Here's The Thing

Here's the thing.

I've been looking out into the blue sky and fall landscape and how these will play out in glaze and pattern. I've been thinking about being a husband, a father, and how these roles affect the creative life. I've been thinking about my health, about my endurance and wood firing.

I've been thinking a lot after an email I got this morning from a fellow artist-blogger-pilgrim. I've been thinking about the physical impossibility of making pots and taking the time to write/blog about it. I've been thinking about sleep!

I've been thinking of the digital promise of computers and the internet. Then, in the midst of all these colliding thoughts, questions, and scarce answers, I heard this interview of Douglas Rushkoff on Tom Ashbrook's On Point. I recommend it.

If you need a quickie before you listen to the whole program, here is a short video that may encourage.



My late lunch break is over, and that's all I'm giving up for now. I could go on I guess, but there is a whole pile of inert clay waiting to be formed up in my shop. Back to it I go. Thanks.

Surface to Form

One thing leads to another. After cutting the feet into these soon to be rabbit plates, I went back to the wheel to throw some shallow bowls and wanted to use something from the energetic combing in the edges of them and Voilá! (that's french for voila)

the following resulted. Form follows surface?

Monday's are reserved for the Antiques Road Show on PBS. We just saw this piece appraised at $5-7000. Look familiar faithful readers? Maybe message follows form. We'll have to ask Ellen if she was watching...Meanwhile here are a variety of the pig flasks, all with writing.

Now it's time for some after supper pottery. (remember its crunch week!) Cueing up the Jay Z.
On to the next one. See you in the a.m.

Holding Down the Plastic

How am I supposed to chase the plastic when this beast is sleeping on my platters? Not to worry, I'll just throw a few more before lunch!

Unscientific survey: Cat or dog in the studio?



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How's The Feed?

By the time you read this I'll be high tailing it up the hill for some crunch week fun. Yes, once again it's crunch time! Tis the season, fellow elves of the holiday gift market! This time, it's a truckful of pots for our annual studio tour here in Mitchell County, that will be fired with Courtney Martin at the "other wood kiln on Snow Creek Rd".


In other news, I have a new warehouse at Facebook for "Sawdust and Dirt", which I am archiving various photo collections, guest bloggers posts, and who knows what else. If you are on Facebook, visit and revel in the comp-pile-ation of 'Dirt. You can also write a review! Make your voice heard!

So, let's get to work. There are pots to turn! Check in later for the Crunch report. Make it a great week!

Kyle Carpenter and Tzadi Turrow@ CLG

Don't miss the opening tonight of Kyle Carpenter's newest pots at the Crimson Laurel Gallery. John and David of CLG put on a great party and a lot of us locals will be there to celebrate Kyle and Tzadi Turrow who will also have new work. I hope to see you there. If you can't make it to Bakersville, NC tonight, the show will be up through the holidays! You can check out the collection online here!

Cooperation!

We cut wood over at Courtney's the other day. Three people can cut and stack a mess of wood.

I See Red

After a busy admin morning working on a web site I headed up the hill to chase down some plastic and managed to finish my cups and plates that I'm making for the Spruce Pine Montessori School. Even though our kids are in public school now I wanted to help out Mary Wray's class with their literary tea. So I made these pots for this years new students. I had wanted to get them done earlier in the school year, but hopefully they will be painting them next week and I can fire them and have them back in time for Faulkner, Agee, or Yeats, or...

before and after the slip n spin n comb!

Can anyone tell that I'm using Stan Andersen's red earthenware!?!? (Look out ,Ron) It does look a lot like my red dirt stoneware, but so much smoother. Because of its ultra smoothness (compared to my gritty dirt clay) I was thinking the whole time about this being a transition to some porcelain that I plan to unveil for the holiday online sale. I just hope I can get to spinning that soon! Meanwhile it's on to the stoneware and finishing up my making list for the upcoming shared wood firing up the road at Courtney's.

Getting It Out There

I had a great visit with the wonderful students in Gay Smith's class yesterday! I went up to do a little painting and talking. My demo became more of a unrehearsed monologue and I hope folks got something out of my stream of consciousness presentation!
As for the blog, I seemed to have lost myself in certain questions that may not have definitive answers! Thanks for everybody's thoughtful comments! I've also drifted so far from the shore of the ACC sessions from a week and a half ago that I'm afraid that it may be too late to share (and accurately reconstruct my thoughts on it from here. Are these circumstances a product of the times? Are things moving too fast?
Pots that need attention are piling up on my table under plastic, so I'd better get right to it!

I want to quickly share what I was reading and watching this morning. Artonomy is a blog/website that I stumbled upon in my online meanderings. Describing their mission:

Whatever your skill, if you don't feel at home in a business suit you'll feel at home here.

So naturally my interest was peaked. Every month they do a survey of links, etc. to take notice of and today they released their October "best of the web". In today's post they shared a video from RSA Animate, an interesting way of "illustrating" lectures given by really brilliant people you may not necessarily have heard of. I've been checking these videos out and was pleased to see this one as well. For your convenience here's the most recent video. Now it's off to the studio and on to the next one(s): potterymaking' and plastic chasin'
Have a good one.

This Morning

Just a quick view from the table, before I go out to vote, and go up to Penland for a demo for Gay Smith's class.

Futher Readin'

According to the blog stats, a lot of folks are reading the previous posts, but not many have been moved to share their opinions. I am well aware that the question of greeeeeeeeen ceramics may be unanswerable.

Thanks to John and Elise for their contributions to the commentary. Here are a few other blog posts that I found at the end of one black bird's post from 2007 that might help inform. I obviously haven't had time to read all of these articles, but I have just skimmed over most and hope you won't find me irresponsible in posting these:

• ECOCRAFT: Sustainable Ceramics (?) by Krystal Speck
• Things Which Look Like Other Things…
• Eco-Porcelain
• A Finer Line
• making things greenly {as much as possible}
• Are ceramics eco-friendly?
• Are Ceramics Eco-Friendly?

Here are a couple of reports from the larger industry that I ran across:

• Material and Environmental Sustainability in Ceramic Processing
• The User Experience and Perception of Sustainable Ceramic Design
• Aluminum vs. Ceramic vs. Paper: The Coffee Mug Debacle

And back full circle with this article from Ceramics Arts Daily:

• Sustainable Ceramics Practice
• Sustainability in the Ceramic Studio
• Ceramics Art Community discussions
  

This is by no means a complete reading list, just some links that I found this evening.

Can you tell I'm really trying to wrap my head around this question?

For what its worth.