Painted glaze on pots

Yep, I've been painting more flowers and leaves on pottery.

Geraniums to be exact.

Glaze is painted upon bisque-ware.

The colored glazes are covered by a coat of matte clear glaze. This will also be waxed before the whole pot is dipped into a satin white glaze.

The finished pots...I like the watercolor look with the designer liner lines, and the Mayco Stroke N Coat glazes for colors...brighter where there are 3 coats.

The little saucers go with cups which I've shown before, to sit under them, or beside them. Or actually on top to keep your beverage hot some of the time!

These will be available at the Depot arts and crafts store, located in the Old Depot in downtown Black Mountain.  I'm so glad to have them shown there where they may be purchased more hours than when I bought them to the tailgate market.

Cousins called Aunt Alice and Gertie

Another Sepia Saturday meme, which for September is suggested to be "work and play".  As I often do, I spent some research time on family ancestors (who were alive when I was younger...I'm turning into an ancestor!)

On Sept 20 I posted about some of the homes I lived in with my parents HERE. 

I'm going to take a hint from the following picture in front of our home in Houston.  I mentioned our blouses had been hand embroidered by the first woman dentist in El Paso, TX, who I never met, and her sister.


I'm now going to do some ancestry searching and figure out how we were really related to Aunt Alice and Gertie Attaway.

OK,  my maternal grandmother was Mozelle Booth Miller Webb Munhall. (1897-1960)

Her mother was Eugenia Almeda Booth Miller (1873-1936), and her mother was ...
Eugenia Almeda Whitty Booth (1852-1875) She married Richard R. Booth.

Richard's sister was Annie Booth, who married H.F. Attaway.  And with my searching today I found out H. F. stood for Henry Franklin.  So Annie and H. F. had three children, all girls, same generation as my great-grandmother Eugenia A. Booth Miller, or perhaps closer in age to my grandmother, within 10 years)

These girls were
Alice Fredonia Attaway, (1881-1964)
Ethel Booth Attaway (1885-1966)
Gertrude Attaway (1891-1979)

So they were some level of cousins of my grandmother. Did she know them as a young lady? I think she must. How else would she and they do our beautiful clothes? We were the ages their grandchildren might have been.  But Alice and Gertie didn't have children.  Though Ethel did have children, she had married and moved to California, so we had no contact with them.

But was Aunt Alice really the first female dentist in Texas?  Oh yes!

I guess she didn't make much of a splash, like most dentists don't.

She had the same office in downtown El Paso from 1913 till 1948.
It was in the famous Mills Building.  Suite 212.

Mills Building Directory (Alice Attaway, suite 212)

The Anson Mills Building today

The caption says,
"Most Significant Achievement of El Paso's pioneering architectural firm, Trost and Trost, was the 12- story 138,000 square foot Anson Mills Building that dominated the downtown landscape for many years following its construction in 1911-1912.

"At the time of its completion, the Mills building was the largest "monolithic" concrete structure in the world.  Every part -columns, walls,  ceilings, floors -  was made from poured concrete reinforced with steel rods, a more economical approach than importing steel beams from Pennsylvania. The original cost was $1.80 a square foot, and General Anson Mills was pleased that the building would have no need for repairs and no deterioration.  El Paso was a town of 15,000 at that time, with no paved streets when the building was completed."

So Dr. Alice Attaway was one of the original occupants of the famous building.

Inside the entrance to the Mills Building.

I have another distant cousin, of about my generation, who had the same ggg grandfather with a different mother.  She posted in Ancestry back in 2010, a copy of the Booth Family Bible.

Alice and Gertrude Attaway are on the right column

Both Aunts Alice and Gertie were listed in the El Paso business directory in the years 1935, 38, 45 and 48. They lived at the same home address throughout their lives, first with their mother Anna Booth Attaway, with her listed as head of the household, then after she turned 70, Gertrude became the head of the household.  I wrote my thank you notes to this address as they sent us pretty hand embroidered clothing. (probably from when I first could write in 1948 till 1958 or so)

Recent photo of the Attaway home in El Paso

The 1900 census has an intact family with father H.F. as a painter, wife and 3 daughters, living in Hillsboro, Texas (where the two younger daughters were born, and even where the Booth families were headquartered.)  Oldest daughter, Alice was born in Waco.

H. F.  moved with the family to Houston, where he died in 1906.

 In 1910 mother Anna Booth Attaway and the three daughters lived in Houston, where they took in 6  boarders and Anna  called herself a masseur.  Youngest sister Gertrude (19) was still a student, but Ethel said she was an artist, and Alice had no occupation at that census.

