Sure, it’s Winter. And of course there should be snow. But I’ve been waiting “patiently”
for the roads to be clear of the snow & ice. And this morning they finally were. Too bad
the bike path wasn’t quite so clear. A lot of “black ice” that made riding kind of like
dodging frozen land mines! A fun adventure, but sadly no real sunrise to speak of.

Tonight was putting some final touches on my latest batch of mugs.
I made sure things were smooth, handles well-attached and then I added
some accents of colored slip to finish them off. A quick band of color around
the top portion, then some small dabs of colored slip in each stamp.

So now they’re ready to dry and then wait for my next bisque firing.
These mugs are destined for the soda kiln. In that final cone 10 firing, the soda
atmosphere in the kiln will make these colored slips a lot brighter… hopefully
with some beautiful flashing around the mugs. You never know what you’re going
to get when you’re soda firing. That’s part of the fun…

Let me just preface this by saying that I went to Step Class this morning.
With three risers, the board and wrist weights the whole time.
With that said…

Today I went out to lunch with my friend Pam from Lillstreet.
And by “lunch” I mean ice cream.

Pam had just finished her class, and I had just finished stamping all of my cylinders.
So it was perfect timing. We walked over to Margie’s Ice Cream for some yummy
goodness. After laughing at their goofy menu, we settled on our “lunch” choices.
And were pleasantly surprised when they showed up… and they were HUGE!!!

Yes… that’s a Turtle Split… made with chocolate ice cream, banana, hot fudge & caramel.
Okay, for those who are counting, that’s three scoops of ice cream, two “gravy boats” of
homemade hot fudge and another “boat” of caramel sauce. But who’s counting?… And
yes, the banana is good potassium. Ice cream is a dairy product for strong teeth & bones.
Hot fudge is chocolate from a cocoa “bean”… so it counts as a vegetable.
That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.

So much ice cream. So much hot fudge. So much fun. I was like a giddy six-year-old.
Remember, no judging… I went to Step Class this morning!!!

After we had finished our ice cream, shared stories, laughed and solved all the problems
of the world, we felt it was time to go back to the studio to make more stuff. I knew
I had a lot of trimming to do! But we’re never in too much of a hurry to get back that we
couldn’t stop for a quick GeoCaching adventure… Pam’s first!

As we were leaving I checked the GeoCaching App and saw that there was one just a bit
down the street. So we went to find it. We looked for a couple minutes and Pam found it!
Her first GeoCache ever!!! It was hidden in a small blue bag… can’t tell you where…
you need to find it yourself! Pam opened the bag to reveal  a small tube with a scroll
inside to sign in. Then we replaced it so the next person could find it.

Pam has known of my “fascination” with GeoCaching for awhile now. And has often
scoffed… but now, after the childlike excitement of finding her first GeoCache, she
may be addicted like the rest of us?! One more adventure I’ve hooked her up with…

Timing is everything. I frequently tell my students that it is one of the hardest parts
of the entire pottery process. Trying to catch your pieces at the right stage of drying
so that you can effectively stamp, alter, trim, slip, whatever. Well, today was that day!

Not only did I have a table full of pots to stamp, but I also had some new stamps
fresh out of a bisque kiln. Remember a few weeks back when I tried a new method
of making stamps? Well now that they’re bisqued, I can finally use them on pots.
So here are the first three cylinders that I stamped with them. The jury’s still out…
not sure if I like them, not quite as “clean” as I would like, and I need to work them
into my own style if I’m going to make more of them. We’ll see…  it’s all part of the
“learning curve” when trying new things. Some times they work. Sometimes they don’t.
Sometimes they just need some more time to “percolate” in your head!

I did a few with the new stamps, but had a LOT of cylinders to be stamped. So I set forth &
stamped all day long. Cylinders for mugs, and taller cylinders that will become tumblers.

Once they were all stamped, they were then also ready to be trimmed.
So I started trimming them and putting them back under plastic to keep them moist
enough overnight. Tomorrow I need to add the handles to make them mugs!
Again… timing is everything!

Tackled the slushy snow & traffic tonight to get to my second AIRobics class.
Well worth the icy hassle to sweat & laugh at myself in a room of wall-to-wall
trampolines! I would like to say I did better this time…
but I don’t really think so…

I’m also sensing this could become a new “addiction” of sorts.
Choosing to drive an hour and a half in nasty weather instead of sitting on the sofa?!
It’s a great alternative to the normal workouts. An hour of fun & bouncing,
sweating & laughing… acting like a seven year old. It’s a slippery slope.

It was a productive evening in the studio.
Throwing cylinders and hoping a new holiday ornament design might come my way.
It didn’t come fast enough… so I just kept making more & more cylinders!!!

When in doubt, make more mugs & tumblers… right???

If one or two of something is fun, a dozen is even more fun.
If a dozen is more fun, thousands of dozens is just downright CRAZY COOL!!!
And when that object turns out to be coffee stirrer sticks… even better!!!

