With wind from the south this morning, the first half of my ride was a bit chillier than I expected. The waves were crashing. The sky was cloudy. And the sunrise never “quite” made its way to spectacular. But the ride back home was pretty darn sweet!!!

Gotta love a good tailwind!

So last Friday night was Empty Bowls at Lillstreet Art Center.
I was too “busy” focusing on my income taxes to attend the event, but twelve of my bowls were there! From what I’ve heard, they sold over 650 bowls and raised over $9,000 for local food-related charities.

Apparently, one of my students brought her Mom & Dad to the event. They looked around, each picked out a bowl… and low & behold, Shea’s Mom picked one of mine!!! Out of a sea of bowls, she picked one of my class demo bowls where I did the white slip swirl through the inside of the bowl. Looks even better with yummy soup inside!!!

And then during class tonight, Shea surprised me with a gift! She gave me one of her beautiful slip-trailed bowls… yeah me! I had mentioned that this one was my “favorites” of the slip-trailed bowls while she was doing it. And she remembered. Weeks later, after firing, glazing & firing again, it finally came out of the kiln. And looked beautiful. Can’t wait to add some of my own soup into it… or better yet, hot fudge with some ice cream… merely the vehicle to get the hot fudge into my mouth! Thank You Shea!!!

Before class tonight, I had just enough time to trim my latest batch of spoon rests.
It was down to the wire, but with about five minutes to spare, I finished the last one
AND made it to class just in time!!!

I found these beautiful paper works today online while surfing Colossal.com. I was first drawn to the beautiful patterns, but was then enthralled when I found out that they were all made out of thin, cut & rolled strips of paper!!! Amazing.

“Rabie” – by Gunjan Aylawadi…

“Against The Wind” – by Gunjan Aylawadi…

“Derweze” – by Gunjan Aylawadi…

According to Colossal.com…
The Sydney, Australia-based artist Gunjan Aylawadi creates intricate, colorful sculptures that appear to resemble woven textiles. However, upon closer observation, her work—inspired by patterns and motifs in Islamic art—are made entirely from curled paper. The process, long and intricate, can cost the artist months on a single artwork. And not just any old paper will do. For example, “Against the Wind” is made from hand-cut strips of paper from old music books, which are then individually hand rolled and assembled. Although complicated, Aylawadi’s reasons for making art are simple: “What I enjoy most about making my work is the experience people have when they look at it,” she says. “They stop for a moment to have a closer look and the moment turns into long minutes of being fascinated by the beauty a simple medium like paper can add to the work in front of their eyes.”

Kind of reminds me of my old high school days… playing with the old paper craft of quilling. Now if only I had Gunjan’s work as inspiration back than, imagine what I could have been doing?!!! A little bit more than this old “sampler” I made many years ago. And no, I haven’t kept it all these years. My Mom found it when they were packing to move and passed it back on to me. Now what to do with it???

And to wake up to THIS is wrong on so many levels.
Don’t even know even where to begin…

Just hit the “SEND” button… look at me, with a full 26 hours to spare!!!

I love when I hear from blog readers…. and hear their stories of how my little blog,
or my pottery, has somehow impacted their lives. Here’s one such case…

Your website was my inspiration.  Don’t know how I happened on to it
but my students were fired up after I presented the lesson.  I teach
high school art at Freedom High School in South Riding, Virginia.
I have 120 – Art 1 students; mostly freshmen.  First we made stamps
and then we made plates (slump mold into plastic picnic plates).
Then we used the stamps to imprint the plates.  The project was a very
fun success.  Thanks so much for sharing your ideas.     – Barbara

Little ball of “potential” wedged and ready to go… err, I mean throw!!!

Interesting… maybe that explains the crazy week ahead…
with another prediction of SNOW?!!!