the good, the bad, and the ugly

I was making two pizzas tonight, one for tomorrow, which I made first, and one for today. The second got stuck and then dumped itself onto the stone. Whatta mess. The missus comes home, we are both hungry, and heck, the ingredients are the same....we ate that thing. I have indigestion.

BEAR in brushstokes

(bear mugs by Gary Rith)
This is where my new doodling on mugs idea first came from: Bear and his tea. I was drawing him everyday, then thought I would try to get him onto pots....

TOAD

(pottery by Gary Rith, drawing by somebody else)
I was a little surprised--a lot of people weighed in on the doodled cups below! I have a whole bunch more, pics posted later.
I am ALSO working on this other sort of idea, multi-ridged and textured stuff with my newly developed glaze I call TOAD. Lookin' GOOD. Here is a wee little TOAD joke:

What happens when frogs park illegally?

They get toad.

FRANKIE GOES TO HOLLYWOOD!

Gosh, remember them?

brushwork, a whole new DIRECTION

(painted cups by Gay Rith)
SO as I have said lately, my doodles have moved onto pots for the first time (other than simple drawings on the bottom). This is new for me and an experiment that is working very well. I brush special pigments onto the raw clay and later glaze the inside of the piece dark glaze, clear glaze on the outside over the picture. I know, I try all kinds of pottery methods, its so much fun.
Example number one here is at the request of one of my numerous pals from high school, Sasha. Her husband makes the capuccino every morning but they needed cups JUST THE RIGHT SIZE (no problemo) to fit into the machine, and I noticed on FB their cat Nina and dog Frye. Mmmm, looks good I think.....

Die YUPPIE SCUM die!

Got your attention, eh? I always feel like yuppie scum when I have a Starschmucks, but, you know, its a tasty thing, frankly.
ANYWAY, I needed to tank up on espresso a bit because what do you do when your adorable 80 year old barber retires and moves to Maine so that she can paint pictures? THAT was my problem last week, and I bumped into Rob who told me about my new best friend Rachel, who seems younger than me, so probably won't be retiring to Maine anytime soon.
Pics above? The before, arriving at and going into Karma salon. Below, the NEW ME, looking less like Thing One or Thing Two.....mmmm baby, lookin' gooooood.....

the straight story

Well, you know how it is. We're riding home yesterday in the car and the speedometer stops (?) although we are moving and a dashboard light flashes and that makes me think "electrical problem" and so we turn off the headlights and things return to normal, which could mean battery or alternator, I guess, but you know, today we need the groceries and my head needs the haircut and the bank needs the deposit SO I awake at one am thinking about this, as you might, and want a burrito, as you might, and figure maybe I can do a couple of quick errands BEFORE dropping the car off for a repair and that seems like a good plan to try and I fall asleep again after some middle of the night facebooking and dream that me and my dogs get dog hair all over my neighbor's white living room. Disaster!



(piggy mugs and bowl by Gary Rith)

PotterySLUTS, PotteryPIMPS and Portland Ponygirl rides off....

(Ponygirl, Nance, Carol and Leslie and My Missus, Leslie, Tommy, Carol and Me)
OK, the little mystery toy Portland Ponygirl rec'd directions from the shadowy controller and was shipped off....to the Lone Star State, actually...and then Nance sends an email and is like "gonna dropp off pieces downtown for the show? Let's have coffee!" so me and Nance get the Starschmucks and gossip for awhile about YOU and then I head up the hill to make some pots at Cornell and some of my pots have come out of a glaze kiln up there and 2 of my students are messing around, Carol and Leslie, who tell me that they are POTTERYSLUTS and me and the POTTERYSLUTS slide down the hill to the Chapter House to meet my missus and Tommy, whom the POTTERYSLUTS have named the POTTERYPIMP, and well, you can guess the rest....

take a walk on the mild side....

(pottery by Gary Rith
The middle shot, the vases? Kinda shows how musch fun my newsest glaze recipe is: TOAD! It gets all shiny, blotchy, fascinating.
Dreamt of 8th grade, dreamt of a million things.....totally feels like Monday morning :)
Somebody put this video together and it is A plus, check it out....

