Trees are back

Hi from Black Mountain Center for the Arts clay studio...

Well, this little tree creature looks like a kid with some real problems with his hands.  But those are roots around the bottom.

And I put trees on the sides of 4 mugs today...which are waiting for the next glaze firing...mmm, after the one that's already been loaded and not started yet, so I'm thinking some time next week.  Today a bisque kiln was going.  We may have 2 kilns, but due to the heat in the kiln room, it's not a good idea to try to fire them both at the same time.  And since students want to put their wares in there, we need it to be around 100 degrees or less when we go in to do so...and it's usually bearable.

Anyway, you can just trust me, I've made more trees with heads and other kinds of fun personifications.  Several are going to be offered for a raku firing in a couple of weeks...we will see which ones fit in that little kiln.  I am hoping that they will come through ok.  Another thing that I hope to take some pictures during.

Our dear friend (I was going to say old friend, but it sound like I mean she's old) Maureen Joyce is coming back for a visit and will teach a workshop, and assist Geoff Bird with a separate raku workshop.  The first workshop Maureen will teach will be her way of forming faces on thrown pots.  She's become quite adept at this technique.

I'm also trying to catch up with an order, but it's just falling in those in-between-kiln-loading times.

And I'm sure you have heard that tonight, June 30, there will be an extra second added to our time.  It's something to do with adjusting our (people's) time to match the solar/earth/moon time.  Apparently the earth's orbit, the pull of the moon and sun, mean that we have an extra second coming to us, much like leap year catches us up with the extra fourth of a day that happens each time the earth goes around the sun.

So what are you going to do with your extra second?

My sons' reunion

Having one of those blended families, my oldest two sons have a different dad than my youngest.
So their dad had a big family reunion in California last week.  And thanks to Facebook I got to see their smiling faces in lots of shared photos.

However, not having seen most of that family for at least 15 years, (at my middle son's wedding) and never ever having seen a lot of these people...it's kind of like the Jones or the Smiths.

However these are the Heyms.  And my ex was instrumental in putting the 44 person reunion together.

Here my ex (red shirt) is receiving an engraved memoribilia from a cousin (I think).

This is my favorite picture that has been posted, my ex on the left, my oldest in the center, and my middle son on the right.  The Heym boys.  I'm so glad they got together with all these cousins at various removes.  And my ex was not the patriarch of the family at almost 76.

The man in the foreground is Bud Heym, and I don't know any of the others in this photo.  And that's because Ancestry doesn't give out information on folks who are still alive, and since I'm no longer  a Heym, I haven't the privilege of knowing who is the son/daughter/mother/father of whom.

The patriarch, Bud Heym, and daughter (I think) Margaret Heym-Lemon

That's ok, I am glad to see that my sons now belong to a tree that they can relate to.  My side of my family fell off their tree, so I've had mainly just the listings on Ancestry to look at who I'm related to.  except that now I have some cousins on the Rogers tree that have also, you guessed it, become Facebook friends.  We haven't seen each other since the 50s.  So it's fun to try to figure out how we have such different (and sometimes the same) interests.

And by popular request, here's another selfie of my re-do, the second cutting of my hairs, so they hopefully won't stick out every which way.  This is not true however, as I found out when I wake in the morning.  But alas, I'm not going further with this effort, and will instead just put my head under water whenever needed.  Ah!

Running around like a mad-hatter

Yesterday I was fortunate to have the Mud Buddies booth being hosted by my friends and fellow co-op members Pat and Bette.
And Cathy and I held a yard sale over at my house.

This is the last one for this summer.  When (and if) I move I may have another one, so I can downsize to live in yet a smaller and more economical way.  More "green" is what the popular jargon says.  More in tune with the earth.

I'm actually writing this before Sat, since I don't think I'll have time to write while pulling stuff out by the curb.  So if we had rain, or no sales, these are part of the future while I'm writing, though part of the past while you're reading.  Isn't that fun?

Hope you have a great weekend, whatever part of it you may be embracing as this message goes out to the ether.

PS, It's now Sat. night, and the yard sale was a success, but the heat and sun were pretty hard on us all (I ended up having 2 other friends as well as Cathy helping out) and it didn't rain till after we had "dispatched everything."  That means we piled everything into boxes and took them to Goodwill...and gave away whatever we didn't sell. 

I'm very grateful for friends who donated some of their Goodwill items to me to see if I could sell a few of them first...which I did.  So though I'm physically exhausted, there's a little more in my piggy bank this evening.

However the biggest result of the second yard sale, and this time even with 4 of us holding it, it's way too hard on my physically.  So I am never going to do it again.  Things will just have to go straight to the donation next time.

