Charging Opossum !

The other day Gary said "Quick get your camera and come in the back yard; there are two opossum fighting". I ran to the back yard and one opossum had already disappeared. But this opossum seemed like he was still in a fighting mood. Looking through the lens of my camera, I realized the charging opossum was coming straight for me! I was a bit worried since I thought opossum are nocturnal. I wondered why this one was out during the day. Thankfully he veered off at the last moment into the woods nearby.


This vase found a new home the other day and an etsy Japan relief teabowl sold. Lots of pieces are in the drying cabinets; I think I counted forty. They're almost ready for the next set of tests for my upcoming series.


In other news one of my readers, Marian from Lake Cowichan, wrote to me about my Lake Cowichan Mystery post to say the mystery animal was probably a mink. Thanks Marian. The picture above I borrowed from Wikipedia to show you what the sneaky little critter looked like when I saw him so many years ago. Wonder what I'll see today; it's never a dull moment in the wilds of Florida or Canada or anywhere you might be. But I'm reminded I'm lucky compared to so many folks who've been devastated by the throes of mother nature's fury recently with earthquakes, storms, tornadoes and more.

Green Darner

Grabbed my camera and caught this beautiful green darner or dragonfly settled on a loquat leaf in the front yard. Wonder if we'll get any fruit from this tree? Hum, look at that leaf pattern; I'm sure I can use that on clay.


Here's a couple of floral tiles I made. The design is too undefined and the upper right hand corner is curling up, darn.


I like the bold colors and shapes of this tile better. Both tiles are about six inches square.


I tried to repeat the canvas acrylic painting I did on tile, but it cracked right in the middle. I dried it on a board instead of wallboard. I do like the built in textured border on the tile.

For the large tiles I fired the other day, the cracker house and the beach forest, I'll need to use a paint that sticks to glaze for the one with glaze. The other one which I left plain will work with cold surface treatment of acrylic paint.


Our neighbors brought us a ton of vegetables and I cooked up a spicy soup. I had a photo somewhere, but it's disappeared, You'll have to use your imagination for the spicy vegetable soup I made in the crock pot with leaks, greens, squash, yellow string beans, tomatoes and lots of other spices and a generous bit of red pepper. More from the studio coming real soon, so stayed tuned. We saw a resident mammal in our backyard, care to guess what kind? He's coming up next time too.

Black Racer

Here's our resident Black Racer snake. He lives in our front flower bed and true to his name he races along rather quickly.


He also raises his head up to threaten us when we got too close. This particular snake is about five feet long. They can grow up to six feet. Apparently this snake is sometimes mistaken for a cottonmouth snake due to his white chin. But if you notice his head is the same diameter as his body and not diamond shaped which shows he's not a venomous snake.


Here's the snake in the grass, barely visible, better to sneak up on his prey.


Meanwhile I have most of the giveaways packaged up ready to take to the post office this afternoon. Still need a couple of folks addresses. I've been working away on tests for my series. I got these little petri-like dishes at a thrift store years ago. I find them very convenient to mix up small batches of slip separately to avoid contamination of my large batches. Glass is so easy to clean too. Have a good one.

Generous

Sometimes people are so generous. I ordered the shino and ash tea bowl above from my friend Amy Huacani and she also sent the one below for Gary. Gary promptly picked up the one above saying it was perfect for him. Gary has severe arthritis in his thumb and sometimes he can't pick things up. This teabowl design with the little indentation is perfect for someone with his thumb limitation.


Thanks so much for your generosity, Amy, both teabowls are beautiful. I've been under the weather, but I will send the giveaways very soon. Sorry for the delay.

Pine Needle Baskets

It seems every where I go I find people creating art from natural items surrounding them. The first time I saw a pine needle basket in California I was drawn to the beauty created from such an overlooked readily available material. Pine needles are often regarded as a nuisance in the landscape. They create a thick impermeable duff on the forest floor, but with skill and imagination they can be turned into a beautiful basket or other creative pieces of art. Years ago I vowed to some day learn about the ancient art and craft of making pine needle baskets. Recently I found an opportunity to fulfill that promise to myself. Today I visited Dot Lehman to take a class on pine needle basket making.


Last evening I went into our back yard and collected a bag of dry pine needles. I soaked them over night in water and drained them this morning to take with me. However fresh pine needles are the ones most prized by pine needle basket weavers. Freshly dropped needles aren't curled and dried out from lying about in the sun for months.


