Strange Deer Tales

It must be a night for deers. As I was driving home, I saw a movement in the median, then a small buck made his way across the opposite side of the road. How do you know it was a buck, you ask? By the small set of antlers on his head.
When I watched the evening news, I found out that a deer broke into the indoor pool of the old high school, which was converted into apartments. Apparently he/she jumped through the roof of the pool and landed in the pool, where a security camera caught it lapping the pool a couple of times.
Several years ago I was driving to my sister's home in rural Mississippi, very far back in the woods. She warned me that they had had a lot of deers on the roads and to be on the lookout. It was very late at night and I really didn't want to wreck my car by hitting or trying to avoid a deer, so the last few miles I drove slowly and would honk the horn every few seconds. She thought it was hysterical when I told her of my deer-evasion technique.

Low Down on the Festival

I've been working to get all my Carolina Pottery Festival tasks done. I handle the publicity and mailing. Every year the to-do list starts about a month after the Festival and extends for another 11 months. Right now I am finishing up the mailing of the cards to our public. We have tried to update our mailing list to take off old or unreachable addresses. We keep the list in an Excell spreadsheet. This year I conned my sister into helping by entering the new addresses. I had a stuffed grocery bag full of returned mail from last year to delete from the old master list. When we combined both lists and I culled the duplicates, it got down to about 5200 names. So I am on the last 1000 of those in attaching stamps. Next year, we'll go back to sending out by bulk mail, which is less expensive but doesn't return bad or changed addresses. You could call this housekeeping of a sort, I suppose. I know that before I got involved with the creation of this Festival, I had no idea of the amount of work that goes into it. It has made me appreciate every show I do, since I have the low down on what has to happen just to open the doors. We have a great group of Board of Directors that pitch in and the Cleveland Co. Arts Council sends tons of wonderful volunteers on the day of the Festival to help with admission, manning the doors, booth sitting, etc. I'm looking forward to this year, but somewhat concerned about how the economy and folks' perceptions about it will play out. When you feel personally responsible for how over 100 potters do at a show, it can make you a bit nervous.

Some music I'm listening to

Well, just returned to NC from Florida. I wanted to see Spencer before he left on tour again. While there I got to hear some new music he's working on, for the next album and for background to the documentary that was filmed of Tides of Man. He and the band will be going out with Jonny Craig (from Emarosa, but who is doing a solo tour) as an opener and back up band in November, so they are all busy learning new music for that tour.
He told me about this group, Calexico and then we found out that we both really like Ray Lamontagne. You can check them out through the links. I had heard "Trouble" and "Let it be Me" by Lamontagne on the radio and tried to find out who the artist was. Finally managed to scribble his name down on a tiny piece of paper that promptly disappeared into my purse. Jim swears my purse has a 5th dimensional door that swallows matter like my cell phone, since I can never find it when he calls.
Tomorrow is a long day back in the studio, catching up.

Hot Glass

Jim just met this artist, Marlene Rose, down in Florida. She works in casting glass and I really think her work is beautiful. You can see some of the process she and her crew go through at this link. Be sure to check out the photos of her work. The cast forms are created in sand and molten glass is poured into the sand forms. Some day I would love to explore glass........and encaustic painting..........and forging (blacksmithing). So many desires and so little time.

Birds on the brain

When I was working on the Poe project, I got rather involved with birds. Specifically bird heads. Recently I've found myself making little heads whenever I have scrap clay. These start as pinch pots, which is pretty ironic, since I have always hated making pinch pots. But there is something very satisfying about making these little guys. They drew some attention at the Claymatters sale and the two crows found a new home with a professed Crow Lover. A nice little hawk went home with a little boy. They seem to be getting larger and larger. One even found it's way to the top of a covered jar.

I think it's funny how ideas stew around for a while before they manifest themselves in physical work. I know I got all excited about creating clay boxes (this was perhaps a year and a half ago, or more like 3 years ago, given my warped sense of passing time) and started frantically writing down lists of series of boxes to make. One of those line items on my list was "bird boxes"

I went to the Claymatters meeting this past weekend and watched Barbara Chadwick Bland do a demo of how she creates her little clay houses. All that bird/box/house stuff was swirling away and I thought........ bird house boxes. Not birdhouses. Bird house boxes. Hmmmm, I'll have to ruminate on that a bit.

Fall Open House, Saturday, Oct. 17

Well, this piece won't be there. A happy lady took it home with her last weekend. But there will be some very fine other pieces. Come on out and see for yourself.

10am to 4pm, come rain or shine. No race track traffic to battle around my studio. Just calm music, beautiful pottery and nice people. See you!

This is how we do it...

Sure wish I had the Samantha "wiggle your nose" presto-change0 thing going on sometimes. Oh, heck most of the time. Especially when it comes to loading in and out. Somehow loading out pottery isn't as much fun as Jackson Browne had when the roadies came to take his piano. Had a little trip down memory lane when I went searching for this link. Jim and I saw him on the "Running on Empty" tour in Louisiana. Karla Bonoff opened for him, and it was like two great concerts for the price of one.

Speaking of load outs, Spence and Tides of Man are on their second tour and doing the load in and out every night. Now there's some dedication to your craft. He had a nice write up in the Gaston Gazette yesterday.

Last Saturday

An image of my new set up, using hollow core doors and a happy pottery lover, going home with a piece of magic from the last kiln firing. It was one of three pieces that just sung as it came out!

Carolina ClayMatters Pottery Sale, Oct. 10th

Hope to see you here. I have been working crazily firing new work for this show and for the open house at the studio next week. Hence, no blogging. A fresh kiln load emerging today. Bring dry weather with you when you come!

The Feeding of the 'Roos

Feeding time at the OK Corral. Don't get between a kangaroo and it's trough. They have a mean back kick.

A joey in it's momma's pouch. That looks like a back breaker to me.


Jim is checking out the wildlife, seeing if it's friendly.
Later in the trip we visited the Hinterlands, which is the land back of the coast. There we saw kangaroos in the hills, jumping along. We figured they were similar to deer sitings in the mountains here.

Ravin' for Poe

Raven Box with Poe's Journal, Front and Rear Views

Detail of door, and nest with emerging baby crow

Two of the journal entries, watercolors with torn edged paper and clay covers for journal

Click to enlarge any of the images.



Raven Iced Tea Set, with tray, four tumblers and four spoons with crow decoration.