Ponygirl update: Pony has surgery and they go for a ride and....!

So, as you know, I am one in a chain of people sent a little toy that has been traveling for 20 years, Portland Ponygirl. Pony had lost its head which somebody replaced with cardboard, and I made it a mane to match Girl's new chaps. Surgery was a success!
Dig the video as they go for a ride!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

mug shots...

(mugs by Gary Rith)
Yesterday was somewhat busy, what with chasing the beagle across half the county and of course doodling a thousand bears and dogs onto mugs and bowls and of course I made a million pieces that need to be trimmed today. On a roll yes indeedy...

here are some dudes in makeup, I LOVE this song, totally uber 80s Eurotrash new wave music....

a HUGE adventure

So we set out on a GORGEOUS morning with Penny the beagle to hike the gorge and waterfall at Taughhannock Falls (SP??)which is near our house and taller than Niagara. Or higher, would you say?
ANYWAY just after we snapped pics of the waterfall and us and Portland Ponygirl, Penny's collar snapped in half and she thought we had given her free range. This is every beagle owners nightmare, esp. people like us who live on a busy road: beagles get free and GO. She thought I was giving her permission I guess.
SO here we are, thank GOD not on a busy road with a dump truck coming, and she is following some trail at extremely fast speeds and I am racing along 50 feet behind her calling and calling, then 100 feet behind her and I sprinted for about a mile. I havn't sprinted in awhile, but you do what you have to, and luckily she was standing in the path down at the camping area waiting for me. I thought she might stop there, because there are 10-20 occupied campsites (this whole park is beautiful--my favorite place anywhere) and you know, people were there frying bacon. I thought she might stop there, and she had. And she rolled onto her back and showed her belly and I leashed her and we resumed our hike.
However, I have asthma and it has been so mild for so many years I don't carry my inhaler with me, and we had to cut our 4 mile hike short and drive home because I started wheezing pretty badly. But anyway, we got a shot of Cayuga lake beyond the falls and gorge before we left.
I am fine now. My legs are rubbery. But I am fine. :)

le doodles...

(pots by Gary Rith)
I like to try new things, and have introduced doodles to pots. These mugs and bowls will have a solid glaze color inside and clear overglaze outside. I need to add a little color to these dogs and other guys, but it is looking good and it sure has turned out to be fun!

soup dragons!

the Ponygirl Gang hits a biker bar....

(Carol, me, Portland Ponygirl, Martha and Tommy...)
Took some of my disreputable friends along with the Portland Ponygirl toy and went to Syracuse to buy clay and supplies and we hit Dinosaur BBQ for lunch and holy cats it was tasty.....

Bear.....

(tile by Gary Rith)
OK, as I was saying, I doodle things, and I am getting ready to doodle them onto pots which I think could work pretty well. This is a test tile of Bear having his tea.....the brown works super well, so do the black and pink and blue, so onward!

Today I take the traveling toy Portland Ponygirl to a biker bar with some of my disreputable friends. More later on that, with pics....

And this tune, below, by the Howling Bells??? Sure there are dancing girls, but I think EVERYBODY, and I mean everybody, would like this song....

le

Ponygirl gets the chaps and meets Spike....

So, like I was saying in the post below, Portland Ponygirl is a toy stolen 20 years ago and traveling ever since. There is a shadowy controller, and I rec'd a package today from Iowa, Ponygirl's last stop. Before that Nevada.
Ponygirl went to Cornell University today and then was fitted out in leather chaps this evening, just prior to meeting Spike the cat.....

Portland Ponygirl....

I don't know the whole story, but 20 years ago a little toy horse and rider were stolen from a little girl and have been traveling ever since, with pics. Last week, IOWA. The month before that, Burning Man in Nevada.
Portland Ponygirl is one of those secret little things, like the Masons. A wee little joke. That travels. I will probably get in trouble for letting the secret out, but you can befriend Portland Ponygirl on facebook (or try to anyway) and watch her in the future.
But for now? MY TOY!!!!!!!!! :)

a few.....

(vases by Gary Rith)