clay: slow plates because life gets in the way

Here’s the thing about handmade—it’s extremely S L O W. I may have just finished only after a summer two sets (maybe 6 plates? maybe 8 plates?)of dinnerware, one set I'll call Luna because it's Obsidian clay glazed in white gloss and the other Mesa because it's Speckled Buff glazed in white gloss after it took me a year to make only 4 white porcelain tree textured dinner plates (maybe I'll call them the Árbol line). And I had intended to learn to throw in the month of Saturdays I had off from the parks and rec studio on the pottery wheel I borrowed from my high school, but did NOTHING though I did enjoy the leisure of just doing long neglected household tasks like laundry and dusting and walking and cuddling Sadie. 

And Meral and I finally managed to visit Kat in Tracy. We stopped at the farmers market to get a hostess gift of flowers, and while there I found a jeweler making the text and bead bracelets, which I'd been intending to make like forever. Well heck since I will probably never get to making them, I bought one from her. I love the combination of pink and brown, which I've been wearing in the ceramics studio. 

I love hanging out in kitchens; where people cook is really what I consider the central room of a home. I admired the Le Creuset enamel pot Kat was cooking stew in and all the beautiful pottery she brought back from Portugal. I loved flipping through Kat's uncle's cookbooks. Kat outdid herself for lunch, cooking jerk chicken, oxtail stew and coconut rice. Her ex-roommate, Monica made an arugula and quinoa salad, and we got to meet her new friend in Tracy who teaches business at San Joaquin College, Martha. Such a delicious meal. Now I want to cook an oxtail stew.                 

 

I mentioned the ROMP or bluegrass festival in Owensboro, Kentucky that my friend, Bob and I been wanting to go to and tentatively planning, and the drunken ladies all said, oh yeah let's go. But of course, they've flaked. At least Kat was honest and said it was not her thing. But Meral did message and say let's talk deets this Saturday at the ceramics studio. Back to SLOW making.

Five plates. I think the clay body is Obsidian. It could be Smooth Red or maybe even Hawaiian Red. Not bad for a Tuesday and Thursday or only 3 hours total in the clay studio this week. And I've got two bisque plates of Speckled Buff on the shelf.

But we'll see. I'm fearful that I didn't wedge or compress the clay enough with my ribs and that there are air bubbles in the plates and that they'll crack in the kiln. Zan said one of my pots, and she said it was a small one broke or exploded. I'll check on these very wet plates on Tuesday and see if I need to sand the edges. I've been paying more attention and taking more time to refine the rims and smooth the bottom of the plate where there will be no glaze.

This little girl has been with me everywhere when I’m not at work or working out. She came with me yesterday to the Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Festival in Golden Gate Park. She peed on my thigh while driving between the ferry building to pick up Bob and then across town to the festival. But that's my fault. She's on heart medication which acts like a diuretic, and I should have stopped and parked my car and let her out to pee sooner.                            

Such a good lineup, but I'm not going Saturday or Sunday. I chose to come on Friday because I wanted to play hooky from work and I figured the park wouldn't be as crowded.

I let Sadie out of the pouch to walk, explore and pee. And let Bob set up camp in the shade near a giant pine tree in the meadow where the Banjo Stage was.

We walked rather than took the shuttle from the ADA parking because of Bob's handicapped placard in my car, and you can see below the field by the Tower of Gold stage was sparse with festival goers when we arrived.

However, the park was A LOT MORE CROWDED when we left, and I was debating with myself whether to go this morning to hear Cedric Watson at HSB before ceramics this afternoon or listen to him tonight in Berkeley at Ashkenaz, but it ain't happening. Let's be real. I'm an introvert and a lazy one at that.