le open studio, day one going into day 2

(Pots in the studio in the purple house by Gary Rith)
Open studios are always a lot of fun, and I was surprised yesterday by visits from several strangers. There is nothing like people visiting you and telling you how great you and your work are ;^)
I tidied up the studio quite a bit. Whereas the fall open studios, I organized by item: teapots here, bowls all over there, mugs in one spot, this time I divided by animal: the elephant section, zebra section, pig section, doggy section etc.
Opens up again at 11 and I will get a lot of work done today too, more throwing, more little anaimales and more mother and piglet sculptures (YES, I love sow and piglet sculptures, see below, and puppies and mamas too...)
Cleaned the studio yesterday, must clean the rest of the house this am....

OPEN STUDIO SATURDAY AND SUNDAY 11-5

(mugs by Gary Rith)
Maybe I should take this more seriously. We are having another county wide art trail open studio weekend and I have not done anything to prepare for it. I didn't figure anybody would come. (I was featured in the newspaper, as I keep saying, with a photo and everything! so maybe somebody will come????) I am sitting here in my jammies blobbing. I do think my neighbor HP might come, and my pal from school Wendy may come, but other than that who knows? I need to be sitting around working anyway, so I figured I would open the studio doors to the public. Probably I am the only person who saw the newspaper photo and listing.....
OK, 7 am, people arrive starting in 4 hours, maybe I should hop to it.....

Kate and Jim suggest!

Rob Thomas and Santana--you know you love this tune, and my goodness, there sure are a lot of pretty young women dancing here....

whacked triangle

(pots by Gary Rith--before and after assembly which took ALL AFTERNOON sort of)
so, I asked, what happens if you have a ripply teapot but want to whack it into a triangular shape? Tres good.

my pineapple upside down cake is on the road in New York...

..and I am busy. Penny came with me down to the library, which was OPEN and then we went to the Cornell Pot Shop which was closed, dangitall, so no work there, but look at this rude anti-dog sign we sign outside the back door of a cafe.
Then, hoping to hike but not get my a$$ shot off, Penny and I went to the east Ithaca rail trail thingy (was last there with CM and Ben in June!), which is CLEARLY POSTED and walked quite a ways and barked at all the little chipmunks. Cascadilla Creek runs through there, and it is this tiny and pokey little thing, but then it creates this 400 foot gorge and waterfalls just a mile away........

HP say breathe....

HP suggests the awesome

Breathe by Michelle Branch


and I suggest Anna Nalick Breathe, AWESOME


OH and better than those, Michelle Branch and Santana A little bit of this!

get a life that doesn't suck

So I was listening to the radio and this lady was describing her book and how you can chill out, esp. when stressed.
Last night Penny was howling at the firemen outside our window and I really yelled at her to SHUT UP. (beagles are LOUD, esp. in the middle of the night when firemen are all over the front yard across the street)
So, my life doesn't suck, I probably have the best life of anybody on earth, but I get a little frantic sometimes. Frantic and confused and stressed. So she says
BACK
Don't just yell at the dog:
breathe
acknowledge what you feel (pissed as hell that a small beagle is howling in your ear at 11pm) but don't wallow in it
choose --you have a choice, what can you do for the outcome you want, which is to have a quiet dog?
kick into gear--so, basically, act on the choice--such as hold the sweet little dog's head, look her in the eye and calmly, firmly and politely ask her to shut the F### up.
I don't need a life coach or know if anybody else does, but there is wisdom to taking a calm breath and thinking a split second before you give an angry response to somebody, esp. an adorable little beagle.

Well anyway, she has a useful website and an ONLINE QUIZ! It will tell you if your life sucks.

God, guns and greed

Greed? I feel most greedy. I covet some sleep. This is not noble of me. YES, I am happy to drive the missus to meet her bus, headed to Manhattan at 6. But the reason I am most greedy for sleep is that there was a rather serious house fire across the street last night. We were awakened around 10 by flashing lights and sirens REALLY close by. A look out the window confirmed that the owners of the blue house who are are good friends of ours, were standing in the yard looking quite fine and safe, and other neighbors out there too. I figured nobody needed me in my PJs out there too. There were four firetrucks, one or two tankers, and an ambulance. They had the scene lit up bright as day and it was NOISY. The house didn't look on fire, and it is still there today. I suspect a kitchen fire or one in the fireplace chimney. But there for the grace of God go all of us. I may be sleepy, but my house is OK, and I hope theirs is too.


We live in a tiny hamlet five miles from a small city, but surrounding us is the countryside full of normally happy and healthy deer. There have been shots all month out there. A family drove by me yesterday with a big buck tied to the top of their minivan bleeding down the windshield. They had to use the windshield wipers to clear the blood off the window to drive.


