Big Feet

Some time back , friends had stopped by the gallery and just fell in love with my drawings, the women with large feet. They had remembered the drawings and while having fun, took the photo that I placed on the header. When I located it in my files, it was just too wonderful an image to forget. Thanks for the photo, ladies.

The Lesson

I have a poltergeist roaming the house, probably my uncle who "crossed over" (love that phrase). He keeps moving stuff around so I cannot find it. I usually spend a lot of my time locating items "moved by my uncle". Maria says that "I have bought enough two's of every tool, that the basement is full", and that I should put stuff up in the same spot each time, so I could find it. My rebut, "Luther moved it".

Yesterday was an excellent day for throwing and glazing, I was throwing some 15-20 pounders for most of the early afternoon. The globe shapes are forms that were some of my first forms that I learned to throw. Tashiko Takeazo (sp) is a close friend with Olen Bryant, my mentor. They both went to Cranbrook Academy in Michigan. Olen had a very large collection of her work, which he kept at his office at school and more at his home. I got to where I could pretty much duplicate the work, so to show her how much I loved her work and learned so much from having it available. I thought that I would honor her by showing one of the forms to her. " She got upset with me, when I showed her one of the spheres, Olen said that "she was upset that an upstart "me" could mimic her work." Now that I recall it, shortly thereafter Olen had told me about a "guest" that was coming for a lunchin" and that he wanted me and another fellow to meet her. She is a Psychiatrist that finds "artist" interesting. Even though I had not made a claim to lofty titles, Olen introduced us, the runt and I. Afterwards, Olen told me that she had not found me very interesting. OK, I was humbled. I view the event now with suspicion, because, I think Olen felt I had gained too much ego from my encounter with Tashiko, therefore the lesson.
Well, it is time for me to find my camera, so I can take some shots of the racks of pots that I like to show off. "Luther, dammit, where is my camera?".
So, have a good one today and make beautiful pots.

Summer food

My wife Maria and I have been in the garden picking beans, digging potatoes (taters), and eating our fill of tomatoes. We planted an heirloom tomato call Cherokee Black, it is one of the best tasting tomatoes I think I have ever eaten. We usually turn into summer vegetarians now through usually November when most of the vines die back. I've promised Maria that I would try and get some winter crops out this fall, so we could have fresh greens, beets, and kale in the spring. We will be canning now through late October and enjoying canned goods through the winter.

I've been up to my eyeballs in clay the last two weeks, trying to meet deadlines and getting ready for two of three shows I have this fall.

Shane Mickey (A Potters Life) has been very kind to offer me space in his anagama firing coming at the end of August. I will have some photos from the firing and hopefully post them on this blog. I enjoy Shanes work and find his thoughtfulness of events and the makings of pottery very interesting and insightful. He is a very skilled kiln builder and has stacked a lot of brick in workshops and for indivisuals.

It's about time for this spinner to cut off the wheel and go dream about big pots.

website

The weekend is on us and it becomes the busy time of the week. The greasy beans are ready to pick, I've got to move a stove (getting ready for winter), and I have a bunch of sculpture and pots to trim and finish. My wife comes up from Asheville on fridays with her agenda, which is usually opposite of my own, but her agenda is the things that I need to get done, so the arguments are peaceful (whimp) and usually finished first.
Emily Murphy has posted a blog that is very informative. This post has given me loads of tools to use for developing a website, she just posted her new site and it looks great. I have a listing on the sidebar for her blog.
websitegrader.com is an excellent tool to determine if your website is effective and it tells you things that need added or taken away. I put my website in the form they provide and it went over my site and listed things that I would need to improve. To say the least, I have started working on a totally new site (gads, I thought I was doing so well.) It does not critique your layout, only gives you advice about the number of pictures, etc. It will grade you site against other similar sites
http://wordpress.com/ is another bloging site that Emily talks about on her blog, it might be worth checking out the site.
Time to head to the shop, make good pots.