Gary Jackson: Fire When Ready Pottery
A Chicago potter’s somewhat slanted view of clay & play
Categories: inspiration, nature, seasons

Snow-covered cars… a brief warm-up… a “roll” of snow sliding down a windshield.
Beautiful. Unexpected. And sadly, not going to last very long with today’s temps!

Categories: inspiration, nature

Notice the icicles “sprouting” out along the top of the bike rack at a crazy wind-blown angle!!!

Categories: bike, inspiration, nature

Another scenic stop along the lake… to see a wacky “forest” of colored trees!
Orange on the bottom, yellow on the top! A wonderful winter installation against the snow.
There’s about a hundred of these great trees creating this colorful “forest” along
Lake Shore Drive, just south of Lincoln Park Zoo at the south end of the lagoon!

Categories: bike, nature, seasons

With the sun shining today, it was a great day for another bike ride along the lake.
A little chilly, but at least the bike trail was relatively dry. So with several layers on,
I set out for a great bike ride along Lake Michigan. Only to find… glaciers?!

Categories: inspiration, nature

I saw this in an e-mail and I had to share…
Stunning crop art has sprung up across rice fields in Japan.
The designs have been cleverly planted. Farmers creating the huge displays
use no ink or dye. Instead, different color rice plants have been precisely and
strategically arranged and grown in the paddy fields. As summer progresses
and the plants shot up, the detailed artwork begins to emerge.

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Rice paddy art was started in 1993 as a local revitalization project, an idea that grew
from meetings of the village committees. The different varieties of rice plants grow
alongside each other to create the masterpieces.

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rice-field-detail

Categories: classes, lillstreet, nature, pottery, process, production

Tonight’s class ended with one of my favorite projects… STAMPS!
A lot of my students have taken an interest in textures & stamping… go figure.
So tonight we made stamps that will be bisqued fired and then they can start using them!

class-stamps

Categories: art fair, nature, photography, pottery, process, production, stamps

Back in the saddle… and back to some good-ol’-fashioned stamping fun!
The mugs I started the other day are now all stamped…
now they need to “dry” to a stiffer leather-hard so I can trim them and add the handles!

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Categories: inspiration, nature
Categories: inspiration, nature, sunrise
Categories: nature

The weather was incredible this weekend… both Saturday & Sunday!
Compared to the cold, wet, windy Fall we’ve had so far – it was spectacular!
Unfortunately, I was “stuck” inside Lillstreet yesterday as I was firing my soda kiln.
So I tried to avoid looking out the window all day – trying to convince myself that it
wasn’t so incredibly gorgeous outside!!!

Today however…
I had to get outside for a nice hike through the woods for what might be the last
truly incredible “weather weekend” for this Fall. Although my fingers are ALWAYS
crossed in hopes of a few more days of Indian Summer!!!

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