Snow Shadows and other beautiful things

A house of love for bluebirds!

Valentine's Day is a little past, but I've been saving this image. It's John's Valentine's Day gift to me. . . a Bluebird Box. So romantic. I can hardly contain myself. He has a gift for gifts, at least sometimes. I got him a box of The Chocolat Bar's caramels. Delicious, but not nearly as romantic.

This winter has had long stretches of exceptional cold. If it wasn't grossly inconveniencing Jasper, I'd be ok with it. It's given me a chance to get back to my violin, and to specifically take my bows in for re-hairing. What a revelation that turned out to be. The gentleman who is doing the job lent me a bow while he works on mine, and I could NOT believe how much better my tone is with it. I knew that the last guy to re-hair my bows was a fledgling luthier, but I had no idea how much difference good bow hair could make.

 

But I digress. As the title suggests, I've found myself enamored of snow shadows. John and I walk with Jasper every evening, and when the moon is bright, the shadows on the snow are so beautiful that they still my heart. Make me gasp. I haven't gotten it together to try to capture them with my little video machine, but I did take this video of the snow shadows in the sun. This was taken when Jasper and I were walking on the Inland Hospital trail. I see these every time I look out my windows here, too. We are so lucky.

 Snow Shadows Video

Boots, please. It's cold out here.

And of course, here is Jasper, duded up for the snow and cold. He has actually refused to walk when it's in single digits without his boots. This is remarkable, given his fondness for walking, so I take it seriously.

And while I have you here, I thought I'd show you how I photograph my work. John built a glazing booth for me in my studio. It has a good quality kitchen vent and light, as well as a tray for draining any mess. There is plenty of mess when I glaze. But because it has translucent walls, I can also use it as a photo booth, with a few adjustments.

The Glazing booth

 I use a Gradient backdrop that I clip on to the back wall, and can then place my piece on the backdrop. I use an old Coolpix camera, which has a great closeup adjustment, and a tripod to minimize movement. It works quite well. I love putting together these tools and pieces of equipment, using my brain, my indulgent tech and inflicting minimal fiscal pain for my efforts.

Sorry for the blurry image of the photo booth, but you get the idea.

 

Voila. Now a photo booth

Because the light has a lot of yellow in it, I use Photoshop to correct that. I can also erase any errant dust that sneaks into my image. But the image itself is in it's original state. While I developed this technique for close ups of jewelry for my website, it's adapted nicely to larger works in ceramics.

New pottery foibles

Time in the studio has been kind of precious. I've made some new twists to some old forms, am trying new glazing approaches (argh) and just doing some basic skill building. I really learned the lessons of clay bodies this time around. I had some white stoneware to use up, but most of these pieces were made from a coarse brown sculptural clay. I remembered the lesson of dyeing brown eggs instead of white, and wondered if some of those sumptuous intense colors might also reveal themselves on brown clay.

Perhaps oddly, the white speckled mug at the right turned out to be my favorite. It is hand built. It has some flaws. . .it is a little too small for my mug taste. But the Very Sturdy brown clay held its shape beautifully, took texture well, and all of those speckles are from the clay, not the glaze. The glaze is just a flat white glaze called Klaus Hard White.

No mug collection is complete without me trying more variations on the Lily mug. The left mug is also small for a mug. . . almost more of an espresso size (but not quite), but the larger of these two is pretty much perfect. I think I can stop working on this particular set of variations! I do love it, though. They are mostly for right handed people, though I can drink using my left hand as well from these. . . the appliques don't interfere with lip contact!

Last of the mugs in this batch is the larger brown mug to the right. John claimed this for his own as soon as he saw it. It is also thrown, and the inside glaze is white, with the outside being a flat macha cacao. Again, all of those speckles are compliments of the clay body. It also takes texture well, as evidenced by the little bit on the handle.

The big experiment of this group was the hand-built pitcher to the left. It's relatively large (maybe 14" tall?) and was inspired by this pitcher we saw at a restaurant in Freeport. 

I don't know what possessed me to make the handle more Asian looking. . .maybe inspired by the texture I applied? Anyway, inspiration is everywhere. One just needs to see.

Finally, a couple of bowls and a new tumbler. The tumbler had the same lesson is clay sturdiness. Previous tumblers have gotten at least a little misshapen in the firing process. This clay body, though the same thickness as some stoneware and porcelain tumblers I've made, refuses to let the heat alter her. Let us all be so sturdy.

 

 

Small lives

I have a maiden hair fern that I brought home shortly after moving here, more than 3 years ago now. She has proven to be a bit of a drama queen, requiring daily watering, not-to-much sun, but enough-sun, and really prefers to be misted daily as well. I find her worth the extra bit of effort, even though she returns my efforts modestly. Hers is a small delicate beauty, and one slip up in the watering schedule can result in a dead frond. Let that be a warning to you. Me. But given the above careful regime, she gives me these tiny brown stems. The new leaves are balled up like little fists initially, extending themselves into green fronds after a week or two.

I love that careful observation gives us this gift. A small life that embellishes our own.

We three decided to take a road trip yesterday. It was originally planned for Sunday (we still, oddly, adhere to weekday and weekend schedules in spite of our retired status), but temperatures inspired a move to Monday. Our destination was Bath. I had remembered a conversation when we were first looking for a new home. It was with a waitress, I think, and when asked where she thought the best place in the area was to live, she had responded "Bath. Look in Bath." We did, but there was nothing available we could afford, and that still likely is the case.

However, it is a beautiful town. A classic coastal New England tourist destination which is absolutely lovely and mostly tourist free this time of year. I found a nice hike that was close to town, and we three had a lovely snowy hike. We met a very friendly native with her equally friendly Bearnaise Mountain Dog, and had a lovely chat and some trail advice.

Jasper has finally acquired boots worthy of himself, by the way. This is our third pair, and I'm hoping that these. . .with the gaiters incorporated. . .will at long last stay on. He may look a little put out in this photo, but he really loves cavorting with them in the very cold snow.

The view at the top of the trail was lovely, and there is a lot left to explore in subsequent trips. I forgot to take a photo of the map at the trailhead before we left, so was reluctant to travel too far off the main trail. Still. A decent workout, a lovely view, and Jasper tired enough for us to lunch in downtown Bath. We ate at Burano's, a place with great pizza, a decent beer selection, and service that was stellar. 

There were plenty of other places to explore, though, and we made an essential stop at the downtown bakery and the Artists' Cooperative, which represented some very impressive folks. There were 4 felters, for goodness sake. I doubt there's another gallery in the country that can boast that. Smile.

The weather was warm; well, Maine warm which was just over 32F. The day clear. The feeling deceptively hopeful. 

But now is not the time to wax in comfort. Write your congress people, Ladies and Gentlemen. The takeover has begun, and we can't Not Stand Up.