Gertrude Attaway may have married after she retired from being a draftsman for the Bureau of Reclamation, and before she died in 1979.  Someone added Ellis to her name on her death certificate. She died of cerebral hemmorrhage and deep thrombosis with gangrene in her left leg, according to that record. Who was this fellow Ellis? He was not the informer for the certificate, who was a man named Philip Jacobs.  I'm guessing the informant was someone in a nursing home or hospital, since Gertie had outlived her other relatives that I know of in El Paso. The later census data isn't available on Ancestry after 1940.

I have enough questions to continue to search for more days and weeks.
How did the Attaway girls come in contact with the Miller girls (4 sisters, daughters of their cousins who lived in San Antonio?
 What is/was the Bureau of Reclamation anyway?

They all had roots back in Hillsboro, TX, but most of the original Booth family died before the 1900s.
A lot of similarities are the women raising daughters...perhaps without a man in the house.
My mother was raised by her single mother, and her grandmother, Eugenia Booth Miller.

I don't even have a record as to how they lived between the census of 1940 and the directory of 1948 until their deaths in 1964 and 79.

It's been an interesting day of finding photos and sources.  But now I've got to go back to my real life.

Happy Fall Equinox

In Black Mountain, NC, it happens at 10:21 am on Thursday, Sept. 22, 2016.

When the earth tilts away from the sun at the north pole, and this tilt moves the equator under the direct line of the sun, moving the northern hemisphere towardswinter.  Half the globe moves into summertime, the southern hemisphere, calling this the Spring Equinox.

 Grandfather Mountain, NC.

The best colors in our mountains usually occur the second week of October, but may start a week earlier this year because of having drought conditions for much of September.

OK, balance is the word.
Did you ever try to stand an egg on end for an equinox?
Me neither. But it sounds fun, doesn't it? Let me know if you make it!

Good to think about balancing our lives, when the political situation is so crazy and out of balance. 

And when the news is full of such awful things happening between people! Lots of crisis's to report out there.  So a balance for my heart is to center myself, and be quiet. There.  The doors to crazy are closed for another little while.

I'm still potting along!

 Spoon rests are the best way for me to test glazes. Here a white satin over the whole thing has highlights of matte bronze green, plum and black streaked across it. I like it.

Second test same glazes

Bowl dipped first in raspberry glaze.

Second one show the same glazes that were streaked across it.

I like the matte bronze green, plum and black glazes in combination with raspberry.  But I decided not to do the drips on the outside.  They look messy, and I figure people can make their own drips. Besides, I wanted to wipe them off right away!  One that has less drips is at the market, but one is now serving cat food at my house.  Me and the cat share many rejected glaze tests!

My various homes

I guess it's in my blood.  My parents moved around before I came along, and then every 3-4 years while I lived with them.  I moved sometimes more often, through my 74 years.  So where have I been living all this time, you may wonder.

Born in 1942, Dallas Texas.

This is a night scene of downtown Dallas, while I was off in the maternity ward of Florence Nightingale Hospital.

 My first home, on Meridith Rd. Dallas, TX

I love this early 1950s scene of downtown Dallas, but alas, when I was 4, we moved to Houston, TX

That is me on the left with my little sister, Mary, in our Valentine outfits made by our seamstress Grandmommy. Red wool tams and skirts.  The frilly blouses were embroidered by our Great Aunts Alice and Gertie. (The were really cousins once removed I believe.  But one of them was the first female dentist in El Paso Texas, and I don't theink I ever even saw them.)

This photo is in 1939, but Foleys store was The Place to shop in Houston. When I was 6 I had my first haircut there, in the beauty shop upstairs.

Winter in 1949 gave Houston enough snow that cousin Claudette, myself, my sister and cousin Sandra got to play in the yard at my Gummy and Poppy's house on Brockton.

Then in 1950 the family moved to St. Louis.  We spent about a month finding an apartment, an upstairs unit, but it was big enough for the 4 of us.  Again, snow was falling in the winter, and summers were hellishly humid and hot.

Myself, my mother Mataley Rogers, and sister Mary in front of apartment on Cates Ave.

After maybe 3 years, we moved to another upstairs apartment. These were both within walking distance of The Principia, (on Page Blvd.) the school where mother worked and I attended from 3-12th grade. I even went 3 years at The Principia College, across the Mississippi in Elsah, IL. But let me go back to one home at a time.

Mother, Grandmommy and Mary in front of apartment on Clara.

Here I am with a snowman in the home my parents bought on St. Edumund Lane, in St. Ann, MO.  This meant commuting to school and work.

After I graduated from Upper School and had one year of college completed, my family moved to another home near the new campus of Principia, on Clayton Rd, in Clayton, MO.

