clay: christmas ufos (un-finished objects) for 2026

First, let's hear it for these trees which are finished because I finally photographed after their final firing.

 

And really these trees were test tiles to see which glaze combination would look the greenest...and so I'm loving this one.

 

 And I've had these wooden houses a few years now. I painted one a few weeks ago and disliked it. I know now I'll only paint the Xmas wreath or lights and let the ornament remain unfinished wood. 

 

And here's to ceramic houses I saw in Temecula on Black Friday, which I now want to create. Perhaps on this winter solstice, I will construct templates. Should I re-create them in the Frost Porcelain I have left or perhaps buy a bag of BMix Smooth?

And I'm thinking no to the little ceramic houses to the right below that are not as spare looking--so no dormers, no porticos, no roofs with eaves, nor chimneys that are not just a hole or slit in a peaked roof.

This seashell form I made is bisque, but really I want to make a clay bisque mold of the seashell so that the ridges of are outside, not inside and then play with pink and coral glazes to mimic the interior of a seashell.

I saw this teapot finally on the bisque shelf, and so yesterday I adhered black underglaze into the leaf textures.

I then poured  True Celadon into its interior. I put it back on the bisque shelf to let all the water evaporate. The pot fits into the 5-gallon bucket, and so today I'll dip it into that fresh batch of True Celadon. I know I want to brush Floating Green on the spout and lid. I'll likely thin some Juicy Fruit and Peppermint Creme to splatter with a brush all over the interior.

Remember these trees which I finished just after the thanksgiving holiday? Before the Xmas holiday, I adhered all the green underglazes in the studio...

 

...and then dipped in True Celadon with splatters of other overglazes. Maybe they'll get fired in February because of their height.

While looking for templates for houses, I saw this candleholder online. Oh! Again I'm thinking of modern house profiles (one house, a tree, and then a multi-dwelling residence) to make this brass candleholder but in porcelain or white stoneware clay.

Holiday Suburb Candle Holder will be my concept.

cook: clams and squid ink linguine

In my quest to eat what we have, I cooked clams left from the feast of seven fishes a couple days ago still at back or the coldest part of the fridge (clams and quahogs can last 7 days in cold enough temperatures outside the ocean) and squid ink pasta in the pantry drawer. I knew from Christmas Eve that I had to soak the clams in very cold salty water. Just look at all the sand that they spit out. In a hot cast iron in which there was butter, garlic, olive oil and wine, I placed the clams until their shells opened.

 

With the lid over the steaming clams, it was only minutes before they opened and released their ocean liquor into the hot cast iron. And then I placed the clams separately into a bowl, so I could cook the linguine sauce.

  

The linguine sauce was just a matter of cooking down all that clam broth and adding some heavy whipping cream to thicken. In the meantime, the squid ink pasta boiled for 7 minutes.

Lastly, toss the pasta in the sauce and top with clams.

T'was a supper of shucking and slurping and waxing nostalgia for a childhood of foraging for clams and quahogs on the Connecticut coast, and that's that for clams and black pasta for 2025.

cook: hotpot breakfast and cook what you have

It’s winter break, and I've time to cook breakfast as well as clean out my refrigerator and freezer. Enter soup for one. It starts with homemade bone broth and Lee Kum Kee hotpot soup base which is very mala (tingly spicy). In my freezer, I had the chicken cilantro won tons, sweet Chinese sausage, and spicy tofu. In the fridge, a hard boiled egg, some scallions and lots of bok choy.                     

 

From the couple times I visited the Seapot restaurant, I learned I had to have extra flavor from fresh crushed garlic, some kind of addition like my Japanese Mentsuyu (which has kombu though I wouldn't be averse to miso paste) and sticking with the Japanese theme, shoyu. And oh yeah, mustn't forget toasted sesame oil and having chili crunch at the ready.

 

Alas I didn't have mushrooms, neither enoki or oyster. But once I got the soup base boiling, in went the sausage and tofu. And then the bok choy and won tons and hard boiled egg which only need at the most 3 minutes to get the vegetables tender and the egg warmed through. 

