You can shit the fans!

You can shit the fans but not the players! It seems like ages ago that I did my first workshop at Mohawk College. I had made the move to the Niagara Peninsula and a pottery angel named Darlene Benner asked me to do a workshop and she gave me all the money. This was a step up bigger than I could have ever imagined. There were full time potters in the group!!!  It is easy to pontificate to the ones that love you but to be taken seriously and listened to by your cotemporaries is quite another thing.  Darlene your contribution to clay has gone way further than Hamilton and region. The boost you gave me has taken the gospel according to Clennell to many parts of the world-USA, Italy, China, Japan . In the next year I am a presenter at the Icheon Festival in Korea, The International Ceramics Festival in Aberystwyth, Wales and then in 2016 the North Carolina Potters Conference. Should I be scared?  Ya, I should be! Is it all talk and not walk? Will I stubble? Will I be the weakest link? These are all the self doubts of February in Ontario where the snow is piled high, the temperature is -29 and no cash is forthcoming. I need a good firing! A good firing always chases the blues away.

That photo is a probably 15 years old and was taken by my buddy Franssie Rood. Gee I must be tuff on blue jeans.