"what's that!?"

(frog, dog and pig mugs by Gary Rith)
"tis a PIG at the bottom of your cup!"

we get around to Christi's excellent show...

(paintings by Christi, me and Missus Tastycake and some fab beers)
(Missus will kill me for the FREAKY FRIDAY pic of herself. Oh well. :)
SO, Christi has an exhibit of paintings at Korova bar and we go over and tis FAB and I like Korova Bar but their hours are totally weird. Opened today though!

.................yeah baby.....

(shark mug by Gary Rith, the missus and a wee little taste of MOTHER'S DAY with flowers, and SPIKE sez he wants OUT--and I loan the missus Felix shirt number TWO)

Nance kicks AZZ

My buddy (and blogger and gallery owner) Nancy Boyce painted this picture of Spike and Emily for me. Maaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaan is it cool!
There's Spike and Emily below, plus Friday I'm in love again....

oval

(vase and mug by Gary Rith)
So I mentioned and showed down a couple of posts how I am sorta messing around with the idea of chopping out the middle of a round pot and pushing the pieces together to form an oval. The teapot looked good. Then this mug looked pretty good, but best of all is this vase and I think that is the BEST use of this idea.

(the before)

still life with hot sauce: Friday Five Fried Favorites

(elephant bowl by Gary Rith)
Even a vegan like me likes fried food.
Today is Friday of course, and also the day when Lynda asks your five favorite____.
So yesterday Lynda mentioned, as you might imagine since she is a BIG DEAL EXECUTIVE (the BIG BOSS LADY) that her brain was fried. I suggested that would make a tasty topic.
1. It just so happened that I had these vegetarian 'Buffalo wings' in the freezer and they are tasty
2. c'mon, everybody loves French fries, and at the right restaurant they are cooked in veg oil
3. then of course, you have your onion rings and
4. wee little fired mushrooms, oh joy!
5. best of all? Japanese veggie tempura--batter fried vegetables with green wasabi sauce--now that is heaven.

le evening

So the car has brakes once again and I don't have that gut wrenching feeling every time I come to a hill or stop sign "GULP!". We are lucky to live very near Ithaca's number one mechanic (according to the newspaper poll each year, my dentist also happens to win every year) so
a) I trust them and b) I can leave the car and walk home. Yay. Only cost what I made in sales at the end of semester pottery sale last week ("GULP!!!!")
Have you ever sat around and thought about Ministry??? New wave band turned thrash metal punk??? Mmm, sounds so good, either way...

now...


then...

since you were wondering....

(teapot by Gary Rith, after and before)
Last week I wondered what it would look like if I took a round (obviously) teapot and sliced out an inch or two from the middle then shoved the remaining bits back together to form a wide, long oval. Looks gooood....wait until later when I show the other pots where I tried this, which look even BETTER...

elephant tea party

(elephant tea party wall piece by Gary Rith)
As you know, I like to make wall pieces from time to time, and I need 3 good ones for an exhibit next month. This was a new idea for me, and elephants make good subjects because they have that extra thing, the trunk, to pour and drink tea with. :)
So Ben and Christi and me are all thinking about this wee little road trip maybe next week, but my brakes sound SCRAPEY so its sorta like bring the car over to the mechanic today and calculate how many mugs that translates into after he empties my wallet....

Christi COMES OVAH again

(Christi finishing her rather fab bowls, and a wee little racoon by me)
So, Christi came over, finished the bowls, and I spent half the afternoon fiddling with this possible racoon (thank you HILLARY :). Fabfabfab.....

Felix strikes again!

My pal at Doves Today sent me another gorgeous pic of the Felix chevy in Los Angeles. Those people must live in heaven down in Southern California--they have a Felix the cat sign!

Let's have another Felix cartoon, shall we?

Le Wedding

(chalice by Gary Rith)
My very besT buddies Maggie and Katie are getting married. Well, they eloped to Connecticut on Christmas and got legally married, now doing the actual ceremony with party and relatives and friends this spring. You would love them--brilliant and creative and fun and FRIENDLY and all that. a WHOLE MORE FRIENDLY THAN ME. Plus, of course, Katie is also a Nebraska native like me.
OK, so it will be a Unitarian service, and Unitarians have a chalice for a candle and flame and I am the lucky dude who was tasked with making the chalice.
They were hoping for something a little bit along the lines of the chalice below, and I made mine a little like it. And held myself back: no piggy on there :)

the bumper sticker project

"Jesus loves you. Everybody else thinks you're an azzh###"
"Jesus loves you. But he loves me most."
"Visualize whirled peas"
"Voldemort 2008"

I always get a kick out of bumper stickers. These are a few I saw at the store recently, and I have been putting some up under the blog title lately. My all time favorite is Yosemite Sam there "Back off" on the mudflaps. Man, I would LOVE Yosemite Sam mudflaps.
What have ya got for me? Go into comments with your favorite bumper stickers!

le turtle and le inchworm

(mugs by Gary Rith)
The mugs I posted yesterday and put for sale on my online etsy gallery were lonely. So I am adding these to keep them company, going for sale on my online gallery this morning!

Cookie Monster voice

About ten years ago I was listening to an interview with a heavy metal singer on the radio. He was talking about how everybody was starting to growl their vocals, THE COOKIE MONSTER VOICE. Lamb of God here has the numero uno Cookie Monster voice thing going on.
Here is music that absolutely NOBODY reading my blog will like. I don't like their peers Mastodon very much, but I like these guys, who somebody once described as 'a punk band playing heavy metal'.
Doesn't exactly sound like James Taylor.

Christi comes OVER

(Christi makin' some bowls, and with Missus Pink Sweater)
Our pal Christi Sobel came over this afternoon to get onto the wheel and get into the clay. Christi is a blogger, artist, painter, printmaker and scientific illustrator who, as it turns out, has worked on the wheel before and wanted to visit and make stuff. Can you imagine, all that talent and bowls too?????