A lashing of chili crunch on the egg and a scattering of scallions, and it's a very warming and filling breakfast.

cook (not): conserva

I’ve been doing my own private happy hour this holiday season of tinned fish. My first conserva snack was fishwife’s albacore tuna in spicy olive oil, and it was meh. But recently, I saw an Instagram post of a chef eating a tin of smoked oysters with chopped mix-ins of red onion, tomatoes, serranos, and cilantro and crackers. I aim to try that. Here’s what I ate a couple nights ago.                   

Like I said, the Fishwife tuna was just meh. Last night’s tin was Patagonia’s mussels. Wished I’d done the taco topping thing, but next time. Not my thing to eat cheese with conserva, but yes to drops of sherry vinegar to the oil in the fish, giardinera and artichokes and olives. Crackers, of course. Though I wouldn’t say no to a petite baguette.

clay: covet + celebrate

Zan made this candle dish, which I absolutely love for its surface:

She said she applied 3 layers of blue glaze and then on top layers of white gloss which she carved through to expose the blue. In the meantime, I made lots of Xmas ornaments to sell (none sold at last Saturday's pop-up) and gift. These came out of the high school kiln recently:

 

One of the gingerbread was already chosen by Nicole, and I'll string the other gingerbread man to add to the basket of ornaments for family members to choose and give the dreidel ornament to Helen. The winter solstice starts this Sunday, and as soon as outrigger canoe practice is over, I'll do more mad cleaning and decluttering and get started on my slow sewing self-gift from a Verb for Keeping Warm.

clay: xmas trees

I've heard two people now say that my modern Xmas trees look like wizard hats. Sigh. And so I saw these trees from a home furnishings retailer (West Elm? Pottery Barn? Crate & Barrel? Not sure) and decided I like it better than the stacked cones ceramic trees I've been seeing from other ceramicists, both handmade and mass manufactured.                                 

This morning after canoe paddling, I picked up a fallen branch long pine needles and tiny cones, which was my inspiration for the morning in the ceramics studio. I cut petals from the slab that somewhat resembled those of the photo reference, but I used the pine needles branch I found to impress the clay.           

And so sometime this week, I want to make my way into the studio and loop tool off crumbs and edges that could possibly be too sharp. Maybe I should have flared up the petals, but that's okay. I'll totally make these trees again, one at a time, because it was very tedious to cut, impress and score and slip the petals on to a narrow cone.

clay: teapot

I bought templates from Pottery to the People. The mugs are tiny! And so at my pottery party, we used a template of just an 8.5” x 11” paper cut in half, hotdog-style, and I made a bunch of handles with a Kemper tool. But this past weekend, I used the grounded teapot template.             

The spout seems so ginormous and the handle too delicate in comparison. And maybe my next knob on the lid will just be a circle with a depression for fingers. What's great about the template is thinking more about surface decoration though at some point, I will alter the dimensions and shape to make it my own. I can continue to use the template as is for now though I will alter the spout (a bit smaller) and handle (using my Diamond Core handle puller). Nevertheless, the teapot was a very fun Saturday of hand building.

celebrate: thanksgiving break

For the annual holiday of eating turkey, I made my way down to Temecula, which I had not realized was not in San Diego County, but is actually in Riverside County. Before making that 8-hour drive, I got a little of making done. I painted a pumpkin for a thanksgiving tablescape...       

...I glazed porcelain bisque.

 

And then a race from 8:00 a.m. to 4:30 to get to my sister-in-law's father's house in the desert where we were celebrating Thanksgiving. I'm glad I made the trip. The next day's temperature made my bones less stiff and body more supple. I had the whole day to prep the food.

The pan was a bit too narrow for my liking, but crammed the spatchcocked bird atop the Stove Top stuffing. Note to self, no need to moisten the stuffing with chicken broth beforehand.

 

On Black Friday, my sister-in-law, brothers and I walked Old Town Temecula, I didn't buy much. Just this watercolor exercise book and a bunch of stickers and vintage-looking bluetooth speaker from an independent romance bookstore. The tote below made me think of my misspent 20s.

Another loooong drive to return to San Mateo and picked up my final fired ornaments and found these trees on the bisque shelves. I glazed 2 of the trees in my tried and true formulation that I use on my botanical leaves pressed mugs.

But for the other 4 trees, I decided to test other green formulas.

And my evenings have been spent before the Christmas holidays on sipping wine and brie and pate and crackers and stringing frost porcelain ornaments with jute and twine and hot gluing their knots.

 

It feels good to be back to brainstorming and making.