Just a quick flashback… to last week’s demo fr my Beginning Wheelthrowing class. Where we worked on making “bowls on purpose and not cylinders gone bad”. Towards the end of class, we spent some time altering some of the bowls & adding some surface decoration. So this is where we left them last week… ready for just a bit MORE!!!

Kristy’s version of a Sundae-Sunday! Sure most of us would think ice cream… but Kristy went with yogurt & some toppings with great colors & textures! Food always tastes better in handmade pottery… thanks for sharing Kristy!

Yesterday was full of clouds & crashing waves. Today… not so much. Just clear skies with a gentle breeze along the lakefront. Nothing too surprising…. just another beautiful sunrise!

The surprising part was when I was out on the Montrose “hook” shooting my photos, when a guy rode past on his bike. He looked familiar, but I had no clue. It wasn’t until he rode back the other way… stopped… got off his bike… and walked over. Turns it was my friend Rebecca’s husband Ryan… who I haven’t seen for a couple years! So strange running into a friend way out there on the lake at that time of the morning… with basically no one else out there?! Turns out Ryan has started biking more in the mornings after being “inspired” by my own sunrise biking addiction! So good to see you Ryan… keep on pedaling!!!

At the end of the workshop, AL and I did a little pottery trade!!! I came home with a great lidded bowl. Where the rim is hollow & perforated so it doesn’t get hot… and a lid that flips over to become a bowl. Again, with hollow & perforated knob so it too does not get hot!!! AL went home with two of my hybrid mugs… not so matchy-matchy… but clearly close enough that they just couldn’t be separated from each other!

After my tour of MKM POTTERY TOOLS… Rick invited me over to his pottery studio… Fired Earth Pottery. It’s a very nice group studio space for resident artists, as well as classes & renters. Lucky for me, ceramic artist AL Holden was going to be doing a workshop at Fired Earth Pottery last night… and Rick invited me to stay… so I did! It was great to meet AL and see her work. I just love watching people throw on the wheel regardless of their skill level… so it was even more fun to see someone at the college professor level “showing-off” and making cool pots! The evening was great with AL doing the show, but all of the participants were great fun too!!! Glad I went to Appleton yesterday…. turns out there was a lot to do!!!

And of course… there were PLENTY of MKM Pottery Tools on hand for AL to use!!!

Check her out… www.alholenceramics.com

So while I was in Appleton, Wisconsin yesterday, I got the “full tour” of MKM Pottery Tools. Rick was very excited to give me the full tour & show off his business. The smell of wood & oil was amazing!!! I loved it… and found it amusing that the people there don’t even smell it anymore!!! HA!!! And not only did we see tons of amazing textured rollers & stamps… I “might” have also had one of Angie’s pumpkin chocolate chip cookies fresh out of the oven!!! … burp.

So I did a little roadtrip up to Appleton, Wisconsin yesterday to drop-off some hybrid mugs with the fine folks at MKM Pottery Tools. It was great to finally meet Rick, as well as his support staff with Angie, Rachel, Seth & Christopher… as we’ve only known each other “virtually” online. It was great to finally hang-out, get to know each other for real & deliver some of my soda-fired hybrid mugs to them. It was kind of a cool “full-circle moment” as I use the MKM handrollers to create my hybrid mugs. And Appleton is apparently where all the magic comes from!!!

And then… just when the sun came up & the waves were crashing…
I got one good shot of the illuminated waves…

…and then my battery died!!! ugh.

Colorful clouds & crashing waves. Another volatile morning along the lake…
beautiful, but louder than normal!

Celebrating another Floral Friday with some blue hydrangea in a round spherical vase…
stamped & soda-fired with a blush of a teal blue glaze!