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.” 

The Goodbye

A Parting Prayer

Dear Lord, please open your gates
and call St. Francis
to come escort this beloved companion
across the Rainbow Bridge.

Assign him to a place of honor,
for he has been a faithful servant
and has always done his best to please me.

Bless the hands that send him to you,
for they are doing so in love and compassion,
freeing him from pain and suffering.

Grant me the strength not to dwell on my loss.
Help me remember the details of his life
with the love he has shown me.
And grant me the courage to honor him
by sharing those memories with others.

Let him remember me as well
and let him know that I will always love him.
And when it's my time to pass over into your paradise,
please allow him to accompany those
who will bring me home.

Thank you, Lord,
for the gift of his companionship
and for the time we've had together.

And thank you, Lord,
for granting me the strength
to give him to you now.

Amen.

- © Brandy Duckworth, 1998

On Loss And Neutral

I forget that all people don't realize how fragile raku pottery can be...and so this beautiful angel is no more.
It's a pity...I was rather pleased with her.

Which reminds me....

Dear Jenny,
Never be too pleased, or too proud or too happy.
It will go away and then you will feel a loss.  Try to always stay neutral....
...think beige.
Love,
The Universe

Neutral is not my nature but I must say, I am exhausted from the losses.....so I think I will try to give neutral a little more energy.

Beige can be quite nice with a splash of turquoise!
...or perhaps turquoise is much more interesting against a beige background....

New Mug Ideas

 I've been working on finding a favorite mug shape and then adding something you don't see every day...like sgraffito!
These still aren't finished.....they'll get glaze on the insides and the little one will have glaze on the bottom.  I've made several more of both shapes and still another shape that is sort of a taller version of the short one...sort of.
 I think they'll all have a different design on them...but still go together.

I still don't have a favorite though.

                  I really like the bottoms!

Summer Break

I've had a nice three weeks off from school....most of it I spent in beautiful Atlanta.


I did go to an incredible raku workshop with Charlie Riggs (raku artist extraordinaire) in SC where I made these...naked two step raku wall buttons....I have great plans for this process!


....and these...ferric chloride wall buttons.....this was a seriously fun and somewhat dangerous process....but, my mom has a respirator (for dying things with lye....'cause that's just what 80 year old women do) so I'll be using that and making very cool things.







I also got in some raku with my friend in Winder and finished these icon boxes!

...and then I drove back up to NC...where two turkeys were standing outside my front door. Apparently they spent the past three weeks admiring their reflections in the door because they made me a turkey poop door mat....lucky me!