Mr. Clown finds a home

So, yes, sometimes I make ordinary vases (ho hum! but this guy on the left does have a satisfying shape). I made Mr. Clown the other day, and he may represent my obsession of 2007 (let's see, 2004 was pigs, 2005 elephants, 2006 was starting to look like zebras) and in an unusual bass-ackwards twist, THEN I got the idea for the pot to go with the clown. Mr. Clown will be nicely glazed in different colors, on top of this jar which will feature different swirly glaze colors.

Sales have been GOOD

So, this stuff is on its way to Santa's workshop (well, galleries and stores)and then some lucky person's stocking.

Smashing Pumpkins 'Tonight'

Sure, loads of strange dreams last night. Alison's baby spitting up on me, trying to go skiing when the mountain has no snow but I spend half the night waiting for a clerk to sell me a lift ticket, I mean, what a waste of time!
Smashing Pumpkins give us an excellent tune here with a pretty fantastic dream sequence like an old silent film with Jules Verne undertones.

inspirational pigs

It is time to talk about Toot and Puddle by Holly Hobbie. These are my favorite illustrated pigs, and she has a way of drawing them sweetly and simply and unsentimentally. How does a person say this without sounding like a fool? Basically, there are times I want to walk into her illustrations of Toot and Puddle's house or their adventures and join them. Very high praise for an illustrator, the best.

all that hair weighing me DOWN

And muddling my thoughts. I took off a few pounds of fuzz from the top of my head just now and my brain is feeling much lighter. I was looking like this clown here, hair sticking up high towards the heavens.
Tunes o' the day, James and 'Frustration'. Yes.

not clowning around

Where are the dreams this week? Not abundant or memorable.
The pair of mugs here are opposites mentioned before: essentially the same, except one has a wide base and the other has a wide top. Piglets also vary. Yesterday I started on a flower pot order, and somehow got this big thing, which the customer says is way too big, and the jug I was making became an ordinary vase. Perhaps I was not fully caffeinated.

what I need is a FAT LITTLE CLOWN

Yep, a BA in art worth a small fortune and he makes CLOWNS for a living. And PIGS!

(Edward Gorey dog) Just as I find Charles Schultz inspiring, Edward Gorey and his cavorting and dancing dogs can be interesting to think about too.

freaky

1) Freaky warm weather: nice and sunny, maybe 60 degrees, green grass and flowers blooming. Sure. last week it was snowing, but WOW!
2)Freaky bowls. Sometimes you are following a strange direction and you ask yourself 'what exactly am I making here and what do I think of it?'

Guest potter: Jessica Dubin

(Teapot by Jessica Dubin)
Yet another star from my college days. Jessica was a year behind me, and truly nice and hard working. If I remember correctly, ceramics was the most popular class topic at Bennington College, with nearly the whole student body taking at least one class. So, it may be surprising sometimes which of us stuck with it. I hadn't thought about Jessica since my student days, and a year or two ago she won a competition and was included in a book ('500 Cups') and I said 'hey, I knew her!'.
Her work is pretty exciting, classically thrown pieces she alters here and there. Rich glazing. No pigs.

Petey's ghost

Dreamt long and hard about our little dog Petey who passed away in May, nearly 19 years old. He spent EVERY moment with me. A perfect work companion and friend. He had been living on the streets in Chicago in 1993, and we took him home, he was probably half corgi, half dachschund, half sweet, half tough. Anyway, his ghost kept appearing to me in the dream, and he was pretty happy and cheerful, as he had been in life.
Tunes of the day, especially for Gorthos, Max Headroom and The Art of Noise.

NOT piggy banks

Some people may have noticed that I adore pigs. I named my business Brown Trout Pottery in 1986 and have two different and fantastic hand drawn logos, but the piggy making the pot is my own doodle and represents me better these days. Yesterday I drove past a farm that I have passed many times in South New Berlin, NY with this sweet sign they drew which also says 'pigs for sale'. Think of that: you can just walk up and buy a little piggy! Gotta get pictures sometime.
My man Gorthos is listening to New Order today, which got me in the mood too--these guys could make a cool tune AND a cool video.

piggy banks hit the road

'To market to market, to buy a new pig, to market to market....'
I am not really a production potter, or a one of a kind artist potter either. Something in between. A production potter makes large numbers of identical pieces. I can do that.
Drove off in glorous winter weather to Massachusetts Tuesday to deliver piggy banks, and other things, to Sheffield Pottery. As mentioned here last month, they have a huge gallery which sells my work, but they also make and sell all supplies, such as clay. I go over with boxes of piggies, bowls, mugs, and come home with hundreds of pounds of ready mixed white stoneware clay. A nice circle, except for the massive and seemingly unneccessary traffic jam in Albany.

