todaily

moving on

A couple of weeks ago the current at the beach was incredibly strong.  Swim a little and I’d barely notice I was drifting quickly over and out, but if I moved into the shallows and stood still, I could feel the water pulling against me.

These days everything is like that.  There’s all this fantastic movement, but I don’t see it until I try to stand still.  Swim with it, and it takes me out into far deep water.  Swim against it and I exhaust myself to stay in one place.

These past weeks I’ve been in strange moods, thinking about how much my life has changed in 3 years, getting used to the idea of being 40.  Ah yes, and I complain about my sister and how I feel like I’m the mature responsible adult when we’re together, but then I go and leave her locked in a hot car without cracking the windows or leaving her water, so.

This week I found out an old friend of mine, my age, has a cancer that leaves her with probably 5 years.  It was three years ago that she had a patch of diseased skin removed, expecting to be completely fine, and now suddenly in the past six months it’s flared and spread at an alarming rate.  This gives me the weepies.

And I think oh, I’m so lucky, all I had was my husband dump me for some mormon whore.  It’s sad my mum passed, but if she were to list her top twenty things to cry about, that wouldn’t make the list.

Well, I may still publish my entertaining, painful novel here in bits when I feel like it.  But I thought of a new name for a blog that’s less angry and more Avenue Q. For more pottery, come visit me at liamonster.blogspot.com.

ancient history

Three years ago I was experimenting with making some pieces with updated Egyptian iconography: Horus and Anubis eating ice cream, going to birthday parties, whatever. I sold that top one at Artbeat, gave the vase with yellow flowers to my then-mother-in-law for her birthday. I believe my then-nephew engineered it having an accident. It all seems like it happened a very long time ago.

These two planters are a new variation on my usual marbled clay planter design, and I think there’s room to be a lot more ambitious in the carving. They’re similar, and for these photos, both modeled by the same red gerbera. I didn’t sign up to sell at the Artbeat festival this year, but did buy those lovely little eyes in the planter from a very talented artist.

lots of potential here

It’s nice to be back. I said no when it needed to be said, and didn’t scream at anyone, not even silently, which was good. My sister’s new secret nickname is ‘Lizzie Stardust’, that’s all. And having been away from the studio for a bit, it was a treat to find everything I’d left in progress had made it through the firings.

This one has an s-crack in the bottom, so I decided to try some glazes under celadon on porcelain:
teal blue thin is yellow, thick it’s red,
anne’s orange is a pleasant multitoned brown,
iron red thin gives a smokey green,
granny smith gives pale green,
cheryl’s blue-green is blue, blue, blue.

my vow of silence

There’s a tough week ahead for me, and I’m planning now on how to get through it. Seems to me a vow of silence would be a good idea, but then, people get so upset when you stop talking to them.

So then, a conditional vow of silence. Maybe I can just hold on to a three-second delay between what I think and what I say, instead of thinking of what I just said after I hear it.

Even taken completely out of context, you can just tell it’s a good thing I didn’t say:

“So, do you think the crematorium has a drive-thru, or will we have to go inside?”

There we are then, a one-week vow of silence on sarcasm has begun.
I reserve the right to wordlessly scream at the top of my lungs as needed.

bright, bright, bright sunshiney days

3 porcelain bowls

Left: Celadon over teal gives red,
Middle: Heaven’s Gate oxidized came out green with just a little purple, spodumene on exterior,
Right: Vegas red, spodumene under/on exterior.