Clay Geeks

Yesterday we visited Zach Sierke in Fairhope, Alabama. We visited his castable anagama. Zach has made most of his kiln shelves, posts and a large number of bricks. Makes you wonder if you put Zach, Josh Copus and Takuro Shibata in Josh's new jail cell and fed them only grits and collard greens for a month and recorded the dialogue what we might hear. It would either be pure torture or they would have the time of their lives geeking out on clay.

Here is a picture of Zach and M standing on a pile of sand dug out of Zach's pond. This sand has no whiting content and so is perfectly usable in his clay. Much of the clay around here is very refractory so great for high fire. History shows a number of potteries in this region of Alabama. This reduction cooled plate and bourbon cup of Zach's are going home to The Cactus Lounge with me. Thanks Zach.

In the evening our hostess Susie Bowman insisted that we do more suffering for the sake of our art so she and friends prepared a southern feast of shrimp, oysters, catfish, cheese grits, and collard greens. How much more southern can it get? As at Ron and Hester's the table just gets longer. No walls being built here. 

A New Orleans King Cake for dinner. A baby is hidden inside the cake and the person who gets the baby has to buy the next King Cake. Jesse and M are having a baby! Jesse got the baby so they have filed for adoption and will be taking this little Alabama back to The Promised Land. Congratulations U2. Whodda thunk it?