Winter and I went to bed early and were woken up (I looked "woken up" up... now I'm even more confused..."Winter and I were awakened" sounds a bit pompous so "woken up" is staying) by an enormous amount of light shining in the apartment.
I just knew this was IT.
(I'm not sure God will smile kindly on me if I greet him with a bad word....which is what I did)
I bumbled to the window and saw six HUGE stadium light thingys, each with four, bigger-than-life lights, shining in on me from the railroad tracks...what the #$%*?

Still somewhat asleep and a little worried it might, in fact, be God (although, slightly confused as to why He was using stadium lights to announce his coming....I thought there were suppose to be trumpets and blood on the moon and headless horsemen and nazguls..).
In a sort of blinded-by-the-light sleepy daze, I leashed up Winter and went out to investigate....
Because this is what one does when faced with a possible End-Of-The-World situation....
go meet your maker...
with your puppy.....
in your pajamas...
without your glasses.

The road was blocked with no-parking cones, the town was lit from all the wrong angles, there was an eerie mist (could have been my myopic vision) and the lights well, they were horrific...
They buzzed.

There were a lot of official looking men in hard hats and vests milling about....one of them, with a Dunkin Donut coffee cup (most likely not an angel...but I've heard one can be caught unawares) asked if I needed help.....I'm sure I looked in need of help, what with my stylish bed head, squinnty eyes, confused puppy and inside out sweater covered pajamas.
I asked the obvious, "Is this a dream?"
He looked alarmed and assured me I was awake.
I asked if the lights were permanent.
"Nope, just for an hour"....
Winter and I headed home.
To play ball....
in the brightly lit hallway.....

For an hour.

An hour and a half later trains were added to the lights...loud, screeching, clanging trains....from 1:30 AM until 5:55 AM...trains from both directions...it did no good to look out the windows...the lights were beyond blinding (here in Dillsboro the arrival of the train is an occasion...we have one tourist train every couple days....it's a quiet affair, involving confused tourists looking for bathrooms, chocolate, a bar perhaps...... a misplaced phone).

It was a very unsettling night.

To top off the surreal feeling of the whole event...no one knew anything about it the next morning.
Annie humored me and walked around the tracks with Winter and me looking for clues.
Just an empty Dunkin Donut coffee cup on the tracks...nothing else.
I was beginning to think God was trying to tell me something in a dream...or, more likely, I might need to send myself off somewhere for more substantial help...more mainstream than Eckhart Tolle perhaps.

Rather than admit insanity I decided to convince myself I had dreamed the whole thing...
only, I was SO tired...
and there was that coffee cup.....
Then we ran into Janet and John, from the wine shop.

Top Gear was filming night train wrecks (?).
Well, of course, silly me.....
They just forgot to let the few of us that live here in town (one street...tiny, tiny town) know this was going to happen.

Here's what I learned...
keep my glasses near the bed...
buy new pajamas...
perhaps, read Revelations...
practice saying, "Well, hello there God." when awakened (yep, used it there) unexpectedly...
....just in case

Here's what Winter learned....
play ball in the hall from 12:00-1:00!

While He Sleeps

Sweet baby Winter sleeps a lot...which is good for now.
The ladies from Moondancer Reality loaned me a really large playpen so he can hang out (and sleep) in the gallery while Annie and I work...although it seems like I spend quite a bit of time in his pen with him!

I have been trying to find this lovely red clay I got a few months ago.  Everything about it was wonderful, the color, the way the glazes looked on it, the way it felt to work with....alas, no one seems to know what I'm talking about. Of course I didn't save the box, or the numbers, or the name...arrrgh!  Phil found a random box of discontinued (of course) red clay last week and I started making these large fruit bowls that had been meandering around in my head for a while.  As I was loading the bisque kiln, I realized the clay fired at a cone we don't use.....none of our glazes have been tried at that temp and I was going to have to fill the kiln.....with things that most likely weren't going to turn out very nice.
Thanks to a mostly sleeping puppy, I filled the kiln with hand built fruit bowls....and wonder of wonders...they all turned out amazing, beautiful, my favorites yet!
now.....to find more cone 5 red clay.....

