HAPPY BIRTHDAY TAYLOR!!!

So my niece Taylor is turning eighteen today!!!
And I thought it might be fun to do a little flashback to when she was a youngster in grade school doing a class project about a family member. Turns out she picked ME!!! So cute… funny the things that “stuck” in her head back then? Hard to believe she’s turning 18 already… where has the time gone?!

Food just tastes better on handmade pottery!

This morning I was excited about my iris shoots popping up! But then at Navy Pier this afternoon… I spied these colorful crocus flowers bursting through everywhere!!! A fun surprise… considering we still have chances for snow! And the first day of Spring is not until Monday!!! Even the bees were out enjoying the sunshine today!

Although we’re still dealing with cold temperatures, snow flurries & freezing rain… seemingly changing on a daily basis… it is encouraging to see little sprouts of my variegated iris working their way through in the garden. Spring is coming!!!

I’ve been looking forward to this all day… Celebrating NATIONAL PI(e) DAY!!! March 14th… also known as 3.14… also know as Pi. A yummy piece of cherry pie on a beautiful handmade porcelain plate made by my friend & teaching assistant Susan Slogoff. All hand-painted with black underglaze as the perfect contrast to the white porcelain!!!

A little worse for wear…
loving the colors & textures of weathered wood after a long Winter season.

Just one of my “not-so-basic” class demo bowls… after a banded layer of white slip, then carved through with leaf patterns. A quick layer of an amber celadon glaze tops it off. And I’m kinda diggin’ the sparkly gold flecks in the pooled areas.

Looks like Lisa is enjoying her perfectly purple mug while puzzling!

This past week in my GREAT LILLSTREET THROWDOWN class, my students tackled their “last” big class challenge as we are sadly nearing the end of the class session. They’ve done handbuilding challenges, they’ve done wheelthrowing challenges… they’ve played silly games & posed for silly pictures! It has been a great class session with GREAT students in class this time around.

So to top things off… I decided to challenge them with something they “never saw coming!”

BLINDFOLDS!!!

I had them separate into teams by randomly rolling dice. They then got matching color bandanas as blindfolds… and the one who had a small safety pin on it had to go first. So they put their blindfolds on… and stood there while their partners found out what their task would be. They each rolled some dice to find out what number their team would be throwing!

And then they set-off to do their best… one throwing blindly with just their partner to describe & paint a mental picture of the outcome!

And then, after the throwers had made their shapes as best they could… and the timer went off… we switched places. The ones doing the describing put their blindfolds on, as the wheelthrowers took theirs off. Only then did they find out that the newly blindfolded members would now be responsible for refining the shape and adding handles to match the original pictures. Okay, sure… maybe I drew some of the handles in…

And again, when the time was up… the teams brought their final pieces to the table for critiques, judging & admiration. I think everyone had a good time with this challenge. There was a LOT of laughter along the way!

As part of the GREAT LILLSTREET THROWDOWN, my students we encouraged to finish their projects from Week Two for judging at Week 9… this past Thursday. Remember back when they had to throw a large serving bowl, pass it to another to match, and then pass it back to finish it up… and make coordinating serving utensils to go with it. Well here are the Top Three… congratulations Ashley, Katie & Aaron!