(mug by Gary Rith)

CM suggests: Toast

We did not have toast for Thanksgiving, but CM suggests this amusing song from The Streetband.

paella

So we had vegetarian paella for Thanksgiving dinner. Paella is a Spanish stew of sorts with rice, veggies, shellfish, chicken, sausage and about anything else you can think of, including saffron. Saffron, of course, is the little yellow bit of spice from a crocus, making everything yellowy. A woman who worked with the missus was in Qatar and came home with a big jar of saffron for the missus, worth I dunno, a hundred bucks?
So, our paella had soy sausage and soy chicken and a boatload of veggies and rice, according to the recipe from Vegetarian Times. I, however, feel that recipes are mere suggestions, the missus think they should be followed. There was some tension. I dumped a ton of pepper and red pepper into the mess, and refused to follow directions, and the missus is one of those careful cooks....(the angry look on her face, due to my meddling!!!!!! good thing I had already made triple chocolate cookies!) anyway, twas wicked delicious, esp. with chocolate cookies and Cape Codders (my only nod to tradition---a drink with a little cranberry juice!).

le mojo: how Gary got his groove back

(pots and cookies by Gary Rith)
The studio has been so blasted cold all week things havn't gone well. Each day as the hands dip in and out of the cold water and the afternoon progresses, I would get to a point where my fingers would be so numb as to have no sensitivity and my fingers went through a piece each of the last 3 days, and I would quit... well, today I blasted the heat and things worked out very well. And these cute mugs came out of the kiln too.
Thanksgiving is low-key here, second to working. I put slips of paper into the hat with dessert possibilities like chocolate cake or apple pie, and she drew my triple chocolate cookies which she adores and she would probably kill for...

what does Thanksgiving mean?

Thanksgiving means, for me these last 11-12 years, firing the kiln and making piggy banks so that I can try to shake loose some bucks from shoppers in the coming days so that we can buy peanut butter and cat food all winter. Such is the life of the small box retailer!

Dreamt of my pal Gordo and his family last night. They had us over for beers, and as usual, Gord's two sons are charming hosts. And the dream hamster? he hasn't sprouted wings but he sort of stretched out like a flying squirrel to fly around in little swoops...

le breakfast

Emily cat fell asleep on my coat, and you can see that it is still a very snowy week here in central and northern NY. So I made cinnamon rolls.

monster mugs

(monster mugs by Gary Rith--yes they have googly eyes and teeth)

remember Charlie Brown...

...when Peppermint Patty tells him to host Thanksgiving? Its pretty funny-the best he can do is jelly beans, popcorn and toast.
I have been asked what we plan to have for an anarcho-punk VEGAN Thanksgiving:
popcorn, jelly beans and toast.
:)

today my little popcorn said to me:

Today my little popcorn said to me:
"It had nothing to do with being graceful. I wanted to be a ballerina!!!"

What you see here is several feet of lottery tickets. This is my little popcorn's advent calendar. I surprised her yesterday with this long string of numbered tickets which she can start winning from Monday. She will be in NY city visiting her sisters Friday through Monday, and I will be here keeping the cat box clean and trying to sell pots. And working and all the rest...

We invited my mom and dad for Thanksgiving but they were strangely not interested in coming to this all vegetarian-no-dairy feast we are planning for Thursday.

almost famous

(pots by Gary Rith)
So I am flicking through the newspaper and whaddya know? There I am! My piggy teapot, anyway, featured in the newspaper, as in "Go over to Gary's and buy pots this weekend". Nobody told me this was being printed, lucky me! Be nice if I wasn't the only person who saw it and some actual sales resulted.
Nancy stopped by with this stack of nifty postcards, announcing the show we have starting next week too....
The lower pic is being submitted to the Cornell paper because they may feature my pots next week, we shall see....

NOT by me

( I DID NOT MAKE THESE)
There are times you're at the store and you love a little pot or pots and lust after its glaze and you don't want the actual pot, you want to MAKE IT YOURSELF or something like it.
These little cuties are at the food coop and I secretly (did I need to do it secretly? you have to do it secretly in a gallery---they never allow pics because potters are sneaking around getting ideas) took this pic. There were some cute dragonfly things too. They are factory made overseas and I make better frogs and stuff BUT:
-these pots are in the cute aesthetic, which is my aesthetic too AND
-I love that glaze and you know what?????? I have been using the green version of it at the Cornell studio and I have the recipe now to use at home, and you can make variations on the green, like blue, and I am wondering maybe yellow too!

COW FLOP

Got your attention, eh? I'm in one of those anarcho-punk-I-wanna-get-outta the house type moods, to maybe meet the missus down at The Nines for beers and junk food, so I LEAVE YOU WITH THIS courtesy of my SIL Emily.

Bob and Doug Mackenzie 12 Days of Christmas.