I took this beautiful, winter picture of our home coming up the driveway the other day. You can see the kiln to the right of the house (my studio is on the bottom right corner...with windows!!... my last studio/house had no view). I designed and built most of this house with my wife and two of our children, CJ and Jay. We hired out some of the parts; heating, plumbing, drywall (I've had my fill thank you),basement walls and floor, and I hired a few extra hands to do the framing with us. I'm glad to be done contracting on top of teaching, creating pottery and oil paintings. Where did all that energy come from?? Oh yeah, I was younger ;-] !! All those years training and participating in sports really got me in great shape. I'm still in shape, it's just a different one, LOL...
I love snow scenes with the sun out, I use to do oils of these. I really can't wait to fire again, just need to make more potssplit more wood down finer from the regular sized, dry splits. I mix bigger and smaller pieces depending on if I need to increase my coals/embers. My bigger pieces are dry but need to be re-split to about 2" x 3" or so for gaining temp. Easier to oxidize and gain temperature if the wood is finer.
I looked out my bedroom window today in the middle of this snowstorm we are getting and I have to admit I'm not thinking of firing as much... Boy is it coming down!! I guess I'll continue to concentrate on amassing lots of pottery for when it gets warmer.
I'm glad for Emily Murphy getting her new studio together. She is on Facebook posting again. I enjoyed reading her old blog and am looking forward to her new posts. She always has good ones to read. I'm kind of new at this blogging, Facebook, Flickr, Etsy.... but getting the hang of it. I am up to about 15 blogs I read now. Mostly wood-firers, but a nice assortment. Great inspiration and a great feeling of community. I also met Richard Aerni a couple of weeks ago. I have had my work for sale in the same gallery as him but never met him in person. Not only is he a full-time potter that "made it" doing what he loves, but a great person. He was exhibiting in Ithaca. Got a chance to add his mug to my growing collection of mugs made by fellow potters. He is also on Facebook. There is also a new chat for potters that someone mentioned on Emilys wall. It's called Welcome to Pottery Chat! and the link is potterychat.org. Back to the studio... Need to finish lids for the pieces I made yesterday.
