I'd rather eat cake than crap but I don't eat sugar

So, these are some of the events of my morning. I won't get into details but I suppose a little background information is needed. My patience for things that bother me is very thin lately. I think as a result of this medication I am on and just life stresses. There was a communication issue at work (there are frequent communication issues which I usually grit my teeth about) and so without naming names there is a person who is frequently rude to me. Sighs, annoyed tones of voice when asked simple questions that are necessary to my performing my job, etc.

This morning (communication issue #1 of the day (I actually received a sigh and the stomp of a foot because I answered the phone, I guess I was not tuned into knowing that she wanted to answer the phone-it's all very confusing since usually she is really annoyed by having to take a phone call-I can't keep up) So when communication issue #2 occurred I just snapped. Simple and to the point. I barely remember the events and could not recount them well in a court of law were I required to do so. One minute I'm standing there trying to help a customer on the phone and when I asked this other person I work with a question about the customers order and saw that posture, the look on her face and heard that tone of voice . . . I just snapped. I don't even know what happened to the box of jewelry that was in my hand. The poor customer on the phone. I'm sure they must have heard my profanity and experienced the lack of connection to a person on the other end of the line as the phone took its flight across the room.

My feelings on the event are this; I feel like I have a legitimite reason to have experienced the emotions that I did. As I said, this has been building for some time. But it's so inappropriate for a grown woman to behave like I did in a place of business. For that I was truly wrong. I'm still trying to decide if they were to want me to continue working if I even want to. I know no matter where you go it's the same shit on a different lawn. I've worked enough places to know this, but I still don't understand it. Working for someone else is hard enough as it is. We often have to eat so much shit. Why do we want to create an environment where we also have to eat each others crap as well? I work way, way too hard to have it be any harder than it needs to be.

I hope there was no injury. It certainly was not my intent to hit her with the phone and I hope I did not. I heard no glass breaking (I REALLY hope there was none). Well, if I don't go back maybe it's for the best. I'm not getting anywhere with my own work. Maybe it's time for me to jump in full time. Man, I don't feel so good about all this. Don't you hate it when you start to think that maybe you're a grown-up and then realise that you are still a child after all?

How many hours can you waste in a day and still call it productive?

(first, please excuse the rage you are about to witness. I thought about deleting this post to save myself from the peeks inside my tortured soul, but as a tattoo artist once said to me: it's who you were that day)

So, this is one of the only redeeming qualities of my day. To post photo of my cute grandson because this day has SUCKED!!!!!!. No new pots to show. A lot of new aggravation to show, so if you are sensitive to blood you might wish to avert your eyes. I promised my daughter, mother of said grandchild, that we would take any files from our old crappy computer and save them then wipe the hard-drive out and all that jazz and re-install and all that shmazz and give her the old computer. Okay. I started by 9:30 this morning, and it's now what? 2:30, 3:00? and I am still going. I want to smash things with very big hammers and scream very loud screams. Is it too early to bring out the LUKSUSOWA vodka or should I wait a while?I also have our guitar group meeting at my house tonight at 7:00 and oh yeah, I am a potter after all, and I have, what are those things called, oh yeah, POTS!!!! waiting to be finished while I f*** around on that computer.

My friend Caroline (am amazing sign painter in New Hampshire) said that computers are supposed to make our live easier, but instead bring incredible frustration and she is so right. I can't imagine life now without the internet, but sometimes I just want to smash! and smash! and crush! and obliterate! these things! Ug. If I were not so self-controlled and reserved in my emotions, I might express my utter frustration by suffice it to say that I am not pleased with the events of the day. Chow.

Naked in Uncharted Waters

"Create according to your knowledge of beauty with the knowledge that someday you will be understood."

This is a quote from the article "The Joy of Style" by Karen Terpstra in Sept/Oct 2001 issue of Clay Times. I've been paging through my old issues and I had underlined this sentence seven years ago. I must have been physic and sending a message to myself in the future. My work is in the process of taking a radical shift in the way I glaze my pieces. If you look back to June 16, Electric and Lovin It, you can get an idea of what my next kiln of pots might look like (sort of, those photos are just little test pots). But I can hear the voices in my head of well-meaning people I know who might be a little shook up by this new direction. "are you still going to make your old work? maybe you can do both? why are you doing this? (said with that just tasted something yucky look on their face) Hell, I'm not even sure it will work out. It's uncharted waters for me. But, I do know that I feel excited about my work and I'm actually looking forward to glazing (usually I consider it a bit of a drag). You never could have told me seven years ago or even one year ago that I would be following this path. I guess I am on two different paths. I have also been sprigging as well and was really happy with the results and the glaze combinations I began discovering. But they are the same glazes either way(down to four remember?) and so saybe I will dip my feet in both for a while. Or maybe I should just strip down naked and leap into this one pool of the shimmering water.

