Stamping a couple dinner plates after summer camp… but before teaching class tonight!

Last session during our final class potluck… Hannah brought in these amazing cheesecake bites! And we all noticed the gorgeous platter she served them on. Turns out she “scored” the platter at a thrift shop!!! Unaware that it is actually a handmade platter by my friend & studio mate Karen Patinkin!

As a potter… does it mean that you’ve finally “made it”
when your pottery shows up at a thrift store???

Celebrating another Mugshot Monday all the way from Nova Scotia… with some LEGO flowers in a stamped & soda-fired mug. Once again showing that not every mug needs to be filled with coffee or tea! Thanks for sharing Shannon!!!

There should be a skyline out there somewhere?! Let alone a horizon line!!! Welcome to a monochromatic Monday in Chicago. Lots of clouds & foggy haze covering the City. The temperature isn’t that bad yet… but the humidity!!! Yikes!!! All I had to do was LOOK at my bike and started sweating! It felt like six-thousand percent humidity!!! I was just a drippy sweaty mess!!! Hydrate, hydrate, hydrate…

A quick “flashback” to last Sunday when my high school friend Jennifer stopped by with her family at the GLENVIEW SUMMER ART FAIR. Always good to see longtime friends… and their great kids! And there’s a good chance that Sophia “may have” gone away with a couple freebie mugs gifted to her… for her upcoming college apartment! Perhaps two new shaped mugs… coming soon to an art fair near you…

Sweet little strawberries in a sweet little bowl on a sweet little Sunday morning.
Thanks for sharing Kristy!

Wildflowers at Montrose Harbor while waiting for the sunrise.

Foggy, hazy., cloudy, humid, windy… your choice! We had them all this morning. So many clouds that I had pretty much given up on seeing the sunrise… and then it finally “burned’ its way through the clouds. Just enough for some great reflections on the calm & still water.

Another platter… another round of stamping!
Once again creating a decorative rim with just ONE handmade stamp
pressed in one by one… by one… by one…

So here’s the update… and my NEW BIKE!!!

Turns out my red bike “Scarlett Don’t Care-Ah” had more wrong with it than I thought. As they were cleaning it & doing a full overhaul, they saw a “chink in the armor” where there was a chip of paint off the frame between the pedals & the back wheel on the side with the gears. When they investigated & did a “tap test” you could hear the sound difference in one area near the chip. Kinda like checking pottery for a crack & you can hear the difference… clear ping vs. dull thud. Same here. So they determined that there was a literal crack through the carbon-fiber!!! Damaged at some point over the past couple years & thousands of miles… probably from falling over onto something bad. And now it could break at any time… sending me flying off my bike as the rear wheel could detach if that were to happen. So my choices were to buy a new frame & have them “retro-fit” all of my old components onto the new frame… or buy a new bike. One choice was a week’s wait & jerry-rigging… the other was instant & new. So I went for the NEW BIKE!!! Same model as my previous one as I am always TREK loyal… just the newer model. And a new color… it was either a dark-almost-black-green color, or this ombre’ version. So now I just need to figure out a good name for my new trusted steed. Thoughts???