Anyone out there want to see how this class demo platter went from plain to fully stamped???
You’ve been asking… there’s a “very good chance” that there may be a video in the works?!

And the stamps that did most of the “magic”…

Guess who is playing with iMovie???…
and might just have something fun to share later this evening???

Tonight’s syllabus line-up for my class demos was a little aggressive.
A lot of things to cover in a short mount of time. A lot to do. A lot for them to take in.
Trying not to overwhelm my Beginners, but still keep my returning students engaged.
I think they doubted that I could get it all squeezed in… but I did!!!

Demo #1 – We started with another bowl demo. It was much the same as last week’s bowl demo. Just one more. It wasn’t until I got home and posted the photos that I realized that I had forgotten to do the one demo shape that my student Dave had requested. Shoot. So tonight I corrected that oversight and made one more bowl. With one more design. This time with a split rim and some “lotus” shaped alterations.

Demo #2 – Next, I did a plate & platter throwing demo. I showed them how easy it is to throw a plate… basically a very wide cylinder, with the sides flared out. Then I explained that the slow drying to leather-hard and trimming is the tough part of the process.

Demo #3 – Next up, I showed them how to convert a normal bowl into a pedestal bowl. First I trimmed the bottom of the bowl to a smooth, “domed” bowl bottom. And then I scored & slipped a ball of clay onto the top of the “dome” bottom. A quick centering of that ball of clay, and a quick thrown cylinder, collar, shape, groove lines, and voila’…

When you flip it over… pedestal bowl.

Demo #4 – The next bowl conversion was a demo on how I turn them into berry bowls. And what better way than with power tools!!! I brought my drill in and we made some holes the easy way.

And oh, but wait there’s more… we ALSO covered basic glazing techniques!
Demo #5 – Yes, we squeezed in a full glaze demo… starting with waxing the bottoms, all the way to dipping, drying, cleaning, finishing and putting them onto the glaze cart for firing.

So after a very fast-pace two hours, we had completed our demos, fully discussed the Olympic Opening Ceremonies, the Beatles 50th Special, and still had over an hour for all my students to get some work done. And here’s what I got done…

Sure, I’ve been enjoying the beautiful icicles & formations on my back porch.
Admiring & sharing. Embracing the cold. Appreciating nature.

I never really imagined what was happening three floors down… SOLID ICE!!!
Well, today I finally went around to take a look at the not-so-pretty side of the ice.

Apparently the gutters are frozen and overflowing, creating cascading waterfalls freezing down the sides of our building…. and piling up all over our back porch steps. Treacherous. It’s going to take quite awhile for this mess to melt away!

And it’s not only the main stairs… it’s the steps going down to the basement as well. Those steps are covered over with inches of ice, and end in a solid sheet of ice! Ice everywhere. Get your skates ready!!!

Tonight I stamped… and stamped… and stamped…
All of the bowls I threw yesterday were “ready” to be stamped. Sure, again I might be rushing it. And sure, they might have been a bit squishier than I would like. And sure, maybe they weren’t as “ready” as I had hoped. But sometimes when it comes to stamping my pots – I JUST CAN’T WAIT.

So now they’re all stamped and ready to dry a bit more. Next up… trimming & drilling holes. And then I need to make small plates to go with each of the bowls before I can consider them berry bowls sets!

THE BEATLES STILL ROCK!!!
Paul & Ringo. And lots of other artists celebrating 50 years!!!

And how adorable was Anna Kendrick singing along to “Yellow Submarine” and grabbing her boyfriend like “Hey, I can’t believe we’re seeing The Beatles live!” Only to be out-done in the cuteness category by Dave Grohl’s adorable little girl singing along as well.

Thank You CBS for celebrating the past 50 Years of Beatles history & music.
It was fifty years to the day & time that they first debuted on “The Ed Sullivan Show.”
We may be missing two of The Beatles… but their music still sounds incredible!!!

And always will.

Enough of this Winter. I’m trying to channel my “inner-Spring”… and I’m thinking
these will become berry bowls after some stamping, trimming & hole drilling!

When I got into the studio this morning, I opened my stuff and pulled out my Netflix movie envelopes. Keep in mind that my queue has been long for a long amount of time. I’ve pretty much forgotten what I’ve put on the list. And I’m frequently surprised when I open the envelope. Well, today was one of those days.

After a couple days of really cool (and somewhat dangerous) ice formations on my back porch, I chuckled to myself when I saw the title of the first movie – “Chasing Ice.” It’s a documentary about how the glaciers are receding all around the world. And my thought was “Sure, and now they’re all covering Chicago!!!” Timing is everything!

The movie is a beautiful. Environmental photographer James Balog started by photographing the beauty & majesty of glaciers & frozen formations. As he continued over the years, he could see that the glaciers were slowly disappearing. And he set out to document the geological change. He deployed time-lapse cameras to capture a record of the world’s changing glaciers, compressing years into seconds to illustrate how these ice mountains are disappearing at a breathtaking rate. The videos are amazing, beautiful & sad. The comparisons between years are shocking.

The movie starts out with some breathtaking photography – which I’m sure is the reason I added it to my Netflix queue in the first place. Soon enough you become enthralled by his passion & adventure to capture the glacial changes with time-lapse photography. Regardless of which side you are on in the Global Warming debate, these images are hard to dispute. I’m just glad I rode my bike through Glacier National Park when there were still glaciers there!!!

Click here to see the official trailer for “Chasing Ice.”

And here are just a few of the stunning images from the documentary…

So I stepped out onto my back porch again today. Still frozen.
But I was struck with the beauty of the icicles & shadows as they played across the brick wall. While I was a bit confused by the frozen waterfall covering a patch of brick wall?! How did THAT get there???

And what was making all of the cool shadows on the wall, you may ask?
My favorite curtain of rusty metal things, cogs & cowbells! Welcome to my back porch!