Tuesday, June 30, 2009

PAULINE checks in!!!!






(elephant sculptures by Pauline)
My buddy Pauline checks in with her rather AWESOME elephants. She is new to clay, and look at the progression! She writes:
Hi Gary,


I am not sure if my elephants are ready for the world to see, I will leave that up to you ;o) Here are a few, the first one as you can see doesn't really resemble an elephant very much, my teacher calls it "the prune elephant"!!! haha I had never touched clay in my life before and had no idea where to even start! I have improved but have LOTS of learning to do, I have learnt a lot with every elephant I have made. I have really enjoyed pottery and I am not going to give it up anytime soon. One day I might be as good as you and all the other great potters out there :) But it is going to take a while I think! haha


Thanks,
Pauline

POSED SECRET: beagle baloney edition....





















(Penny and me, 5 minutes ago, isn't she a little angel???)
OK, here's how it goes:
I love summer. I am at the grocery store? Blueberries get cheaper every week, and I get like 6 BOXES, and right now? I am sitting here just eating blueberries for lunch. Holy cats that's good.

Nance opens a new gallery!







(pottery by Gary Rith)
Nancy had a wonderful gallery in an old church, now she has a wonderful gallery in an old Texaco station attached to a bakery! Nancy's philosophy seems to be 'throw more color at it', which is a superb idea.
This place is TOTALLY exciting, reopening soon with grand opening in July. My wee little green (experimental) teaset plus other pots moved in there yesterday.

GODSMACK!!!!!!!!!!!! today

New single out today, WHISKEY HANGOVER. Sounds GOOD to me. Go here, give it a listen. The missus was laughing at the lyrics.

Here is a rather fantastic live version of AWAKE.

Monday, June 29, 2009

Le facebook

mermaid Pictures, Images and Photos

I was chatting with Nance earlier and its like "why aren't you my facebook friend?" and Nance is like "I have only one friend and I forgot my password"

Don't be like Nance. Be my facebook friend today! Plug in the email garyrith at yahoo dot com !

3 little pigs and saucers


(cups and saucers by Gary Rith)

(disclaimer number one--this joke may not be suitable for little ears
disclaimer number 2--I have northern Irish protestant and Irish Catholic in me both, so please don't think I am trying to insult the Irish....well, the joke is simply funny...)

Paddy and the Pigs

Paddy and Paddy, two Irishmen, went out one day and each bought a pig.

When they got home, Paddy turned to Paddy and said, "Paddy, me ol' mate, how we gonna tell who owns which fookin pig?"

Paddy says "Well Paddy, I'll cut one a ta' ears off my fookin pig, and ten we can tell 'em apart"

"Ah tat'd be grand" says Paddy.

This worked fine until a couple of weeks later when Paddy stormed into the house.

"Paddy" he said "Your fookin pig has chewed the ear offa my fookin pig. Now we got two fookin pigs with on one ear each. How we gonna tell who owns which fookin pig?"

"Well Paddy" said Paddy "I'll cut ta other ear off my fookin pig. Ten we'll av two fookin pigs and only one of them will avan ear"

"Ah tat'd be grand" says Paddy.

Again this worked fine until a couple of weeks later when Paddy again stormed into the house.

"Paddy" he said "Your fookin pig has chewed the other ear offa my fookin pig. Now we got two fookin pigs with no fookin ears!"

"How we gonna tell who owns which fookin pig?"

"Ah tis is serious, Paddy" said Paddy "I'll tell ya what I'll do. I'll cut ta tail offa my fookin pig, ten we'll av two fookin pigs with no fookin ears and only one fookin tail."

"Ah tat'd be grand" says Paddy.

Another couple of weeks went by, and you guessed it, Paddy stormed into the house once more.

"PADDY!" shouted Paddy "YOUR FOOKIN PIG HAS CHEWED THE FOOKIN TAIL OFFA MY FOOKIN PIG AND NOW WE GOT TOW FOOKIN PIGS WITH NO FOOKIN EARS AND NO FOOKIN TAILS !! HOW THE FOOK ARE WE EVER GONNA FOOKIN TELL 'EM APART?!"

"Ah fook it!" says Paddy "How's about you have the black one, and I'll have the white one."

Slash and Fergie

Wow, its good!

Sunday, June 28, 2009

WANNA PEAK????



The missus made a new movie studio tour, have a look around!!!

le incredible, if I may say so....




(pots by Gary Rith)
The big studio cleanup is, as of NOW, done, and this teapot just came out of the kiln, OH JOY! You can see that it was added to the FIRST TEAM, pots in the entryway showoom....

of Kimbo, Corleone, Coraline and boilermakers








Remember the last episode of Seinfeld where the attorney accuses Jerry and his friends:
"you make up all these little names for people, don't you?".
Same is true here. Why call Kim, KIM, when we can call her KIMBO or GOOFY KIM?
Kim is tons of fun so she comes up yesterday and we do this uber long hike and stop at the Queen of Tarts cafe along the way and its just gorgeous, I love summer, and we gossiped about all of YOU.
Friday night, of course, we had watched the GODFATHER, first time for the missus, and last night was QUITE a treat.
We strapped on some boiler makers at the Chapter House and went to Coraline. I loved it. Its terribly odd and a strange story but just spectacular animation and you just love how Coraline is so can do....

