Tightening your belt

I don’t know what happened but I was born without a butt. Consequently, I have to remember to keep my belt tight. I didn’t tighten the belts around the plaster mould and the slip flowed all over the floor like Niagara Falls. I did a quick recovery by squeezing the mould back together and tightening the straps. It was a bitch trying to get the mould apart this morning but voila here were these paper thin wings.  They reminded me of vases by Colin Pearson of the UK. Another mistake! Another aha moment.

OOPS, another of my mistakes. Yeah, me!

We are experiencing “erosion” in the wood kiln where the clay is getting eaten away by the alkaline vapours of the flame. A handle that looks just right going in can be razor shape coming out.  I have no idea what is going to happen to these paper thin edges but I got to tell ya I’m excited.

So it was Saturday night and that’s my night to listen to the Blues and make pots. I completely forgot I teach an Introductory class at Pinecroft on Sundays. Usually teaching the rookies wears me out and I come home, have a stiff drink and fall asleep in the yellow chair for 45 minutes. Not today I had lots of pots to trim.

I don’t know how community centers teach intro classes without a pug mill. The best one ever is the old “Walker”. My Uncle Jimmie bought his Walker in the 50’s and it has been a work horse for hundreds of thousands of pounds of clay. It has only been disabled when a students trimming tool, rib or such has entered the slop bucket un- noticed.

The beloved "Walker" puts the rest to shame. 

The studio my aunt and uncle built across the pond  to escape the crowds of The Green Frog Tearoom

Food should tire them out.

Here is my class of 8. We go for lunch at the Green Frog Tearoom. It is a beautiful commute to lunch and back to work across the dam of the pond. The turtles were sunning themselves. The Canada geese were making plans to go shit somewhere south of 49 and the beautiful Great Blue Heron speared a small bass for lunch. I wonder if he has ever considered  tofu or baba ganouche?