Found this online and just had to share…

Most people don’t think twice about their coffee stirrers once they’ve fulfilled their mixing
duties, but artist Jonathan Brilliant has found another purpose for the common wooden
sticks. The Raleigh, North Carolina-based artist has constructed numerous spatial art
installations over the years that incorporate the coffee stir sticks, perhaps the most eye-
fetching of them being “The Sumter Piece.”

The site-specific structure, installed in 2007 in Sumter, South Carolina, included 60,000
wooden stirring sticks expertly woven together. Brilliant produced a meticulously crafted
sculptural piece that expanded across two floors. It reached over a second floor balcony
and suspended from the ceiling of the first floor, artistically wrapping around an
illuminated chandelier.

The abstract creation took 14 days to weave together and install on site. It’s hard to believe,
but there were no additional tools on hand. Brilliant says, “No adhesive was used and the
entire structure holds itself in place because of the tensile strength of 7” rounded end
wooden coffee stirrers. After nearly six months the piece eventually separated and the
materials were donated to a local school.”

C’mon now… No armature. No super-structure. NO GLUE!!! Really?!
And wouldn’t have loved to see it when it “eventually separated” and came crashing down?!
Now THAT’s the video I want to see!!!

And let me just say… Did anyone else see “America’s Got Talent” when “The Kinetic King”
made these incredible contraptions out of tongue depressors?! he interwove them kinda
like this… but when he knocked one stick, it started a huge chain reaction where every
stick flipped out and fell down like racing dominoes. Click here for the video.

Imagine what would happen if these two stick artists collaborated?!!!
Even crazier. Even cooler!!! But I digress…

Okay, one more thing… one more tangent…
Doesn’t this somehow have future Summer Camp project written all over it?! I’m just sayin’…

For more about the artist Jonathan Brilliant, his incredible installations and projects,
click here for his website. He’s crazy… crazy cool!!!

When you’ve got twenty cylinders stamped, trimmed and at the perfect leather-hard state,
you’ve got to start attaching handles quick before the cylinders dry out. So I start by
wedging my clay, making sure it is the same clay as the cylinders themselves. Then I cut
the wedged clay up into smaller pieces and pound them against the table to create these
little “carrot” shapes.

Then I pick one up from the fat end at pull handles the traditional way. Basically by dragging
a wet hand down the “carrot” tube from top to bottom. The slippery friction makes the clay
stretch. By switching around your hand positions, you can create handles of different shapes
and widths. When I get mine to the right size & shape, I quickly give ’em a flip and loop ’em
over. They sit this way for a few minutes so that the clay can stiffen up a bit. If you try to attach
them when they are too wet, the handles don’t hold their shape… they get all mushy looking.

When they are ready, I cut off the portion for the handle that I need to attach to the mug
cylinder. Each one is then scored & slipped, and carefully attached to the cylinders.
Paying close attention to the placement & size of each handle and how they “fit” to the
cylinder itself. As I finish each handle, I put the mugs back on my plastic ware boards,
give them a quick spray of water and then wrap them up again overnight. I like to keep
them wrapped in the hopes that the moisture levels between the cylinder and the handle
might even out a bit so they can dry & shrink more evenly later.

Today, while I was attaching my handles, I was also watching this informative DVD of
Tara Wilson as she was demonstrating at the 2009 NCECA Conference. She makes these
wonderful forms, very clean, very smooth, very voluptuous. She does a lot of darting &
altering of her thrown forms, and then fires them in a wood fired kiln to create wonderful
flashing surfaces & finishes. Always fun to watch someone else show how they do
their work… as I continue to add my handles… again… and again… and again…

It’s February… and it finally SNOWED in Chicago!!!
Sure, we’ve had flurries & dustings of snow. But today I woke up to a couple
inches of snow. Which looked especially fun on this great “bike-frame-fence”
I found along my way home from Step Class.

Generally I’m not a fan of graffiti.
I think if you feel like you need to paint something, find a canvas, a board, a piece of paper.
Don’t deface the side of a building or public space that other people enjoy as it is.

But then sometimes you’ll see something really cool & unexpected. Not just some random
spray paint on the side of the wall. Not just some crazy block letters tagging a building.
But actually some incredible graphics. Beautiful designs in unexpected places. In this
case, it was on Grand Avenue beneath Lake Shore Drive near Chicago’s Navy Pier.
Propaganda posters slapped onto the concrete walls along Grand Avenue. Love ’em!
Sadly, like most graffiti… it might not last for long…

So I realize that these images are all part of a marketing campaign. Shameless propaganda.
Yet I LOVE the bold graphic design, the stark black & white contrast, and the dynamic
flourishes, patterns & crisp sense of whimsy. And while the above “segments” are great,
the entire posters were even better. So here they are as they were designed…
although some of them are showing signs of deterioration already.

But then sometimes, the reality of the structure gets in the way of a great art installation.
Couldn’t quite move around the pipes, so they had to be where they were… right in front!!!

Yes, each poster is pretty great.
But the entire “under bridge wall” plastered with these posters was quite a dramatic sight.
So similar in style, yet each one of them a beauty on its own!

Oh, the things you’ll see while playing on your bike…