````No risk, no magic!!

When I talked to a fellow friend potter about what I was going to do during my two month residency at The Bray she wisely said " Do what nobody is expecting!"Residencies aren't about going somewhere new to do the same thing you could have done at home. I have had a bit of experience with challenging peoples expectations of my work. I have even heard of people saying I'm not going to a Tony Clennell workshop because he is a wood fire potter! I don't think I ever talk about wood firing during a workshop. I'm much more than that. When I moved to the city I did earthenware much to people's surprise. At the Invitational Wood fire Show "Bon Feu" I showed up with slip cast colourful vases. They all sold as people thought I leaving brown behind and had been enlightened. Then a couple of years ago I took to handbuilding bird houses intended for the livingroom. I high fired them and then painted them with room temperature chalk paint. It was soooo much fun. So today I went for a forest bath in a beautiful Carolinian forest near me. It has been pissing rain for days and I needed some exercise. A walk is better for creative thought for me than tearing it up on my bike. I think for sure but not about clay. In the train kiln last week I put some tiles on the floor of the kiln as a seed of an idea. I made a clay body out of torn up fibrefax, toilet paper and ball clay. It's very light and durable when fired. Where is this going? Dunno! No risk, no magic! That can be said about life too. Too many people settle into something that kinda works and ride it into the sunset.