This morning Dot and I started in by removing the sheathes which hold the three ping needles together with a paring knife. The trick is the remove the sheath but keep the needles bound together in their group of three. Many of the needles I collected were of varying lengths and I could readily see those of longer and more uniform length would have been better. But this time of year I had to gather what was available until I can gather some fresh needles when they drop.


The photos you see here are Dot's work, some in progress. At the end you'll see the small beginning of a basket I completed in two hours this morning. I'll go back next week for another lesson, and I suspect many more after that. Perhaps some may think handmade is quick and easy. I have to admit I didn't realize there was so much involved in making a pine needle basket.


Here are some of Dot's earrings with pine needles, watermelon and cantalope seeds. I can see myself gathering and saving the seeds and pods from many plants. I like the fact only items gathered from nature are used in the basket making. Harkens my mind to what the hunter gatherer cultures of Native Americans might have been doing in their daily lives. Here is a link to more information about basket weaving.


Here are some sand dollar earrings. Gee where have I put all the shells I've been collecting. Not knowing at the time the reason why I collected them; I just trusted that I'd need them some day. I have other ideas about using natural dyes for some of the pine needles and incorporating clay beads in a pine needle basket. And there are those pinchpots I want to add pine needle weaving to.


Here's two hours of my work on the beginning of a small basket. There's much more to making a pine needle basket than meets the eye, different stitches, different binding materials, different styles. The materials are simple, but the techniques can be as plain or complicated as the imagination wants them to be. Working with pine needles takes patience and persistence, just like clay work. Stay tuned I'll bring you more news about my pine needle basket making in the future.

Spring Snow

Yesterday it was 88 F and it's easy for me to forget that some folks in the country still have snow on the ground. This is the white variety of Pandorea jasminoides growing in my previous garden. There's also a ruby throated variety.


My large winter white blue snowflake bowl was featured in an etsy treasury yesterday called Spring Snow. Check it out, lots of pretty snowflakes to see.

Spring Snow is also a novel by Yukio Mishima, the first in his series Sea of Fertility tetralogy. The book was adapted to a movie by the same name in 2005.



Here is Utada Hikaru singing Goodbye Happiness. Despite it's title the song is upbeat and Utada's energy abounds in the video. Her hit song, Be My Last, was in the soundtrack for the film Spring Snow. I'm off to my pine needle basket class, more later.

Betty Queen Bee

Whenever we see a gopher tortoise in the yard, we stay inside till they're finished eating. We noticed if we walk by they'll tuck their head inside and then run to their tunnel right away. So we wait till they eat their fill and meander back to their tunnel undisturbed, before we go outside. I read gopher tortoise eat certain plants at particular times of the year; they can tell which ones are in their most nutritious state. Yesterday I noticed this one only ate one type of weed and nothing else. It has flower buds on it right now.


Ever notice how things just pile up on kitchen counters or flat surfaces in your home? Well in our home they do, maybe not yours. Anyway we did some house cleaning yesterday and our kitchen counter was completely cleared off. I took that opportunithy to display a sushi set I made. I noticed the coral color of the fish is the same color as the walls. It's not the greatest photo under fluorescent lights, but there are better photos of this sushi or appetizer set available in my Etsy shop.


The photo is of my cat Betty, queen bee of the house. She's lying on the bathroom vanity counter, saying, look at me. Tomorrow I go to my pine needle basket class (check this link out for a basket tutorial). I was just thinking I love working with my hands and learning new things, so I'm sure I'll have a great time. This morning I'll gather some pine needles from my back yard. I'll soak them over night and they'll be ready to use tomorrow. Stay tuned for basket weaving details. Please leave a comment, that way I can visit your your blog or site if you have one. Thanks for visiting.

And The Winners Are

In my original post I was giving away five 8 x 10 original photos on 35 mm photograpic paper shown on the GIVEAWAY link page of my blog. There were ten entrants in my giveaway: 1-Rob, 2-Michele, 3-Kittie, 4-Mary, 5-Barbara Rosenweig, 6-Barbara from Texas, 7-Acacia, 8-Sharon, 9-Jodie, and 10-Annie in order of their post. Somehow this giveaway was more complicated than I intended. My original post must have been confusing. If I've messed this up, please let me know.

EVERYONE IS A WINNER, please read the whole post. I assigned a number to your name in order of your post. I then put the ten numbers into a random number generator.

