Potter Bones

The bones of a woman who lived approximately 3,000 years ago have been determined to be those of a potter. The skeleton was found in Crete, & dated from what is sometimes called the Greek Dark Ages. 

Am I the only one wondering: if my bones are dug up 3,000 years from now, will they tell my story? The pottery part of it?
I love to read about ancient potters & ware because it reminds me that people are people; not so very different, at heart. 

Sorry for spotty posting! Hoping to get back to greater regularity now that it's fall, which traditionally means getting back to serious business. 🙂

FFS Can August be over soon?

 August - my birthday month! - is usually a fan favorite here at Fine Mess Pottery. The nights get cooler while the days are still bright & warm. All that is still true, but August has been rough this time. 

First, there was the passing of the Grey Lady. I am not terribly sentimental about vehicles (for someone who names them); my dismay is more about the expense of replacing it. While it's true that we got very, very lucky in finding our Ranger, five thousand bucks is still five thousand bucks, going out the door. Add to that I had some long-delayed dental work (tell me again why my teeth are not considered part of my body, for insurance purposes?), we had to insure & register the Ranger, and now my PT Cruiser is acting up. So far I've had to pay for a tow & some minor fuel line work (& a AAA membership, just in case) but I can tell something is still wrong. Our turtle, Red, has needed some veterinary care, as well, for a nasty cut on his forepaw. None of these a bank-breakers, but all happening in the same month, they are getting weighty.

Most of the time I remind myself how very lucky I am. When the Dakota was declared moribund, we had the money to replace it. I have been blessed with genetically good teeth, so my dental visits are few & normally maintenance. Red is recovering well! Things are gonna go wrong from time to time - it's not reasonable to expect that they won't - & I am aware that things have not gone nearly as wrong as they could go. 

But geez. Can we be done with the hits, for just a little while?

As Yet Unnamed

 

The universe has provided me with a new truck. Or - equally plausible! - I scoured Craigslist & Facebook Marketplace, & every other avenue I could think of, until I found the vehicle I needed. It's a 2010 Ford Ranger, low miles, no frills. We got it for what would have been an insane price a couple of years ago but baby, things change. It was actually the cheapest one on my list, & had been on the market for over a month, so I was half expecting it to be trailing parts & belching smoke. Not at all! Other than some scratched in the bed, it's like a new truck. 

It hasn't yet earned a name, but I am listening to the wind thru the window for suggestions. 

The Grey Lady Drives Off Into The Sunset

 

It seems like only yesterday I drove her home, overjoyed to have a truck for the first time since 1989. Everything is a little easier with a truck! Art fairs, yardwork, dump runs, snagging free furniture left by the side of the road. But sadly the Grey Lady has been diagnosed with terminal frame rust, & she will not pass her next inspection. 

But I'm not doing artfairs anymore - probably? - & roadside furniture finds always smell funny; & I don't know if we can find a bargain like we got with the Grey Lady. It's a tough time to buy any used vehicle, especially a truck, since demand for used vehicles has never been higher, in part due to a dearth of new ones - that's that whole chip shortage you've been reading about. 

Anyway, we are, in a way, lucky: we have a PT Cruiser that I will continue to drive to class, & the Grey Lady herself is not immediately out of commission, so we have a few weeks to find a replacement. I'd love to get another small pick up, but it may not be in the cards. So, local readers, if you hear of a good deal on a used truck - or, heck, a good deal on any vehicle - give me a shout! It takes a village.

On a completely unrelated topic, anyody wanna buy pottery? 😄

In Use

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I have an alter ego that occasionally pops up in the studio. Unlike my usual work, she makes hand built work with spontaneous shapes & rustic edges. I don’t know how other potters stick to just one style of working! My alter does not appear often, or make many items, but I really enjoy the few I get. 

This platter, for instance! I use it a lot; it’s a great serving size for two, or for side dishes for larger groups. Tonight I grilled cherry tomatoes & button mushrooms, and served them over pasta with Parmesan cheese. The warm iron-brown color of the platter seems to complement any food I place on it. 

New pots!

 I unloaded a firing last Sunday! Between packing & delivering the pots to their awaiting outlets, & photographing, then processing the images, I am only just getting around to posting about it. Nice problem to have: a week out, & almost all the pots are sold. I held out a few for the online store. 

Lately I have been producing two bodies of work: Dotopia & Sweet Life. (I find it helps, especially for taking wholesale orders, if I name the lines. Yes, the names are a bit corny! That's marketing for ya.) I'm only posting a few Sweet Life pots, because the Dotopia pots are in stores now. Damn, I really need to fire more often, because I need more inventory. 

Anyway, the pots are here. I'll be posting these in my online shop today! 

I'll be posting the links here as soon as I get these listed. Stay tuned! 

The Pottery Stairs are Out!

 

The Pottery Stairs, wearing their spiffy new coat of lipstick-red paint, are out for the first time since the Maine Pottery Tour! Local peeps, come & get your love! (Or, you know, mugs.)

Here's how it works: Choose your pottery. Grab an envelope - it's already got my address & a stamp.  You can mail me the price of the ware, or you can put the payment directly into my mailbox, on the porch. Or you can send money via CashApp: $FineMessPottery ; or paypal.me at :@LoriKeenanWatts

Sorry, but I can't hold or ship pieces from the pottery stairs. 