Today's quote:

There are many fine things which you mean to do some day, under what you think will be more favorable circumstances. But the only time that is yours is the present.

Grenville Kleiser

The squeeze of pottertime

A couple of views of a medium sized vase.

There is not enough time to make, glaze, photograph, store, sell (hopefully) and have a life doing anything else.  This week I've other major things happening besides pottery.

So I squeeze out what I can.  These two vases are torn slab that is applied while wet, then smoothed just on the inner side, with a lot of overlapping seams...which give a lot of strength without weight.

Pottery chugging along

I Bee-lieve in trying a new design and new glaze combo

More of my indented cups...with raspberry glaze and rims dipped in  Plum.

These are almost Yunomi cups, being taller than they are wide.

Post cards that were sent

I'm not changing my profile picture all over the place, but I did finally get my hairs cut the other day...and here I yam, again short for the summer.

About time!  That's one of my Susan Seddon Buolet posters behind my head.

Though I don't have time to research a post for Sepia Saturday this week, I'll share this and say my apologies to the SS folks.  I just don't have any post cards of old buildings. So check out their site HERE.

But if I were to chose an old building to post, I think it would be...mmm, thinking....thinking.









And the nighttime shot reminds me of the movies Sleepless in Seattle, and An Affair to Remember.  That's my romantic heart talking.

But the reason I chose the Empire State building was my own experience as a young adult visiting it for the first time, and buying a post card to send to someone I loved.  See, it all comes together after all.  I sent the card, so I no longer have it.  But I still have my dear one in my heart.

a pile of fur or clay

Here Muffin (head to right with paw over nose) sleeps on the printer (under the towel)

Yes, she looks just like a big pile of multicolored fur.

So, I also have a problem...namely the amount of left-over or shed fur from this warm body...everywhere in the house!

She lies down, and when she gets up, there is a blob of fur remaining.  It is just hairs, but it looks dirty, and definitely untidy!

So I took the scissors to her the other day, as well as her daily brushing.

This pile of fur has been cut from the cat...no cat in this picture!

My studio space at home is very comfortable, and I keep it slightly tidy.  I do work at the BMCA studio also (Black Mountain Center for the Arts).

My own wedging board is plaster under an old pillowcase, and I leave my recycled clay to firm up on it.  However you can't tell by this picture that I left this clay sitting too long, and it's hard as a board.  Time to re-wet it in a bucket and begin the process of reclaiming it again.  This could be a couple of mugs or bowls eventually.

Since I don't do production, when I make 2 plates or bowls, and trim them, I only have a little bit of trimmings left around the wheel.

Last week I was painting some butterflies here at my work table.  Hint, I do keep my glaze bottles upside down, which keeps the pigments easily accessible for the little amounts I use, and maybe helps them not dry out at fast.  One week I tried having them upside right, and the black glaze came out dark brown...

I know, you wanted to see Muffin with her cut.  She's not too bothered by it...and just looks like a pile of fur with strange lengths.  But it has cut down on the frequency of fur balls she usually gives me. twice a week.

Container gardens

I'm barely able to smell this, one of my favorites, gardenia

Sorry the sun was so bright it washed out the pics of vivid colors...or something like that

Of the 2 begonias, the one inside seems to be doing better. 

Art in Bloom - follow up

I publicized the events before they happened.

The White's house, June 19, 2015

  But what was it like to sit for 2 hours at someone's home and share their garden with visitors?

And what was the poetry reading like at Black Mountain Center for the Arts? No photos, but enjoyable listening.

Hidden behind the parked cars was this tasteful sign

I didn't go to the gala dinner kick-off so I can't say what it was like.

And what were the floral arrangements like which were created with a piece of art as inspiration?

Sharing a garden as part of a tour of 6 gardens.

I enjoyed seeing how a landscape designer has built additions to their home beautifully, including how they like to live outdoors a lot of the time.

 The landscaping of a home overlooking the golf course was excellent in keeping privacy behind the forest on all sides, and thus having a shade loving garden.

You could hear golfers through the trees, but you knew you were invisible to them

This week the paintings completed by the plein air artists from all the gardens will be displayed in the galleries of BMCA.  Here one is being observed hard at work.

Finished work

More painting being discussed...

Artist and her finished work

By 3:30 when the thunderstorm hit we were glad to stand in the carport.

There's nothing like having rain and heat and tall trees in the summertime.

The pavement gave off heat, and you could see the sign welcoming visitors easier now that nobody was parked by it.

Come over to Black Mountain Center for the Arts to see the results of those great artists working away last Friday and Sat.  Their work is now matted and framed and displayed for the next couple of weeks.