not clowning around

Where are the dreams this week? Not abundant or memorable.
The pair of mugs here are opposites mentioned before: essentially the same, except one has a wide base and the other has a wide top. Piglets also vary. Yesterday I started on a flower pot order, and somehow got this big thing, which the customer says is way too big, and the jug I was making became an ordinary vase. Perhaps I was not fully caffeinated.

what I need is a FAT LITTLE CLOWN

Yep, a BA in art worth a small fortune and he makes CLOWNS for a living. And PIGS!

(Edward Gorey dog) Just as I find Charles Schultz inspiring, Edward Gorey and his cavorting and dancing dogs can be interesting to think about too.

freaky

1) Freaky warm weather: nice and sunny, maybe 60 degrees, green grass and flowers blooming. Sure. last week it was snowing, but WOW!
2)Freaky bowls. Sometimes you are following a strange direction and you ask yourself 'what exactly am I making here and what do I think of it?'

Guest potter: Jessica Dubin

(Teapot by Jessica Dubin)
Yet another star from my college days. Jessica was a year behind me, and truly nice and hard working. If I remember correctly, ceramics was the most popular class topic at Bennington College, with nearly the whole student body taking at least one class. So, it may be surprising sometimes which of us stuck with it. I hadn't thought about Jessica since my student days, and a year or two ago she won a competition and was included in a book ('500 Cups') and I said 'hey, I knew her!'.
Her work is pretty exciting, classically thrown pieces she alters here and there. Rich glazing. No pigs.

Petey's ghost

Dreamt long and hard about our little dog Petey who passed away in May, nearly 19 years old. He spent EVERY moment with me. A perfect work companion and friend. He had been living on the streets in Chicago in 1993, and we took him home, he was probably half corgi, half dachschund, half sweet, half tough. Anyway, his ghost kept appearing to me in the dream, and he was pretty happy and cheerful, as he had been in life.
Tunes of the day, especially for Gorthos, Max Headroom and The Art of Noise.

NOT piggy banks

Some people may have noticed that I adore pigs. I named my business Brown Trout Pottery in 1986 and have two different and fantastic hand drawn logos, but the piggy making the pot is my own doodle and represents me better these days. Yesterday I drove past a farm that I have passed many times in South New Berlin, NY with this sweet sign they drew which also says 'pigs for sale'. Think of that: you can just walk up and buy a little piggy! Gotta get pictures sometime.
My man Gorthos is listening to New Order today, which got me in the mood too--these guys could make a cool tune AND a cool video.

piggy banks hit the road

'To market to market, to buy a new pig, to market to market....'
I am not really a production potter, or a one of a kind artist potter either. Something in between. A production potter makes large numbers of identical pieces. I can do that.
Drove off in glorous winter weather to Massachusetts Tuesday to deliver piggy banks, and other things, to Sheffield Pottery. As mentioned here last month, they have a huge gallery which sells my work, but they also make and sell all supplies, such as clay. I go over with boxes of piggies, bowls, mugs, and come home with hundreds of pounds of ready mixed white stoneware clay. A nice circle, except for the massive and seemingly unneccessary traffic jam in Albany.

More teapot action pictures

Some things work out. I had in mind a certain type of four sided teapot with a certain tapered handle and so I doodled it on a scrap of paper. This is the before and after, the sides were whacked, an opening cut, the spout was sliced, the handle bent.
As mentioned before, I am generous and loving and this is a little Christmas present for Mrs. Pottersblog, and because of this post, I had to give it to her today. I am giving her this link to 'Code Monkey' too, an animated music video for her and all my nerdy technology type friends and relatives. (I am a VERY generous guy)

KILNGODDESS - FAME AND FORTUNE IS MINE

So Iam giving myself a NEW MUG with a little dog. YYYEEESSSSS....
Kilngoddess is a Florida ceramics teacher with a link page for her students and everybody else. She did a pottery blog search. I came up. The world of ceramics NOW LINKS TO THIS BLOG thanks to kilngoddess. I think we should put a link to her spot ourselves. Have a look, my blog and others down a bit...