Giving up-what the???

Oookay. These are two squarish jars that I managed to get covers on. The handles are a little different for me. Usually I throw the handles or handbuild them but I had enough clay to try just turning them. These two pots were waaayyyyy more work than they are worth. Contrary to my personality, I am temporarily giving up the square thing until later. I need some advice before I move on. My second option is just squaring the base but leaving the lid area round. I spent way too much time trying to get these lids to fit.

So . . . these shapes harken back to the days of what now seem like my youth. When I was in my early 30's and working on my BFA. These are a few vases I threw today when I decided if I made another covered pot I would throw a IT against the wall (you can see six jars in the making in the background, also in my old organic shape). When I was in college I threw really tight at first, probably like many of us. Perfection meant good you know? It took me a while to loosen up and like many of us, began almost seeking imperfection in my work. Tight and perfect meant no good to me (which reminds me, I forgot to wavy cut these rims!). So now I intentionally throw with my wheel too slow, intentionally cut my rims so they are not perfectly level and give a quick swoop up the side of a pot (not these) with a rib to give it some movement. Like I said, like many of us. I wonder why this is part of the road?

One lone little bowl of the day (with a wavy rim-ooh yah).

20 lumps of clay and a not so good day

Every time I try to make square covered jars they end up sucking quite a bit. I get really frustrated and destroy most of them and so now I have 6. Six little not so great-ish, not so square-ish pots. I don't know what I am looking for with these, but not finding it yet, that much I know. I went flipping through my back issues of Clay Times because I remember an illustrated article about making square pots from the round but couldn't find it. Maybe it's in one of my Ceramics Monthly. Who the * knows. For some reason I'm just not in a great mood today. So here's a story. I'll finish below.


So I go to the cable place (Time Warner Cable next to the liquor store, a FIIINE place if you don't mind interacting with robotrons) and they ask for our phone number (got it) name (got it) last four digits of Adam's SSN (um, what?) "I don't have that", I say. Well we need it. "You need his social security number for me to cancel cable? Don't you think that's a little intrusive?" It's our policy. "Well I don't have it. You have all the other stuff. I'm his wife." That doesn't matter. "What?" It's government regulation.

I try to call Adam but am unable to reach him. "Can I just leave this (the remote and cable box) here and I'll have him call you?" We can't give out our phone number. I feel like I've been dropped on my head. "You can't give out your phone number. Are you serious?" (I say these last three words with a slight valley-girl inflection) No we can't, but you can call this number. She hands me a card where I can reach a corporate answering clone. Store policy, she says again. "Okay fine, can I just leave this stuff here and as soon as I reach him I'll have him call." No. "I can't leave this stuff here?" No, she says again.

I am tired of pretending any longer that this conversation is rational. I pick up the box, checkbook, and remote and tuck the special little corporate contact card into my wallet. "You know," I say, "I don't expect you to care much because it's only 40$ a month, but when I tell my husband about this, he's gonna be furious and you're going to loose us as customers" (for this I receive a blank stare). I start to walk out, turn back around and say simply: "this is ridiculous" and then as I turn again to leave I drop my check book and bill onto the floor and so have to bend over while balancing the cable box, remote and my wallet, to pick them up from the floor. I wonder if this might have lessened the drama of my parting last words but then as I reach the door, I pause and turning only my head to aim my words with precision I say: "it's only cable you know", and walk away. I get into my car and carefully back out and drive away. No screeching tires, no slamming doors, no flipping of birds, just pure, dignified outrage.

So Adam WAS angry and called the corporate clone and canceled and we did have our revenge in a small way. He refused to drive up to return the cable box again, and so they are sending a postage-paid box for us to return everything in. They could have cared less we were cancelling and their cheerful parting words were: "is there anything else we can help you with today?" How friendly. How absolutely, condescendingly, corporately friendly. So now we have to switch from cable internet to DSL through the phone co. I'm not so sure we came out ahead here but sometimes we just have to prove a point.


Some sad clay worms recuperating from the abuse they suffered on the wheel and a beer which did not make me feel better one bit.

If no one hears a tree grow in the woods, should it keep growing?

