clay: stealing back from mass manufacture

Days 1 and 2 were wide open for me of our Palm Springs vacation, and we (Helen and I) let our hosts (Mark and Judy) set the itinerary for both days. On Day 1, we walked the El Paseo shopping district in Palm Desert. The only art I got to spy was this mural.   

It’s bold text in bright happy colors, which I appreciated and liked, but I felt art-starved and could have stayed home instead of come to this desert destination because I can find those same stores at the Stanford Shopping Center. I don’t care that they’re upscale and designer. They’re still mass manufactured goods. 

But I was delighted to find my favorite chain women’s department store to browse and get ideas anyway and went into Anthropologie. I spied these two vases I liked and wouldn’t mind copying if only to practice painting underglaze on to white stoneware. They could be so much more charming if they were handmade, which I suppose is the point I want to make.                         

I do like stripes, whether subtly banded on the outside of the pot like the pink and baby blue ceramic or in bright slashes like on the lip  of the mint green and darker pink.

And so should I create a coil pot or make my usual slab vases? Both I think. Coil the round shape and then make a slab lip. I'll tell Meral that I want to extrude lots of coils from Bmix when we return to the studio. And then I'll stamp text--I have the French script letter and the Sans Serif block letter stamps that I got from Paper Source years ago. I should buy a bag of Bmix at Meral's community studio and then make the coil pots in Zan's classroom studio. It's a plan:)

I have to return to El Paseo though to buy this lithograph at a Chuck Jones gallery popup.                        

 

I told Patrick that this lithograph reminds me of Charlie, the 2 year old son of Kate and Steve, our neighbors, and he wants to give it to Kate as a thanks for finding the buyer of the condo he just sold. I returned to the gallery during a lunch break from Sunnylands and was hoping to get it for a little discount of the $95 price tag. Instead the clerk offered me a discount on a giclee if a Chuck Jones painting called “Manhattan Beach” of which Patrick didn’t love and so we will live without.

Mark and Judy are not very active, and their idea of sightseeing on Day 2 was to drive Helen around Palm Springs while I picked up my rental car in Palm Desert and planned to join them for a Mexican lunch at La Mirasol. And after lunch, Mark and Judy nixed my invitation to cook them dinner last night, which was fine, and then let me go off and run errands. Poor Helen. I thought they were going to get out of the car and explore, but no they just wanted to smoke weed in her car and then go home and rest. I was tired and sleepy after that lunch and wanted the same. But I didn't nap and rather sewed and listen to an audiobook. I ran my errands of filling the gas tank and then buying a few groceries. I also did the touristy thing of Indio which was to visit the Shields Date Garden.           

The store closed at 5, but I didn't know the garden closed at 4. I had to call the store to unlock the gate that let me into the garden, during the stroll which had me rolling my eyes at the granite statues of Jesus's life, but I did like looking at all the different citrus tree and reading all their factoids. And really there's no tour of the actual date groves behind the visitors garden (I could only see a trailer park next to the date store), but there were a couple date trees on display.

And I bought a date shake for me and Helen. It was just okay. Dates are plenty sweet enough as are ice cream shakes. The two together are just okay. Really I prefer my ice cream with this just like I like my coffee....                              

I'm getting more boring as I vacation as an almost senior citizen. I was at the Marriott resort and golf club to pick up my rental car. Sadly this is my idea of relaxation. I told Helen I was agog at boats in a lagoon in the lobby of the hotel, and she told me that the high-end large resorts in Mexico are the same                

 

And so while I waited for my rental car to be sanitized, I hydrated and explored the hotel a little.

 

I even liked the "clean" desert landscaping in the lobby. Just decomposed rocks tiny enough to not be dirty and dusty.

And the cactuses and succulents were real, not plastic. But leave the hotel and its manicured links and lawns, and the real world is not so sanitized and as gritty as a Mad Max movie. Still beautiful though desolate, desiccated dry and starkly hot. 

cook: kimchi fried rice + weeklong getaway

I had leftovers in the fridge before my Palm Springs getaway. Patrick would probably let the leftover rice and chicken spoil, and so I cooked another arroz con pollo for him to finish off the chicken and cooked kimchi fried rice to finish off the brown and jasmine rice. First I coated the stale rice in a couple teaspoons of sesame oil. 

And next the kimchi. I squeezed the kimchi juice from a third of the fermented cabbage in the jar into a separate bowl.                          