Mary, myself and mother, in front of the house that they had built for the family (almost without me.)  I had a bedroom, which was also a guest room. My sister had the entire ground floor, with rec. room and private bath as well as bedroom. 

Miami Springs, FL house.

After college I lived in several places.  First I lived in Miami Springs, where I rented a tiny cottage behind another house while I was a stewardess for Pan American. 

When I quit flying I moved to New Orleans, LA for a short while with my boy friend (soon to be husband).  

St; Phillip St, New Orleans, LA (efficiency above a bar!)

Our next apartments were in Corpus Christi, Texas.  We had 3 llittle one bedroom apartments while expecting our first son, and my husband's discharge from the Coast Guard. I don't have any pictures of them, but the first two were second story dwellings.

Then we moved near my husband's parents, in Hartford, CT.

I don't have any more to share with you at this time.  Some of the homes I lived in were for just a month or two, and some for as much as 4 years.  I don't think I ever lived anywhere longer than that!

I'm going to find some photos to share for the rest of the places (37 in all) where I've lived. These were just the first 21 years so far!

When I wake in the middle of the night and need help getting back to sleep, listing these places is better than counting sheep!

Glazes and Monet

MoMa shows available on line!

I was thrilled to see this in Open Culture's newsletter today. Here.
They come up with the strangest collections, films, books, people, and now all the collections of the Museum of Modern Art since 1929. HERE.

I have visited this museum.  If you haven't, please look through the list and see what you might be interested in seeing.

I groaned through a lot of Art History classes when working to get a Bachelor of Fine Arts in ceramics.  But without knowing about so many artists and their works, I would certainly be a deprived artist.  

Open Culture says, "...when you spend a great deal more time with modern art—looking over artists’ entire body of work and seeing how various schools and individuals developed together—it becomes apparent that all art, even the most radical or strange, evolves in dialogue with art, and that no artist works fully in isolation.



"Take, for example, Monet’s Japanese Footbridge, above, from 1920. It’s a scene from his garden the early impressionist had painted many times over the decades. In this, one of his final paintings of the bridge, we see a riot of reds, oranges, and yellows in gestural brushstrokes that almost obscure the scene entirely. Though we know Monet had failing eyesight due to cataracts, a condition that lead to the vivid colors he saw in this period, it’s hard not to see some homage to Van Gogh, upon whose work Monet’s had a tremendous influence.

I often go off looking at the link topics that are available, and find treasures.

Monet's Sunset in Venice certainly calls to mind the wonderful blended colors that happen in a kiln between different glazes.  It is more microscopic, and more accidental, but I love impressionistic colorations that can occur on pottery.

 A simple bowl with two colors of glaze applied over one another, gives not only a breaking color of the clay showing through on the edge, but a color of purple as well as baby-blue intermingling.

Today's Quote:

When we are in circle with others, the energy stays contained within the group giving back to all. . Daily Om

Love and marriage

True Love or what?  I  remember saying to a friend, that's the man I'm going to marry.
Turned out not to be true however...I think he had other ideas.

Thanks to Garrison Keilor's Writer's Almanac, I am copying this poem from a few days ago.

Love at First Sight
by Jennifer Maier

You always hear about it—
a waitress serves a man two eggs
over easy and she says to the cashier,
That is the man I’m going to marry,
and she does. Or a man spies a woman
at a baseball game; she is blond
and wearing a blue headband,
and, being a man, he doesn’t say this
or even think it, but his heart is a homing bird
winging to her perch, and next thing you know
they’re building birdhouses in the garage.
How do they know, these auspicious lovers?
They are like passengers on a yellow
bus painted with the dreams
of innumerable lifetimes, a packet
of sepia postcards in their pocket.
And who’s to say they haven’t traveled
backward for centuries through borderless
lands, only to arrive at this roadside attraction
where Chance meets Necessity and says,
What time do you get off?

"Love at First Sight" by Jennifer Maier from Dark Alphabet. © Southern Illinois University Press, 2006.


Did you ever think that that was your true love when you first saw or met him/her?
I may have missed out on that one man, but I think I did make a good decision about the one I finally did marry.  Unfortunately that didn't mean I could live with him.  And apparently that happened several times in my life.

Big congrats to those who persevere through years and years of marriage!

But falling in love is something completely different, I think.

Flower painted vases

A week ago I shared some of the process I use when painting glaze onto vases for flowers. (Look Here)

Here are some results.

Today's Quote:

To see a world in a grain of sand, and heaven in a wildflower, hold infinity in the palm of your hand and eternity in an hour.  William Blake