Today is another day

Yesterday's post got 2 posts put into one...somehow the tree photos were there, which was supposed to be today's post.  And the title was there, but not everything I wrote about getting back in the studio full time again.  Full time for me means every time there's Open Studio time, which is usually 2-4 hours a day.

I have about a dozen pieces in the works now.  That feels so good.  And I am throwing again, as well as about to try glazing again.  Some of the hand painting can be done right here at home, so that extends my time devoted to ceramics.

I dropped some more pottery off at a neighboring hair salon (well, they are seen by folks who are not exactly shopping, but might like them.)  Having finally sold a few I was willing to have my work on the shelf there rather than the one here at home, where you-know-who sees them all the time.

And my hairdresser suggested that I bring in more with lady-bugs on them.  Good timing since glazing is about to start.

 Thought for Today:

Alone we can do so little; together we can do so much.

Helen Keller

Determination time

It's finished! Yay!

I'll show you the 3 stages...

Finished (More views at bottom)

Glazed waiting to be fired:

Dried "greenware" waiting to be bisqued:

More views follow of the finished sculpture.

I'm determined.  Tomorrow I'll show up, and see what I can accomplish, and practice.

Today's Quote:

Reverence the highest, have patience with the lowest. Let this day's performance of the meanest duty be thy religion. Are the stars too distant, pick up the pebble that lies at thy feet, and from it learn the all.

Margaret Fuller

Monday is wash day, right?

Wrong...Monday is when they blew insulation into the attic.  And I stood watch to make sure Panther didn't sneak out from under the bed and out the door which had to stay open.

The downstairs support guy was busy texting.

Then they pulled most of the hose down, then the extension cord with the light, and finally they used a snow shovel to scoop up the little pieces of fiberglass.
I should have vacuumed right away, but I forgot until the next morning.

In the meantime I went to the studio and centered 5 pounds of clay.  Considering I've been making 1 pound mugs, this was quite an event.

Tues the platter wasn't dry enough, but my chest was feeling the work results...every muscle was sore.

So I spent most of yesterday and last night trying to figure out if my heart or lungs had a problem.  I even dropped by the doctor's office, and she wanted me to go to Urgent Care or ER>

I didn't think it was my heart...just a very heavy feeling and hard to move without pain...
Which continued into the night, until I had a nice sweat and then no more pain whenever I turned over.  I think I'll go with slab work for a while.  This old chest needs to be babied for a while.

Oh what joy to throw things

 I look at production potters' blogs with dozens of this or that, and I smile.
I know that's not me.

My goal now that I can again keep my feet and legs from freezing in my studio, is to throw 4 things every day (with some averaging of course if there are very big or very small things.)

So here are the four from this morning.  Then I went down to Black Mountain Center for the Arts clay studio for an hour or so, and finished glazing 6 pieces.  Not sure if that puts me ahead or behind.  I'm starting 4 today, finishing 6 from last week.  Oh well, I'm not in it for the math.

I love being able to do this again!  And then once they are bisqued I'm again having fun with designs painted on them, then put some clear glaze over them, then coated the designed area with wax and dunking the whole thing into our shop glaze.

So before these are finished their green stage (the 4 I just started) I'll do a bit of trimming of their thick bottom sides (not the actual bottom they sit upon) and add handles for the 2 mugs.  I am happy to see that my pot bottoms are thick enough that I didn't cut through when I wired them off the bats.  Ah, I've made thick enough bottoms!  Only another potter would understand that as a joy, I'm thinking.

Physical Therapy WORKS

I'm back in my studio again

Re-learing how to throw pots...these are waiting for handles

Opening up a studio space again after 3 months of not using it...a lot of my time was spent moving things, throwing old clay into buckets to be recycled, and starting finally on a 3 pound lump.  I wedged two of them, but only could throw three pots off the hump...the first was definitely a recycle one.

I had physical therapy for my frozen shoulder for the last 8 weeks, twice a week, and it's made all the difference.  Finally Medicare (without the extra private company insurance "Advantage Plan") was affordable.  Affordable is a relative term of course.  But my budget got shifted again and my priority was to feel able again.

Now I'm only having PT once a week, and have made really fast improvements, so says the therapist.  I think I've been pretty diligent about my home exercises, not to mention having potters muscles in this old bod.  I'm very grateful for my progress and am still trying to go very slowly back into throwing.  There was a time I thought I'd thrown for the last time on a wheel.

The motivation is still slow coming also.  "Patience with all of me" is my mantra today.

Re-juvinating a bowl failure

An o.k. shape, but that little foot and sudden horizontal flair weren't intended, and threaten a collapse, I'm thinking.

I really need to get rid of that donut hole problem but decide to work on flairing the rim instead, for some crazy reason or another.

Hey, look what happened?  It just folded over, not evenly, but not cracking off either.  I gently took it off the wheel and sat it outside in the sun to dry up a bit.

 

Now to do something with ribbing off any moisture remaining, and reforming this idiot bowl, if possible.

Yes, with a few very slow and patient tries, I've got the rim back where it belongs, and the bottom slant is more like it should be, kind of a 45 degree angle rather than all the way over horizontal.

So the final piece should be left alone, right?  Nah, I know that clay remembers everywhere it's been, and tends to want to go back there.  So I think, I'll just change it enough that it will have some resistance to falling back into either of the not so good shapes it had.

I take my big rib and push in on the outside, while my left hand fingers flow up along the pushed area on the inside.

And here's a fluted bowl.  I hope it makes it.  Yesterday's bowl was pretty much the same end effect, without quite the drama!