And then chopped the kimchi, scallions, a stump of purple cabbage in the veggie bin, and a few cloves of garlic. Cabbage upon cabbage in this rice dish. And then it was time to sweat the cabbage in a hot pan to get crisp and flavorful and also add soy sauce and Gochuchang sauce to the kimchi juice.      

And once the cabbage mixture looked crisp, I added the oiled rice. And sliced up a can of Spam.         

I know it seems pointless to squeeze and cook off all that moisture from the cabbage only to add it all back in, but this step is the basis for texture AND flavor.                               

 

When the rice looked nearly done, I fried the slices of Spam and started plating.                                

 

Lastly a runny fried egg.  And storing and labeling leftovers for Patrick to eat this week.           

 

It was yummy as usual.                  

I would’ve brought these leftovers to eat at our Airbnb in the Palm Springs area, but there was no room in the car for a cooler. But we are so close to Coachella and its Walmart and am stocked with lots to drink already.         

 

Helen is disappointed with how basic and ugly our Airbnb is, but I had told her when she booked it that it was not going to be hipster, nor stylish because we didn't plan and reserve far enough in advance. However, it is clean and comfortable and is flooded with Southern California sunshine. I do like the surrounding landscape of desert, mountain, clouds and sky. And there's nothing on my agenda for this spring break except for the Palm Springs Art Museum....

and more excitingly, the Modern Chair exhibit.

And so Thursday will be devoted to art and architecture in Palm Springs while Friday will be my tour of the house and garden of the Annenberg manse in Rancho Mirage. But Tuesday and Wednesday? No clue though I do pick up a car on Wednesday. And so maybe a date garden or orchard? I think our friends, Judy and Mark have planned for thrift store and cute boutique shopping and dinners at their favorite restaurants. I'm letting go of my need to control the schedule and maybe just walk to the Walmart to get needle and more thread and quilt the morning away after I finish my coffee. 

clay: hump molds + speckled buff salt cellar + sushi lunch

I’ll be away from clay for a week because of spring break in Palm  Springs. Meral invited me early to the studio to pour plaster—she was using disposable plastic forms with interesting ridges for slipcasting later while I had bought a big casserole dish and a wooden bowl to make hump molds.      

And I hadn’t hung out in ever a long time with Meral, so we walked to Suruki Market and grabbed sushi and seaweed salad.                         

I bought sodas at Dean’s Produce and thought the cans were so pretty.       

I found this bisque lidded salt crock I had made a few weeks ago and forgotten. I rinsed it and will fill the bottom with white underglaze before waxing and then dipping in white overglaze in two weeks. Speckled buff always looks good with just white glaze.

clay: preliminary form of an autobiographical bottle + greenware grogzilla salt cellar + finished prism pillow

My clay mate teacher, Zan made an autobiographical bottle in her Master of Arts education program at Boston University, and I’d been wanting to do the same. Years ago, I had watched Nancy Selvin demonstrate how to make one along with having us in her workshop make our own silkscreen stencil on some ancient digital printer/screen maker. But first according to Zan, I needed to make a preliminary form.          

 

Templates for my bottle are done, and it remains atop the slabs of smooth red clay I had rolled out last Saturday in the community studio.

Zan had also assigned me to take a chunk of Grogzilla and to pinch a pot. I vaguely remember a theme of decay. This clay has a very rough texture from flashing kaolin, 4 types of grog, heavy sand, and feldspar inclusions that pop to the surface during firing and resemble dinosaur teeth.

And so during my last hour of work, I pinched a pot. And it started to resemble a teacup, but no one should have to drink from a vessel that's going to hurt the mouth. And so the pinch pot turned into a salt cellar. I made it obvious with text.                

  

It was when I put the salt cellar on the greenware shelf that I remembered it was supposed to be a small flower vase.

I'm hoping that as the pot dries, its surface will become craggier. I do like the rim color above of Zan's finished pot. I wonder if she applied slip as well as a clear glaze. The pink brown of the unglazed surface makes it the perfect vessel for Himalayan salt. I will probably glaze just the inside and then dip the rim in clear and leave the text and the rest of the pot unglazed.

I came home to this bouquet. Spring is definitely here.

My Friday night was spent eating leftovers and finishing this pillow.

I don't know if I love it as much as the first prism pillow of orange, coral and peach, but it's done. And I like done. Though I will likely change those colors to blue and turquoise and gray come summer.