The numbers generator generated this order:

2
1
6
3
4
8
5
9
7
10
Timestamp: 2011-04-18 11:43:09 UTC

The names in order are Michele, Rob, Barbara from Texas, Kittie, Mary, Sharon, Barbara Rosenweig, Jodi, Acacia, Annie. First five winners were to receive a photo from the Giveaway page, but I have tried to accomodate your wishes as follows: Michele will get the old truck; Rob will get the Big Leaf Maple; Barbara from Texas, do you have another preference or I can print another photo on paper for you, just let me know; Kittie I will print a purple rose for you (this is not one which is printed on 35 mm paper); Mary I'll send you the old house photo.

Remember ALL of YOU are winners. I will send each of you something for entering, so please send me your postal mailing address via email. Please put Giveaway in the subject line of your email so I'll know your email isn't spam. Thanks for entering, for reading my blog, and for all your comments.

Struting His Stuff

Less than a mile from our home I found a small truck farm selling fresh vegetables, fruits, and eggs. They don't use any pesticides and everything is picked fresh when we arrive. Since the local CSA is 10 miles from our home, we're going to this local farm for produce now to save on fuel costs.


The woman lost her job at a title company two years ago, and her husband lost his job a year ago at a local plumbing company. Her husband works for himself as a plumber now and she sells a few plants and produce in season.


We had a great time visiting and talking about growing plants. Off in the distance I heard a turkey gobbling. Then I noticed she raised turkeys, chickens and miniature horses and asked if I could take a few photos. The turkey was strutting his stuff for me and had no fear. I was able to get some nice shots of him in all his glory. If you look at the turkey closely you can see me reflected in his eye. The turkey colors and texture of his skin are an inspiration for my pottery.


That's muscadine and table grapes on the trellis. You might notice my photos have a water mark on them now. I hate to do that, but I learned a few folks are copying my photos and printing them on their home computer to use. And here I've been trying to sell a few photos to pay our bills. Some time ago a person emailed me to ask to use a photo of mine on their wedding invitation and I said ok. Please ask to use my photos or check out my photos for sale, they're reasonably priced.


We came home with some leaf lettuce, spinach, and a hot pepper plant. I made a crawfish salad with the greens. I told Gary I had to take a photo first. He said, "Of course", rolling his eyes. I made three salads for the photo and we split the third one, it was so good. I'm loading another glaze load. Thank goodness I didn't fire yesterday, we heard a loud bang and then our electricity went out. Apparently a squirred sacraficed his life on the transformer. Stay tuned for the winners of my photo giveway.

Artistic Advice

Saw this video on Ron's blog and thought it worth reposting. I'm not qualified to give any artistic advice and surely I haven't gotten any. But I'm giving and have gotten some now. Here's a short clip which validates some of my progress, ha, ha!


Oh, my mugs are in an Etsy treasury Leslie put together called eclectic collection for pottery lovers. The kiln's cooling with another bisque. Please come back soon. Have a good one.

A Beautiful Bright Spot

Yesterday Gary went by the local repair shop where we take our cars, lately for way too many repairs we can ill afford, but I digress. This repair shop tows cars when they break down and also has a used car lot. What a smart business person to be so diversified. The repair shop got a call from an elderly woman whose car just quit in the middle of the road. When the owner got to the location, he found the woman standing in the middle of the road crying.

The owner hooked up the car to tow it in and had the woman sit in the tow truck with him. As they drove back to the shop the woman kept crying and crying, saying she couldn't afford the tow bill, she couldn't afford the repair bill, the car had been her husband's car who had passed away, she kept crying saying she couldn't afford her bills, she couldn't afford food, she couldn't afford anything any more. She cried the whole way back to the shop and just couldn't stop crying.

Anyway when the owner finally got the woman and her car back to the repair shop, the owner asked the woman to go out to his used car lot and pick out a car of her choice. He gave her the car and towed her old car back to her home. The owner knew her old car really wasn't worth repairing no matter what the cost. But she didn't want to part with that old car because her husband had bought it new so many years ago.

I talked to my friend in California yesterday, she pointed out there hasn't been a cost of living increase in social security in three years. Every job Gary has applied for has said the pay is minimum wage no matter how many years experience a person has. In an interview yesterday the person told Gary, "If you don't take the job, we'll just get someone else who will work for that".

With the rising cost of everything, especially necessities, like food, I can't help but wonder how many people are in this woman's shoes, one car break down away from a nervous break down. The photo above is a flower I saw in our lawn, less than an inch in diameter. A tiny flower, a weed really, but a beautiful bright spot in our sparse green lawn.

Glaze Runs Up Hill

Every time I fire a load I learn something. I dabbed a contrasting glaze below the holes on two of these bowls intending it to drip down the outside and inside. One of the holes on the bowl on the left was plugged up with glaze. I guess glaze runs up hill. I never would have suspected that. I surmise when the glaze is in it's molten state, it must flow in a capillary action, defying gravity. I'll be using these bowls in my pine needle class next week, can't wait for that, so come back late next week to hear about that.