winding up

Two corn chip burritos are sitting somewhat heavily on my belly, not helped by the large cat actually sitting on my belly. 4 or 5 Linkin Park videos have gotten me a little wound up and ready for all those mugs that need handles. I have heard that Tony Soprano (whatever the real actor's name was) listened to AC/DC to wind up for his work. I don't like AC/DC but the method can be helpful.

sweet sugar bowl

See/ back to my cheerful self already.

i am a trifle annoyed

The dancing dog pot shown here before firing is broken. The gallery contacted me to say the dog had come off. I had put a sign on it specifically saying it is FRAGILE! All pots are fragile, but what kind of jerk breaks a piece and wanders off without telling anybody? Santa will no doubt give them a stocking full of moldy bananas.
I shall eat a burrito or two, have a cup of coffee, and will be my usual cheery self this afternoon.
(fact: ten plus years in the business and only a few pieces have ever broken. Not bad)

teapot action photos

Cue 'Mission Impossible' music here. I make the teapot, someone overseas makes a handsome bamboo handle and sells it to me, I wire the handle to my teapot. I do not need superpowers to do this.
CSS and a little silly Brazilian pop for our breakfast time tunes o' the day.

porcine love

As shown last week, one must break out of the rut, the usual day to day making of pigs. Snuggling pig couples is the way ahead. There may be a chorus of 'ahhh, so cute!'
Regina Spektor again, 'Better'. This tune is all over the radio here, and you have to admit she really belts it out.
The real dream last night was helping my parents move, but the real undream nightmare was the late evening asthma attack, and like in that horror flick 'The hand that rocks the cradle' my inhaler was EMPTY and the backup was also EMPTY. Half a lifetime of asthma and this has never happened, so a late night road trip to the store for an OTC inhaler, and the fourth or fifth store (which I swear will be my loyal go-to place for the rest of my life, bless them) was CVS, open, with plenty of inhalers and I bought three, end of story, then a good nights sleep and now time to glaze a load of piggies.

Good things in small packages

The generous and loving potter gives his wife a tiny little pot. She is most grateful and charmed.
Regina Spektor and 'Fidelity' for tunes o' the day--this is a totally DO NOT MISS VIDEO! WATCH IT!

Crows

(Japanese, from the Asia Society)
An approx. 400 year old tea jar. Fantastic. The little lugs on top would be used for cords that would tie on a lid, perhaps made of wood.

tunes o' the day, my morning jacket 'anytime'

(piggies line up for glazing)
So you hear it on the radio and wonder WHO IS THAT? Finally an answer: My Morning Jacket, 'Anytime'

IN THE FALL OF 1983.....

....I was 17, and a college freshman at Bennington. Funny how things come together. Yesterday I posted on Erica from college. Last night I dreamt it was a frantic end of college term. More to the point, yesterday I was shoveling snow and realized that my little back deck sculpture was made as an end of term project in December 1983, for my first ceramics class. It lived in my parents' yard for 20 some years, now mine. It has seen a lot of snow. SOOO, I took its picture, then thought I should complete the theme and dug out this picture of me in that very same college ceramics studio fall of 83. My sculpture is the same, but maybe I have improved with age.

Canadian Water Dogs

Jack and Buster are Labrador retrievers, and therefore love everything, especially that which is COLD AND WET. Our old dog Petey was tiny, had a short coat, and his underbelly etc. dragged on the ground when there was a snowfall. He did not care for snow. Having lived in the woods of New Hampshire before on a far out dirt road, and now on a MAJOR STATE HIGHWAY I am impressed at how the plows buzz around and throw salt all over. Easy driving, probably so people won't skid off the road and into my living room (oh yes, the front lawn is quite narrow) Anyway, Holly Jolly and all that, just a little snow shower the weather man says....(that seems to be accumulating pretty fast and deep)