My better half

Today my former student and friend Amber Zuber moved into the other half of my studio. It is now the better half since she wet mopped it when she arrived and wet mopped it before she left. She is shaming me into cleaning up my half. My half has all the shit I collect to make pots. It’s a good thing I have set up 3 other potteries or I would be buried in things a potter just must have. I left my 1967 Stihl girlie calendar up to remind her it is still my space.

It’s nice to have company although with the radio on, ware racks separating us and my back to her I can’t  say we even know the other exists.  Nice to have someone to share an expresso with though.

Amber set to work quickly. Had the studio organized for her work, cleaned up, tore up some porcelain to make into a slip and started on a porcelain and a stoneware piece.

 Here is a little piece she brought as a house warming gift.

 A glazed soft brick base- nice!  Before she left for England she was making these retro radios, cameras, guns etc. They were reproductions of the old things and were really literal in their reference except instead of Leica, or Admiral they would have the brand name Zuber.  The work she is doing now is gutsier, raw and about the materials and process. Welcome to the dark and nasty side where I reside.

 I showed her my old landlady/fellow grad student/friend Heidi Kreichet’s work and you would think I slipped her a tab of a hallucinogenic drug.

I’m  going to try to get 20 of these vases made for the wood firing. 

I am glad to have Amber here to talk about the saucers I’m going to make. Although they wouldn’t agree with my assessment of their characters Amber and Andrew are very much alike in the banter we fire back and forth. They both know what they like and are very willing to let ya know. I find that refreshing and good for me. I’ve never really gotten a straight forward answer from my pile of batts, my pug mill or for that matter the electric kiln in the corner.

Tonight I head out for Vietnamese food in London and my first drawing class at Fanshawe College. I am so excited!