Wish the rim on this bowl was a dark color glaze, but it's growing on me.


Still experimenting with glass, this one is smooth in the bottom so I am getting there.


Moon tiles are almost 3/4 inch thick before firing, one (not shown) cracked, but these three didn't, although the black one has a tiny crack in the top in the middle, almost there on these thicker tiles.



These tiles are 1/2 inch thick before firing, they fared just fine and have a matt glaze on them. I thinned the glaze out more and there is no clouding now. The thick tiles will go in shadow boxes I am making. More about those later.


Wall pocket looks shiny, but I took some photos in garage so the fluorescent lights affected surface sheen.


Darn, there's a small hair line crack in the rim of the this big bowl. I notice lavender mason stain burns out under this matt glaze.


Black clay pendants with mishima white clay, ones on left have a matt glaze which obscures the black color, ones on right have no glaze which I like. Also I fired these to a soft cone 6 and they made it. What type of bails would you recommend for pendants without holes? Any suggestions?


Out of the three black tiles I attached large sprigs to, two cracked, the one with the poppy didn't crack. If the surface of the attached sprig was large the two didn't shrink at the same rate and it caused a stress on the clay. With the pink flower I only attached it with a small plug in the black clay and that was OK. The three butterfly tiles I used black clay sprigs and all three made it fine.


This is a test tile with stains and some native Florida clay with a matt glaze over the top. The matt glaze turned the native clay a nice gray color. I like it; I can use this surface and color on something in the future.


Last but not least, here's a sneak peak of a glaze test for the sculpture series I'm working on, more about that later. Please check out the post below, there's a giveaway going on. Loading up another bisque today, so stay tuned for more results.

Big Giveaway

Did you happen to notice I'm selling prints of photos I've taken over the past forty years? I manipulate some photos to achieve a painterly quality. That's what I've done with the rose photo above. Wouldn't this make a wonderful Mother's Day gift? On some I manipulate the color of the photo to complement a particular room decor, like the aqua photo below. I happen to like aqua so this one is hanging in my kitchen. Click on both photos to see the detail. I have a lot of fun doing this with photos and hope you like them too.


This past weekend I received a call from someone wanting one of my photos for their sister's birthday. I decided I should make up a price list (coming soon) with samples so folks can readily see the format and cost of what they can purchase. I also want to show you how framed photos can enhance the decor of any room in your home. Printed photos are an affordable way to utilize art in your home. To keep the price of my photos reasonable I print them at home. The maximum size is limited to 8 x 10. That size can be matted into an 11 x 17 size and put in the frame of your choice.

You can purchase frames from big box stores or even find them in thrift stores. Choosing your own frame allows you to fit the photos into the decorating style of your home. My current style is eclectic and modern, but you could use a rustic frame, a brightly colored frame, the possibilities are endless. Below is an example of how to use the photos in groups. These three photos (oops, only two show) were taken in Baja and are framed above my bed. I got the frames and matts on sale at Michaels years ago.


It's easy to make a photo purchase and they make great gifts, choose a photo you like from the photo page and let me know which one via email. After you choose the photo you want, I'll get the item ready and put it into a matt if you want one, then I'll add the photograph as a reserve in my etsy shop. You can then pay with the method you prefer. It takes a few days to get the item added, but it will be ready to ship once it's added to my etsy shop.


Here's another example of how I've used architectural photos I've taken in a group frame. These are above the guest bed in my home. You can use photos as wall art in just about any room of your home. How about that long dark hallway, perhaps the laundry room, even bathrooms can use a pop of color and style.


OK, now the BIG GIVEAWAY part, the best part of this long winded post. In the spirit of paying it forward and to launch my photos sales I've decided to have a photo giveaway. I'm giving away five 8 x 10 original photos (I retain the copywrite and all rights to reprint the photos), printed from 35 mm Kodachrome film and printed on Kodachrome paper. So please spread the word about the giveaway. The truck photo above, one of my most popular photos, is included in the giveaway.

Here's how to enter. Make a comment here and let me know you want to enter; please follow me here and please add me to your blog roll (I'll do the same for you); choose one photo from my GIVEAWAY page (located at the top of the blog); and let me know which one you've chosen. I'll use a random number generator to chose the winners (one photo per household please). I will announce the winners on Monday, April 18. After you win, please be sure to send me your mailing address via email and I'll ship the photo via USPS flat rate mail to you. Good luck.