firing and bowl-ing

its taken about nine months for this post to gestate. now it delivers. after ragbrai in july and hurricane ike and all that in september it took two months for me to begin to care about anything. now i'm working on getting volunteers for empty bowls houston on march 21st. it benefits the hungry and i care about this.

i still feel detached. and different. ragbrai changed me. that's for sure. besides the fact that lubrication makes everything better i learned that i still have it. something. strength. some power i associate with youth. and i didnt know i still had it until i rode across iowa. so thats good. but it doesnt change the fact that my marriage is horribly broken. and unfixable. and that's really depressing.

anyways, i'm making bowls for EB and i'm making stuff for the next woodfire. when ever that is.

my first solo show was this spring in february at lonestar college montgomery.

i just helped fire and unload rob's wood kiln at jenny's place in weimar tx feb2009. photos of that woodfire are at flickr. squid_lady is my flickr name. also on flickr you will see photos of jake's woodfire in edom during the fall2008. i'm feeling fortunate to get an invite to these firings. these guys are both wonderful people, if you ever get a chance to meet either robby or jake, you will find that they are lovely, terrific people and they know their woodfire stuff too.

i'm learning all i can from them.

speaking of learning. i went to a bodacious kickin workshop in january 2009 in dripping springs at bridget hauser's pottery. called texas clay continuum, i came back from that so jazzed! how fun. my friend went too. on the second to last day, she bought 3 different bottles of good rum trinidad, nicaraguan and another rum. she tried to get a 300 pound man drunk then tried to arm-wrestle him for his hat. but he out foxed her and gave other people almost all the drinks she gave him... because he said rum makes him stupid. this guy is quite the trickster, my friend got very drunk. i drove her home.

i'm taking ceramics two right now and we have a glaze project. line blends. i am doing 13 matte glazes and 4 different glossy rutile glazes to layer over the mattes.
lots of tests. guess i need to post photos of that. got two fine rutile glazes so i'm stoked!

note to self - try them in wood, soda or salt.

i'm planning to go to phoenix for nceca - but my friend the rum-lady backed out so i guess i'm going solo. i'm sure somebody i know is going. anyone?