I've been feeling a little frustrated about my blog. I thought it would be fun to write and an opportunity to share my work with family, friends, and hopefully strangers or other potters I might hope to meet someday. The sad reality is that it doesn't seem to be the case. My wonderful husband Adam (and my friend Ella from work) are my only constant readers. I've definitely become aware that I am sending this out into space. It's like this little sattelite up among the stars. It's pretty happy it's in space, but like Pinocchio, it just wants to be a real blog.So what do I do when what I am doing is meant to be shared and no one wants a bite?

Well, my first feeling is one of discouragement and the thought to just can it. What's the point? But, I don't have a web-site yet and I feel the need for some kind of prescence on the web. Perhaps I just post a few photos with my contact info and call it good? That doesn't exactly seem like the nature of a blog though. Should I be annoyed with my family and friends for their lack of interest? People have their own lives and I was told when I was little that the world doesn't revolve around me, and it may just be true. Should I be disappointed that out of the dozens and dozens and dozens of pottery blogs out there, many in their third and fourth years, that my little six-month-old pottery blog has not picked up national interest? Yah I'm disappointed, because my Mom did always tell me I was special, but I'm not foolish. I know I am but a small speckle of specialness that exists in the pottery blog world. So what to do?

Well, my wonderful and supportive husband Adam has asked me to not give it up, because he reads every day hoping I have written something new. So if only for Adam alone, I will continue. I do have to ask myself if it is worth writing if only for myself. If no one reads, is there a reason to type these words? I suppose the answer is if the act of creating is enough even if I am my only audience. I think I'd have to answer no. Part of my pleasure is imagining the response of another human being. And the less I can imagine that, the less fun it seems.

But for now there is Adam every day, and for now I guess that's good enough for me.

*disclaimer-the above information isn't entirely correct. In the interest of self-pity and writing a more interesting and succinct post I have left out the fact that my father has read several times, my mother twice, my brother twice and my sister once. I'm sure that these glaring omissions of facts may be pointed out to me otherwise.

Bowls

Just a quick post. First off, I'm feeling pretty awesome. Thanks to that medicine I am still sleeping through the night which I think has begun to have a positive effect on my remaining headache. I just sort of realized late in the day yesterday that I hadn't thought of my pain all day, because it wasn't really there. First day with drug-free pain. This morning is the first morning I have woken up without pulsing and pain. I think my body is finally healing probably thanks to four solid nights of sleep.

These are some bowls I threw Saturday and trimmed Monday. I left them uncovered for almost two days and some were still a little soft to trim. The weather has such an effect on our work.

I am off to make some jewelry. Sadly this means a sharp decline in my pottery output for the next three day. It's an unfortunate cycle I am on.

Mold and the Art of Zen

So I'm pretty excited. Usually I pull all of my handles. It's a sloppy business and it's not my favorite thing to do. Makes the idea of making a lot of mugs at the same time seem like kind of a drag. Well, yesterday I had the idea of making the handles out of a coil of clay and hand shaping them on the table, like I do when I put a little lug on a jar or oval pot and I thought, why not the mugs? It worked fantastically! The handle looks a little large here because of the photo perspective, but it looks pretty sweet. I found that making the handles this way made the whole experience more enjoyable and little more zen-like.


This is what happens when you let your pots sit under plastic in the New England humid summer weather. These rings are all mold.

I got my new scale which almost instantly gave me the same problems with the on/off button so I exchanged it for the model on the left which is larger and more heavy duty and so really more suited to the business of weighing out clay and glaze materials for large batches. The scale on the right is for my testing. I got two because you want the scales to be as accurate as possible of course, and with digital scales, the more you go up in weight capacity (the one on the left can weigh 15 pounds while the one on the right can only weigh 2 pounds) they become slighty less accurate in the sense that the larger one is accurate to within one gram, while the smaller one is accurate to within .001 grams. One gram is not a big deal when weighing out a large batch of glaze, but could be a problem when weighing out a test batch. My tests and my large batches have always come out exactly the same I believe as a result of using two scales and the result of doing my tests in a small computer-controlled kiln and my large computer-controlled kiln. This way I can also program my small firings to fire, and more importantly COOL, very closely the same as a larger firing.

So I took the new medicine the neurologist gave me before nighty-night time like he said, and an amazing thing happened. I slept the entire night. Now, this may not seem like a big deal to most people but I don't sleep well. Four to five hours if I am lucky, and it is all interrupted. Sleep one hour, wake up, sleep another hour, lay awake for an hour, etc. So during the day I am always tired. I woke up this morning and after I rubbed the sleepies out of my eyes I am amazed at how much energy I have. Physically and mentally. I wonder if this is how other people feel all of the time? It's a very strange state for me to be in. I gotta figure out a way to make this a permanent thing. See-ya.