And So We Start Again

I've been half a bubble off since Rufus died in September.  I didn't want another dog....I didn't want to try and replace him.....I didn't want a dog that looked like him because I didn't want to be constantly reminded of him being gone.
So what did I do?  I got another white German Shepherd.

Meet Winter....I love him!!!

Egg and Hoe Update and Throwing with the Granddaughters

There has been an awful lot of life that happened since the egg and hoe experiment.  Alas, the experiment container was pushed to the back of the refrigerator and, well, it still makes me shudder.  The sulfuric stench, the rotted egg yolk and the smirky, pristine silver charms...well, there really isn't much to say....other than.....don't try this in your kitchen!

On a happier, less smelly note....the grand daughters came to visit!!!
They were amazingly helpful in the studio and threw lovely pots and drew  fantastic pictures for me (and of me!)...we went on a lot of walks and discussed gazebos and dogs and life in general...it was nice.

An Egg and A Hoe

 It's like this....I made a sweet little icon of Saint Dorothy, a patron saint of gardeners.  She's all smoky and ferny and greenish...alas, the only gardening charms I have are very bright silver...not at all pretty against her smokiness.
So, I googled turning bright silver black and found this egg business that I thought I'd give a try...since I actually had an egg (the other suggestions involved liver of sulphur which just sounds horrid and odoriferous).
Here's what I did.
I hard boiled an egg, tossed the white part, smashed up the yolk, laid a paper towel over the smashed yolk, placed the silver hoe and rake on top of that, closed the lid and put it in the refrigerator...I'll post a picture of the results tomorrow.
Keep your fingers crossed, light a candle, sing the alphabet backwards....

Tree Platter

This is the last of the brown clay...really the last.  I was in Atlanta for the weekend and went to get more but they were out.
Perhaps it's a sign to switch back to raku for a while....

Pretty Platter

This was the last of the brown clay....just enough to make a platter!

I used a really cool shaped salad bowl of my mom's as the form...and then changed it to make it more plattery.

I'm pretty excited about glazing it.  Which is odd for me 'cause I mostly don't care for the glazing part....

Possessed Wheel

For the past year my wheel has been having more and more frequent "episodes".
It changes speeds at random times, the pedal sticks and......well, you just never know.

I (the gifted mechanic), watched a you tube video on fixing the pedal
....so I gave it a go.
Now I have one speed.
Really, really, really fast.
And, the dear thing, has learned to turn itself on!

Annie says I should sing to it....I find it's hard to sing and try to hang onto clay spinning at 20 mph.
Although, I can yodel.

I have figured out an odd method of throwing mugs.
I use the on off switch to (sort of) control the speed...although trimming is hopeless.....and many mugs have been sacrificed....and one sponge.

All this to say I've been doing more hand building...mostly little things while I get used to hand building again.

But, yesterday I had the ah ha and made some salad plates and two big bowls!

Snow, Ice, Butter and Valentine Boxes

Here's what it looks like outside...
again.
 
Here's what I've noticed about me and cold weather....
I seem to require a lot of butter.
In normal weather a stick of butter can hang around in my refrigerator for several months.....but bone chilling cold seems to cause quite a butter craving...I put it on toast (yes, I am (was) a dry toast person), saute things (usually I use olive oil...or just steam), add it to the rice cooker...this really can't continue....the snow, the ice....and the butter.

To take my mind off butter I wired keys to valentine boxes today.
They're small, hang on the wall and would be lovely to give to someone who would like the "key to your heart".
Personally, I feel caution should be used when gifting your heart to people...but it's almost Valentine's Day and people do strange things...like eat butter and wire keys to boxes.

Bird Angel

Usually I raku fire the angels I make but I decided to try a new black clay for this one.  I carved twigs in the terra sig (white part) and added white birds...I might glaze one bird red...I haven't decided.
I don't know if she'll turn out...the vent hole in her head didn't go all the way through and she got a crack on the side of her face...I patched it (which seldom works).....we'll see.
Depending on how (if) she turns out, I might put a clear glaze over her....or not. I sort of like unglazed clay.