Maybe lately

You have to see this. Its the cutest video. These 3 dress up like pets and then they sneak into people's houses and play with...the pets. I am hamster and cat sitting myself this weekend, but I don't have a bunny costume...

Saturday, June 27, 2009

spaghetti burritos





Last night I pull out the vegan (made of mushroom and soy) "meatballs" and the vegan (made of mushoom and soy) raviolis and boil a few noodles and toss in some (made of soy) sausage and tomato sauce and it is a superb dinner with a little leftover. Who doesn't love ravioli and meatballs??????
We love burritos too and so I got out the (made with rice) "cheese" and tortillas and rolled up the leftovers and warmed them up and doused it all in hawt sauce and the missus is like "this is really good--lemme take you out for a beer!!!"

PENguin envy





(pots by Gary Rith)
Mairead in Dublin, the original one overseas, ordered a stack of stuff last month, that sweetie, and I warned her shipping would be PRICEY and it was-- $100.80!!!!! Just for the shipping. But all the stuff traveled safely and quickly.
Yesterday the skies open up AGAIN and there is the thunder and lightening and whatnot and I shut off and unplug the computer and then we watch "The Godfather" all evening on our video viewer and I wake up thinking:
PENGUIN ENVY. You know, this cartoon here, penguin pots, whatever.
Before I can post though, I get this message from Dublin---Mairead needs MORE, and do I do penguins?????

guilty pleasures

Sorry. Certain pop stars, dead or alive, give me indigestion. I wonder if I was choosing a favorite African-American musician--would I be all excited about the freak with the bizarre whitish doll face and the thing for kiddies, or would I be "mmm hmm, BB King can PLAY".

I remember several years ago my buddy tells me "yeah, everywhere I go I hear 'Achey Breaky Heart'". I still havn't heard that song and I guess I don't go to places like that. My radio is tuned to a different spot...
So, you know, high or lowbrow, to my mind it sounds GOOD: Metallica live.................................



Friday, June 26, 2009

LESS THAN SIX months till Christmas!!!!! Shop with me and Becky Jo



(me with a pot by Becky Jo, plus my pair of bowls and pig)
Did you realize that???? LESS than six months! Do your Christmas shopping NOW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Like you see here, I just put the pair of bowls and the pig on my online gallery CHEAP and you can buy them today, then I was looking at Becky Jo's store, and you see me here with one of her awesome Iowa cups, and what a great bunch of gifts and stocking stuffers too!!!!

1991-1992







I first met the missus in 1989. She ran the ceramics studios and gallery at University of Illinois-Chicago, and I worked there as a teacher and artist-in-residence for a few years, although my full-time day job was a teacher of blind students.
In 1991 I was like
"hey, I am making some Christmas sugar cookies, wanna come over and frost some?" and that was the first time we did anything outside the studio. 3-4 months later we CLICKED and I kissed her. We got married not long after!
So, in cleaning the house, I came across this little album she had made of our first weeks together. Also pictured is my old bachelor cat Sammy, who passed away 2 years ago, age 17....

while others may have listened to the king of pop...

I was more of a, as you know, new wave punk rock and roller, would you say?
Talking Heads, Psycho Killer live.

Thursday, June 25, 2009

DEAD!!!!!!!!!!!!!

SOME WE MOURN......






















Some maybe less so....

will I go to hell because I....


....
The story goes like this. As you know, I am tearing apart house and studio, getting rid of, cleaning, whatever. Its a busy road, and this is a university town and people put stuff out FREE all the time. That is where those 3 fugly chairs came from, and now somebody else can have them.... (like a chair lending library, the streets around here..)
The missus grabbed the fan off a dumpster the other day. It looked NEW. It looked good. I plugged it in this am and the FIRE ALARM went off. Plugged it in again? Fire alarm again.
So I grabbed this junk and put it on the curb. I was sitting here thinking
"should I put a warning sign on the fan???? "Might be dangerous, may cause.....whatever"?"
It is 96 out there, unusally hot and sunny for us and a pickup snatched it before I could finish wondering...
is this one of those sins that will send me to a fire-ie eternity?
Then some lady stops and doesn't take both the matching chairs. She took one of them.

keep it in your pants buddy......

HEROS
























Paul Newman when asked how he avoided temptation in Hollywood said:
"why would I go out for a hamburger when I have steak at home????"

SLIME

scrape the bottom of the barrel and play Winnebago Man



(bowls by Gary Rith)
I have this eccentric friend with this wild and wicked sense of humor named Kasey.
She introduced me to Winnebago Man and I nearly fell apart laughing when I saw this.
Talk about curse like a sailor.....

Wednesday, June 24, 2009

TEARING THE HOUSE APART...


...and putting it back together again. With less dirt and less junk. Work to me is fun, but I refuse to make anything in the studio until I have finished cleaning it, the rest of the house, and now I am thinking garage and basement too.
And guests come next week--good deadline for all this.
This is Penny's little couch. Poor thing crawled up but I had dumped books there!