WHY NOT?

Visit Whynot Pottery HERE......they are celebrating thirty years of potting at their studio in...you guessed it....in Why Not, NC.

Below is the sweet little pot Meredith sent when I was the first to respond to her blog post.  A photograph cannot capture the depth and vibrancy of the glaze.  I love the sense of scale...it's a big little pot.

A Little Pot from Whynot 

Goldfish in the pond inspired the goldfish whistles.  They are still swimming in their little school.  The water is warmer than the air this morning.  All these little guys whistle.  I am thinking of using paper clay to make them as Christmas ornaments.  I hang my favorite ornaments year round from plants; perhaps others would do the same.

The balloon pitcher came through nicely and even pours!  I need to do a lot more work on the design, especially the feet.  I just stuck them on; they need to be incorporated into the body of the pot.  I'm not even going to show the interior.  When I was started sewing one of the things I learned was that the inside of the garment should be as finished as the outside.  The same is true of pots.  Of course with pottery we are making vessels so the interior has to be functional, and not have lethal bits of clay to cause injury to the user, but it needs to be pleasing too.

It was cold this morning, but not the killing frost that was predicted for most of the area.  I think it was 30 at 5:30 AM.  We finished getting the plants in yesterday afternoon.  I covered the outdoor dahlias because they are blooming and pretty.  I think it was down in the mid 20's in other parts of New England.  BRRRRR!!!

It's warming up.  Rain is coming, which is not a bad thing.  Meanwhile we have beautiful, clear skies with bright sun.  The sun is shining into my studio.  This afternoon we will do more work outside.  There is always something to do.

Winter is doing her deer chasing job.  As soon as she goes out on the deck or her run they run away to the other side of the stone wall.  There's plenty of stuff to eat in the woods, so she is not causing any great deer deprivations.

Enjoy the weekend.  If you are having a sale or doing a show may you have sunny skies and sell many pots.

This post is also on Mud Colony and Artists in Blogland.  Take a peek...there's always something new to see.

As always, thanks for stopping by................*s*

Don't Forget The Fish!

Last week all the baby fish decided to surface.  They aren't easy to photograph due to waterfall and how quickly they move.  There are somewhere between one and a half to two dozen fingerlings.  I never knew that they could come in all colors.  I thought you needed black ones to get black ones etc....not the case.  We have a bunch of all black and many bi-and-tri-colored ones.  It's so enjoyable to go our and feed them and watch them eat.  I never thought a few ten cent fish from a fish store could provide so much pleasure.

Of course I had to do my own little homage to fish and make a bunch of whistles.  I did all these in white low-fire and glazed them with commercial Speedball glazes.  I mostly use commercial glazes when I am experimenting as I can once-fire them successfully.  As a rule I don't like white clay as I think it gives a stark, dead look to work.  It's subtle but terra cotta gives a warmth to white glazes that gives more depth to the work. If I am glazing a big piece on white clay I put a little rutile in it to warm it up a little.

The weather has been strange today....mostly cloudy  and breezy.  It feels almost like hurricane weather, but I don't think there are any hurricanes in the North Atlantic.

This post can also be found on Mud Colony and Artists in Blogland.  Go check them out; there is always interesting stuff to be found.

Enjoy Sunday, and as always, thanks for stopping by..................*s*

AND THE MORAL OF THAT IS.......

Don't try to post when you are half asleep.  I decided I would get ahead of the game last night and write this post before going to bed.  Bad idea!  I managed to erase stuff, move things around; you name it.  I finally gave up and went to bed.

A year and a half ago I felt like I was never going to have a creative idea in my life.  This was something new for me, so I decided on a new approach.  I was looking at the fish below, which I made as a prototype for a class of developmentally delayed adults I used to teach.  I have been making whistles off and on over the last twenty years.  It's always been an enjoyable process for me.

SO! I decided to do a whistle a week for a year.  Size could be variable.  I could make one or a bunch, as I wished.  The idea was not necessarily to finish the year but to get me making stuff again.  

Ideas ended up occurring in series.  One week would provide the impetus for the following week. The series below was done over five weeks.  Making a whistle for me becomes a meditative process, freeing my mind to new ideas.

I made three of these bigger fish, five to nine inches long.  This was when I discovered that the bigger the whistle the more careful I had to be about making the actual whistle.

My version of a Seahorse.  I'm still not happy with these little guys.  They're about six inches tall.  I think they need to sit among some seaweed to get a better curve to his tail.

 I call these little critters  Thimble Fish.  I make them from a small wad of clay that starts out the size and shape of a thimble.

A not very good picture of a Puffer Fish.  They are so silly looking that I am quite fond of them.  I think I'll use a thick slip to make spines on the next ones.

Starfish.  I looked at so many pictures of so many varieties of starfish that I was almost overwhelmed.

And finally,  Morning Glories!  I planted these from purchased seedlings about two weeks ago.  Cut worms ate my original plants so I planted these in pots.  These particular plants are on a ladder leaning against the end of the shed.  I'm thrilled that they are doing so well.  Summer isn't summer to me if there are no heavenly blue morning glories.

The temp has dropped and it's raining;  it looks like it will continue for most of the day.  We aren't in drought conditions yet here in Southern New England, but rain is always welcome.  Rain is so much better for plants than watering, and it adds to the pool and pond.

BTW I did not finish the year of whistles, but it sure got me working again.  It also shares responsibility for my starting this blog.

This post can also be found at Mud Colony.  Go take a look; there are interesting people there!

Enjoy the week end.

Thanks for stopping by...........*s*