You know how it is. You have all this work to do, all this work you WANNA do, plus the dishes and the litter box, but your hands are cold and there is a warm cat on your lap.

I can't help myself

(elephant by Gary Rith)

YES!

and the sun is shining too!

morning beagle cuteness

Penny is a most inspiring canine.

just pilsner glasses...

...or whatever, by Gary Rith

'Bikini Girls With Machine Guns' by The Cramps

Some might think its a little early in the day for The Cramps.

elephant jar: the making of and inspiration for

(elephant pot and doodles by Gary Rith)

You can see a couple doodles on my 'to make' list. The piggy thing is below, the

sketch on the upper left of the page is what I was thinking for this jar. I am terribly excited. I have never made something so ......so.......Michelin Man before. Like Cartman, or like I was thinking, a down coat.

I made another one!

(pottery by Gary Rith)

It was suggested earlier today to try bunnies on a wild pot like this one. I tried and tried and didn't like the look. Guess I am in the mood for elephants today!

More whimsy, folly, and dance.

Folly and whimsy, see below.

FOLLY

(piggy vase by Gary Rith, garden folly, pilsner glass)

I don't usually make something that is unuseful. BUT, what about something that is useful, but is really just a flight of fancy, like the vase up top there? It is in the tradition of follies, which is a garden building or structure which while not unuseful, is not really for a use either. Just a pretty little bit to gaze at or walk around. So, maybe this wild little vase is a ceramic folly. I am absolutely tickled with this piece.

I was thinking about pilsner glasses when I started it. Pilsner glasses, as seen here, have a little knobby base and a tall tapering body.

I'm so excited!

(teapot by Gary Rith)

Had a fantastic firing. Wild purple teapot shown here. Tune in tomorrow for more purple piggy goodness!

Hungerstrike by Temple of the Dog

I am a very grungey guy. For every guy who is Gen x and remembers the early 90s when EVERYBODY else started to wear ratty flannel shirts...well OK, now we're in our 40s, but old flannel shirts are still the best. Temple of the Dog, Chris Cornell and Eddie Vedder: the ultimate grunge tune.

Circle, Pride

Tink's Tuesday photo challenge is circle and pride. Got it in one!

This week marks the 16th anniversary of me and my wife's first KISS. Then we realized we were an item. We had known each other 3 years and I had worked at the educational studio and gallery she ran. But the end of January 1992, there it was. She was getting on the bus. I leaned over and kissed her ear. She smiled and rode off, and from then on....well, 11 months later, Christmas Eve 1992 we got married.

I have a feeling of pride over this gold circle on my ring finger. It was my wife's grandmother's wedding ring (yes--GRANDMOTHER) and she must have had BIG fingers, because it fits loosely on my right hand.

SPIKE GOES FULL MONTY

Manndible Cafe

(Mugs by Gary Rith, Manndible drawing by Alice Muhlback)

Delivered a box of these monster mugs to Manndible cafe yesterday. Variety of colors. All snarling.

twin videos seperated at birth???

I was putting up The Jesus and Mary Chain and Hope Sandoval and thinking 'why is this all guy band with a fabulous female guest vocalist sounding familiar? And the bar scenes??? La la la...Suzanne Vega and lalala...The Smithereens! Ah ha!'. Jeez, both videos are from around the early 90s, both have a guy singing sad love duets with a big deal female vocalist and IN A BAR. Maybe I am brilliant for realizing how similar these two tunes are, by fantastic bands with even better guest female vocalists. Sometimes you're in the mood for a sweet and melancholy love song, even if you're a macho guy like me...

Further adventures of Flat Cat and Rocket Pup!

Rocket Pup ate Flat Cat, mostly. Hard having a comic series where one character devours the other. Penny is going to be pooping out Flat Cat's eye soon. I hope.

pottery in action

(pottery by Gary Rith)
Yes, wild rice soup again.
The story today is these 2 dogs which are salt and pepper shakers. You pour out the eyes, and there is a little cork underneath. They were the last items I made in my New Hampshire studio 2 years ago, then we moved. I have had them on the shelf ready to sell for all that time, but I like them, so I hadn't priced them. I just liked looking at them, and was trying to get ready to part with them. Last week I knocked one down and broke the tiny litle nose, and glued it back on (no problem!) They're ours now! Yes!

'Tainted Love', a Soft Cell Extravaganza! Four different versions of the tune

Holley reminded all of us of the great 80s tune 'Tainted Love' by Soft Cell. Who knew it came in two different creepy videos?????????????? See them here, then SPEAKING OF CREEPY watch Marilyn Manson's cover, which my almost 50 year old wife liked the most, and it is not safe for work, and the one I like the most is last, The Pussycat Dolls shake and shimmy! I don't know if they can sing or play instruments, but they can move it! The wife said if they have to be on there, they should be last, so, like, OK.

This first one is, ah, kind of 'alternative'



Ths one is sooooo strange



Marilyn Manson!!!!!!!!! Whooowheee!!!!!!!!!!!!! In a HOT TUB!!!!!!!!(nsfw)



And finally, the slinky and curvaceous Pussycat Dolls. Sounds kind of vapid, actually, but the way they look, who's listening?

now onto Sunday....