Yes, I'm Still Making Stuff!

You might have the impression from my last few posts that all I've done for the last couple months is studio housekeeping: roof repair, new shelving, painting the stairs. Au croissant! (or whatever.) I have been making like a mad bastard! I tend to share those photos on instagram - the social media platform I find truly enjoyable. I use a couple of the others but insta is the one that is actually fun, as opposed to a tool for staying informed, either of the news of the day or of my friends lives. Though I am very interested in politics, I keep my instagram feed free of it - anyone making political posts or god forbid memes, I mute them, at least for a while, because I think there need to be places, irl & online, where we can go & not focus on what divides us. It's the only way back to civility, if there even is a way back.  (Side note: I f*ckin hate most memes, they are basically bumper sticker thinking for the internet. Most just play into confirmation bias, & make people think they are informed without giving them any information.)

That was a long introduction, that wandered off into the weeds! Here are some pics of what's happening in the studio: 

Bisque on Wednesday...so today is my last day to throw. Better make the most of it! 

The Pottery Stairs Are Getting A Glow Up

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The pottery stairs have needed spiffying for some time now, but it’s never the most important thing on my list. It’s not the most important thing on my list today, either, but I bumped it to the top while the waste I threw yesterday is drying . As you can see, the pottery stairs used to be red! And they will be again. 

Also on today’s list: Trim & decorate coffee cones; mow the lawn; grind kiln shelves; & listen to the 1/6 hearings.

But if the sun comes out, all bets are off; the kayak will start calling me.

All My Ducks In A Row

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For “ducks” read “kiln furniture.” 

It takes so little to make me happy. Today it’s a new wire shelving rack to keep my posts orderly, freeing up tons of space in the summer studio. 
It's good to feel like one thing is under control! 

I've had a very busy June so far! I am still trying to catch up from not having a kiln for half of last year, in addition to the things I neglected while organizing the Pottery Tour: my taxes, for example. Did those yesterday, & got a start on reclaiming the lawn from no-mow May. I hope the pollinators appreciated it because it's way more work than if I had just been mowing all along. 

And then there are our new kayaks. 

I've been trying to purchase these for 2 years, but every time I had the money all in one place something would happen from one of our 3 big unexpected-expense categories: house, cars, pets. Never the less I finally made it happen so of course we had to take them out. We went to Savade Pond, a little puddle of a place too small to attract tourists, a paddled around for a few hours looking at lilies and turtles and white fluffy clouds. 

Other than that, I've mostly been in the studio. I have a slip trailing post queued up in my brain, all about my new best friend, Darvan 7. Type at ya later! 

Up on the Roof

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A predicted 4 day dry stretch seems like a good time to address the state of my studio roof. 

This is sort of a new experience for me, as my typical approach would be to wait until a thing is a Problem, with a capitol P, before solving it. I could have just plopped a tarp over it, or replaced the torn shingles, to keep the water out, but carpenter ants have gotten into the wood, & while I could have postponed the fix it was not gonna get better by itself. So, dry weather predicted? Time to tackle the roof. 

My only problem is, I don't really know what I am doing. I do find myself in this situation semi-regularly: a job that needs doing, but no money to hire it out, & no skills to do it myself. My usual approach has been to just do it anyway, & figure it out as I go along. How hard can it be? has been my catchphrase for decades, though some things can, in fact, be pretty damn hard! For example I have no idea if I am going about this job correctly. I climbed up on the roof with the circular saw & cut out the punky section; next it's back up the ladder with a tape measure, then off to Lowes to buy some...idk, plywood, I guess?... to fill the gap. 

And maybe there's some kind of product, like caulk, to seal up the joint between the boards? I mean, there's definitely caulk, i know there's caulk, but is there a special kind of...roof caulk? You know, like how there's moisturizer for you face & there's moisturizer for your elbow but they are different? Maybe caulk is like that. 

Or maybe I am overthinking it. 

3 Days in the Studio

 Yesterday, Today, & Tomorrow:

Yesterday was mostly teaching classes - not a lot of studio work. I did some minor clean up from the pottery tour,

& sent off some photos & a blurb to promote a workshop I am teaching at Hallowell Clay Works. Oh! That reminds me. Want to take a slip workshop? It's Sunday, May 22nd, from 2 - 5. 

Today has some teaching also! I don't normally teach on Wednesdays but I am subbing a class this morning. This afternoon I'll be sorting, pricing, & packing pots to go to Mainely Gallery, in Belfast. That'll take most of the afternoon, but I might get to end my workday at a reasonable time & read my new book, The Investigator. 

Tomorrow I am delivering said pots! It is looking like a gorgeous day for a drive; maybe Doug will come with me & poke around the cute little town of Belfast, Maine. Not too long, though; I have to be in Portland to teach by 6 pm. 

Friday & Saturday I have to do a serious house cleaning. I mostly neglected cleaning in the 3 weeks prior to the pottery tour, and it shows! Then my mom & the fam are coming on Sunday for Mother's Day. Busy week!