New Mugs

 I made these mugs to test a new glaze idea.....and to use my new braille stamp (love it!).
I was planning to get a really good picture of them but I just sold them!  Which is good.....still wish I had a better picture though!
They were actually a bit more blue than brown ....and there were little thin brownish swirls that don't show up very well in this photo.  There's also a dent where the handle attaches....so your knuckles won't feel cramped (or hot) as you hold the mug.  The braille stamp is in the small turned up place on the base.  
I really, really like them and I'll make more....perhaps I'll keep one for myself!

Pretty Fairy Houses

My sister, Annie, and I worked on fairy houses today...they can sit on a string of Christmas lights or have a tea light inside.
These were so much fun to make...each one is different!
I think they'll be glazed with a clear bluish glaze that really shows off all the intricate detail (although salt would be nice)...it was a totally fun day!

Saint Milburga Fount

Today I made a Saint Milburga fount.....she's the patron saint of songbirds.
Birds would listen to her when she asked them to avoid damaging crops....she had the gift of healing, caused springs to appear, created beautiful gardens at her abbey in Wenlock...... and she could levitate!
I've decided to do a series of founts...some saints, some goddesses but  all will have something to do with water.
I don't think I'll raku them (don't really know how I'm going to glaze them).
 Perhaps no glaze.
Salt would be nice.
Alas...no salt kiln.
Pity.

New Pasta Plates

These are so pretty in real life...they're black and dark, dark, brown and a mottled bluey gray...I love them!!!

Braille Signature Stamp

It's here!!
My signature stamp.! I had it made by 4clay when they were at the Dillsboro Pottery Festival.  They were so nice to work with and really fast getting it to me....It has my initials in braille so that I can stamp my pottery.....and there's a dog on the handle!
How cool it that?
When my dog, Rufus, went blind I decided I would start using braille to sign my pots.  He was such a great studio dog...he loved to be right next to the wheel or under the slab table while I was working.  Things just aren't the same without him...but now, everytime I stamp a pot I'll think of him.  This is a good thing.

Dillsboro Luminary Preparations

The little town of Dillsboro has two luminary weekends in December (6th and 7th...14th and 15th)....a tradition started almost 30 years ago as a thank you to the town from the merchants.
It is truly super cool! White lights outline all the shops....white candlelit bags line the streets.....there are carolers (real singers from WCU), Santa, ice skating, cookies, hot cider and the last night....fireworks...pure Christmas magic!!!!

Justin (who is young and spry...and available), from the Choclate Factory across the street (where they make the most delicious you-must-eat-this peppermint truffle), is going to hang our icicle lights....until then Annie and I have started decorating what we can reach on the ladder...behold the windows!!

Emily, our niece, came and scraped the fall trees off the windows and helped string cotton balls (snow).....a really troublesome activity for those of us with bad vision.  Now we have Narnia windows....5 of them!
Annie's working on little white lantern houses that will go along the windowsills....can't wait, can't wait!

If you happen to be sitting around feeling all Scroogy the weekend of the 6th or the 14th, you should jump in the car and come to Dillsboro, NC....there's a beautiful, funky, hand-built inn on the river (where the fireworks should be crazy amazing!).  The Dillsboro Inn (google it! Dillsboroinn.com)...such an amazing place.... it won't be long before I just walk across the street one night and book a room.
.....But....wait, wait there's more!.....beautiful mountains, to die for sunsets (and for those of you who never sleep....crazy surreal sunrises) wonderful people, great restaurants and, of course, one-of-a-kind shops....come to Dillsboro and Christmas shop, make some memories.....you will love it and so will everyone you give presents to!!!

Asintmah

 It's taken some time but I've finally finished Asintmah!  She's hanging at Rabbit Creek Pottery with some smaller saints and goddesses.  The leaves on the other side of her grotto are all coppery and fallish looking.....I'm very pleased with her!

Here's a very condensed version of her story....in case you've forgotten:

Asintmah

Athabaskan Goddess

Asinthmah was the first woman to walk the earth.  

As midwife to the earth she wove a blanket of fireweed flowers for a cover and sang to ease the pain of the earth giving birth to the animals.

                                                                         “Thus was the earth populated from woman’s art and woman’s song.”