(various projects by Gary Rith)

I have been asked to make a display to fit into a two foot square space. So, that skyscraper of crates is my idea. I can hang pots off it in every direction. Also glazing monster mugs, and I decided I needed a bigger piggy card holder. So I made one.

reader's choice: VOTE!

Best tune from the 80s, would you go Big Audio Dynamite and 'E=MC' or below, The Smiths 'How Soon is Now'? How can you choose, they're both so fabulous.

Tom Brady and me

Dreamt that I was Tom Brady's executive assistant and that I hired a mafia-fortune teller-hand masseuse for a thousand dollar hand workout for Tom, and naturally he had magic fingers and won the Super Bowl. That hand right there.
Also dreamt of a hot summer day where I was picking tomatoes, grapes and peppers from a garden and eating them. It is a cruel thing to wake up and go out with the dogs into the snow and 20s..............

(Mugs by Gary Rith and the man himself....)

This has been a moderate to mild January and the forecast for upstate NY is more nice days for the last of this month. It has been a little sunny today, a LOT sunny yesterday, but dangitall, me and my cup of tea here are ready for summer.

Fiddling with spotted, squared off mugs. I have a teapot I am glazing right this minute to match. Yippee!

the wife stalking around in the dark with a camera

Me and Penny, Spike being spooky.
Happy Saturday, everybody!

tiny little vases

(little vases by Gary Rith)

'Tubthumping' by Chumbawamba!!!!

Ten plus years ago, and did these guys know how popular their song would be at football and hockey arenas??? You have to admit, you are inspired, you want to DANCE.

get crazy with the cheese whiz!

.....and here's cm's niece, Superbaby! Lookit those toes.

Beck, 'Loser', I have highlighted the most inspirational parts. You ask yourself, 'get crazy with the cheese whiz'?????? Think about it as a potter's life philosophy: YES, you should make outlandish pots with dancing pigs. The wilder the better.

"In the time of chimpanzees I was a monkey butane in my veins so i'm out to cut the junkie with the plastic eyeballs spray paint the vegetables dog food stalls with the beefcake pantyhose kill the headlights and put it in neutral stock car flamin' with a loser and the cruise control baby's in Reno with the vitamin D got a couple of couches sleep on the love seat someone keeps sayin' I'm insane to complain about a shotgun wedding and a stain on my shirt don't believe everything that you breathe you get a parking violation and a maggot on your sleeve so shave your face with some mace in the dark savin' all your food stamps and burnin' down the trailer park(yo cut it) Soy un perdedor I'm a loser baby so why don't you kill me? (double-barrel buckshot) Soy un perdedor i'm a loser baby,so why don't you kill me? Forces of evil in a bozo nightmare banned all the music with a phony gas chamber 'cuz one's got a weasel and the other's got a flag one's got on the pole shove the other in a bag with the rerun shows and the cocaine nose job the daytime crap with the folksinger slop he hung himself with a guitar string slap the turkey neck and it's hangin' on a pigeon wing you can't write if you can't relate trade the cash for the beef for the body for the hate and my time is a piece of wax fallin' on a termite who's chokin' on the splinters Soy un perdedor I'm a loser baby so why don't you kill me? (get crazy with the cheeze whiz) Soy un perdedor I'm a loser baby so why don't you kill me? (drive-by body pierce) (yo bring it on down) soooooooyy.... (I'm a driver I'm a winner things are gonna change I can feelit) Soy un perdedor I'm a loser baby so why don't you kill me? (I can't believe you) Soy un perdedor I'm a loser baby so why don't you kill me? Soy un perdedor I'm a loser baby so why don't you kill me? [repeat] (Sprechen sie Deutches, baby) Soy un perdedor I'm a loser baby so why don't you kill me? (Know what I'm sayin'?) "

a foursome

(mugs with lovey dovey hearts by Gary Rith)
Dreamt last night, among other things, of bicycling across a snowy Vermont but then I realized my pottery destiny. The wilder pots I make (see Potter's Blog header, for instance) the better. It is me at my best.

Visited the Cornell University ceramics studio yesterday and later chatted briefly with the director. Basically, I explained that I don't need a studio or a class, BUT here I am at home fiddling around and wouldn't it be fun to get out and mix with other potters etc? He says ALL their instructors come to them for that reason. So, I think I may sign up for a class and go over and goof around and see where it leads me. Shake up the brain a little bit. And yes, I have taught pottery many times and I am hoping to do so again, maybe this will lead that direction.

Mazzy Star 'Wild Horses'

Another pretty song from Mazzy Star.

Spike and Emily: BFF

Cats know when it is naptime.

Yesterday and today, these two all lovey dovey.....

dangit......

Fell on the ice again, same wrist, same elbow, same awful pain. When do I get the right idea and move to a warm beach somewhere?

political round table

You kinda wish the candidates for president were a little more _________________.

The rest of 2008 is going to be fascinating and awful at the same time.

Dreamt I drove the wife to Canada. Is it all connected?

(pig bowl by Gary Rith)

Mazzy Star 'Fade Into you'

I have heard it called 'shoe gazing' music, but it sure is pretty.

minis set

(miniature one inch=one foot sized pots)

OK, later today this bowl, vase, teapot and 2 cups will go for sale as a set.

little animal plaques

(by Gary Rith)

I need some plaques to add to a display. The first are finished and fired.

Penny.