WWC--heart and something unpronounceable

(wee little 4 leaf clover and a heart bunny plaque by Gary Rith)
So today is Tink's WWC picture challenge and the themes are heart and something else.
I have found nearly 500 4 leaf clovers in my life and saved them, but this one is special--it is growing out of the foundation of our house! Our purple house is lucky! The pot o' gold must be here somewhere. And special too, of course, because of the heart shaped leaves.
Then, of course, I made this bunny plaque last month, and you know about bunnies and love...this plaque is for sale, actually, at my online gallery...

its not easy being green!

We were walking Penny just now and they were cutting the grass in the playground and it was wet and her little white legs turned GREEN which I thought was hilarious, although I wish this picture showed it better. The missus said its not easy being green, which got me thinking, so I put these two mugs for sale in my online gallery. :)


(mugs by Gary Rith)

Le Felix Le Cat

(that is soooooo totally cool)
My buddy from childhood...yes, another one (going back to when I was 12? 13?) Sarah grew up with me in rural western New York. She lived right on the Erie Canal, actually, and of course LEFT as soon as possible, and is now an Angelino, and LOOKIT this picture she took for me---she tells me this Chevy dealer's Felix the Cat sign is now a county landmark and nobody could mess with it. That sucker would look great in my back yard.
Here is a rather awesome Felix cartoon, I think from the 1920s, and you notice here that Felix has 2 dogs....

ABOUT our winner

We had dozens of jokes, 39 comments, visitors new to this blog; the second joke a thon was a success. Spike, as you saw below, was masterful in his duties as impartial picker of the winner.
Heather who won is totally sweet. Sadly she had been laid off from work last year, interviewed for a thousand jobs, got a good job and then last month the new job went kaput because the company went bankrupt....
so even though it is just a little thing, winning a mug, we might say that Heather deserved it this time.

THE WINNER IS....

(the many entries in joke a thon, spring 2009)

Holy cats this was funny. I got Spike to pick the winner, and it went perfectly. Watch and see who was the winner! More on the winner later!

finis!

Joke a thon Sprin 2009 is OVAH!
Give me a little time and I shall do the drawing! Stay tuned...

unsexy bathrobe

So this morning my beloved Missus Peanut Noodle tells me:
"Not bad for a lady in an unsexy bathrobe" and NO I am not going to tell you the rest of it, you filthy preverts....

Joke a thon ends at 12 noon eastern US time and we seem to be stalled at the rather large (but could be larger) number of 38 comments----click down a couple of posts, enter your joke and you could WIN that blue mug down there! I am drawing the winner, if I can, using video posted later today, and since Missus Peanut Noodle will be out late at a party, I am going to get the cats to help draw. I have a plan. Involves catnip.

I can't garden and I am not terribly bright, and I don't fix cars and I am not really the best at cleaning house BUT I kick azz in the kitchen. Baked applesauce cookies and cranberry scones yesterday plus noodles in peanut sauce. Holy cats that is tasty. You wonder why the missus keeps me around? She is one of those rare humans that eats like a horse and is absolutely tiny. Totally small!
So I feed her and she is ecstatically happy everyday.

Today my beloved Chocolate Cupcake with nuts said to me...

(cow mugs in the works by Gary Rith)
Today my beloved chocolate cupcake with nuts said to me: "thanks for being an artist that's not hard to be married to..."
There is a compliment in there, somewhere....
As for the the cow cups, my pal Farmer's Wife was asking about a huge cow mug and I go thinking and made these. The front one? BIG. The one behind it? Impossibly big, bigger than a bucket! Just wait until it is glazed black and white, and YES, she has a wee little bag under there (Missus Chocolate cake asked why the bag wasn't between the back legs and it is like GOOD LORD does it have to be exact????)

REMEMBER: Joke a thon and a prize down 2 posts! Submit your joke, be entered in a prize drawing!

joke fest 2009 and tres brilliant idea

(mugs by Gary Rith)
Remember to go down one post and add a joke to comments and win a prize on MONDAY!
OK, so I tried unsuccessfully 2 weeks ago to doodle on the outside of mugs, but it got me thinking: wouldn't folks like a mug with a pig or whatever) on the outside, and a pig drawn on the inside? I am so excited, I think this is a good and fun idea.
---I have just put these and other items for sale at my online gallery, including what is pictured in the header above. :)
have a good weekend, and please add a joke in yesterday's post!

system down, so let's have a joke fest

Stinking internet conked out at our house Thursday darnitall. The rather unpleasant youth at tech support schedules us for a repair guy MONDAY. HELL AND DAMNATION, everybody knows I needs my internets! I am at the library, and will try to visit here and email once or twice this weekend if I can.

IN THE MEANTIME, ya'll run things. Remember joke fest last year????? We had well over 100 jokes submitted by YOU.
Let's do it again. Submit your joke until I close submissions at noon eastern standard US time on Monday. I shall pick a winner Monday at 6pm from the many entries, a glorious blue piggy mug (below pic, right) by me, mailed to you in the US. Randomly drawn, one entry only per commenter and you have to tell me your name and mailing address if you win.

FINALLY---your joke MUST be family friendly or I will erase it and remove your entry. It must be a joke you could share with a ten year old, OK? (yes, you can push the envelope if you are clever)
:)

So, how many lightbulbs does it take to screw in a psychologist?

(UPDATE: the supervisor dude called to say that the unhelpful youth from tech last night made a MiSTAKE and he walked me through a reload of some sort and we are CONNECTED, but heck this is FUN FUN FUUUUUUUUUUUUN so get your joke in now!)


(piggy mugs etc by Gary Rith)