More teapot action pictures

Some things work out. I had in mind a certain type of four sided teapot with a certain tapered handle and so I doodled it on a scrap of paper. This is the before and after, the sides were whacked, an opening cut, the spout was sliced, the handle bent.
As mentioned before, I am generous and loving and this is a little Christmas present for Mrs. Pottersblog, and because of this post, I had to give it to her today. I am giving her this link to 'Code Monkey' too, an animated music video for her and all my nerdy technology type friends and relatives. (I am a VERY generous guy)

KILNGODDESS - FAME AND FORTUNE IS MINE

So Iam giving myself a NEW MUG with a little dog. YYYEEESSSSS....
Kilngoddess is a Florida ceramics teacher with a link page for her students and everybody else. She did a pottery blog search. I came up. The world of ceramics NOW LINKS TO THIS BLOG thanks to kilngoddess. I think we should put a link to her spot ourselves. Have a look, my blog and others down a bit...

winding up

Two corn chip burritos are sitting somewhat heavily on my belly, not helped by the large cat actually sitting on my belly. 4 or 5 Linkin Park videos have gotten me a little wound up and ready for all those mugs that need handles. I have heard that Tony Soprano (whatever the real actor's name was) listened to AC/DC to wind up for his work. I don't like AC/DC but the method can be helpful.

sweet sugar bowl

See/ back to my cheerful self already.

i am a trifle annoyed

The dancing dog pot shown here before firing is broken. The gallery contacted me to say the dog had come off. I had put a sign on it specifically saying it is FRAGILE! All pots are fragile, but what kind of jerk breaks a piece and wanders off without telling anybody? Santa will no doubt give them a stocking full of moldy bananas.
I shall eat a burrito or two, have a cup of coffee, and will be my usual cheery self this afternoon.
(fact: ten plus years in the business and only a few pieces have ever broken. Not bad)

teapot action photos

Cue 'Mission Impossible' music here. I make the teapot, someone overseas makes a handsome bamboo handle and sells it to me, I wire the handle to my teapot. I do not need superpowers to do this.
CSS and a little silly Brazilian pop for our breakfast time tunes o' the day.

porcine love

As shown last week, one must break out of the rut, the usual day to day making of pigs. Snuggling pig couples is the way ahead. There may be a chorus of 'ahhh, so cute!'
Regina Spektor again, 'Better'. This tune is all over the radio here, and you have to admit she really belts it out.
The real dream last night was helping my parents move, but the real undream nightmare was the late evening asthma attack, and like in that horror flick 'The hand that rocks the cradle' my inhaler was EMPTY and the backup was also EMPTY. Half a lifetime of asthma and this has never happened, so a late night road trip to the store for an OTC inhaler, and the fourth or fifth store (which I swear will be my loyal go-to place for the rest of my life, bless them) was CVS, open, with plenty of inhalers and I bought three, end of story, then a good nights sleep and now time to glaze a load of piggies.

Good things in small packages

The generous and loving potter gives his wife a tiny little pot. She is most grateful and charmed.
Regina Spektor and 'Fidelity' for tunes o' the day--this is a totally DO NOT MISS VIDEO! WATCH IT!

Crows

(Japanese, from the Asia Society)
An approx. 400 year old tea jar. Fantastic. The little lugs on top would be used for cords that would tie on a lid, perhaps made of wood.

tunes o' the day, my morning jacket 'anytime'

(piggies line up for glazing)
So you hear it on the radio and wonder WHO IS THAT? Finally an answer: My Morning Jacket, 'Anytime'

IN THE FALL OF 1983.....

....I was 17, and a college freshman at Bennington. Funny how things come together. Yesterday I posted on Erica from college. Last night I dreamt it was a frantic end of college term. More to the point, yesterday I was shoveling snow and realized that my little back deck sculpture was made as an end of term project in December 1983, for my first ceramics class. It lived in my parents' yard for 20 some years, now mine. It has seen a lot of snow. SOOO, I took its picture, then thought I should complete the theme and dug out this picture of me in that very same college ceramics studio fall of 83. My sculpture is the same, but maybe I have improved with age.

Canadian Water Dogs

Jack and Buster are Labrador retrievers, and therefore love everything, especially that which is COLD AND WET. Our old dog Petey was tiny, had a short coat, and his underbelly etc. dragged on the ground when there was a snowfall. He did not care for snow. Having lived in the woods of New Hampshire before on a far out dirt road, and now on a MAJOR STATE HIGHWAY I am impressed at how the plows buzz around and throw salt all over. Easy driving, probably so people won't skid off the road and into my living room (oh yes, the front lawn is quite narrow) Anyway, Holly Jolly and all that, just a little snow shower the weather man says....(that seems to be accumulating pretty fast and deep)

Jayhawks 'Blue'

OK, mug one here is a recent favorite of mine, pretty simple overall: cylinder with fluted gouges on the diagonal, 2 glazes. I am in the mood for a new mug for both myself and the world. The wet pot on the left is the reverse of a mug I have made often (not pictured), smaller at the bottom flaring up to the top with ridges all along. This guy is the opposite, fat base, narrower top.
Tunes o' the day 'Blue' from the Jayhawks. Just a perfect band, perfect sound, slightly odd video.

Guest Potter Erica Wurtz

(pottery by Erica Wurtz from Mass. Cultural Council)
I am a slug on the sidewalk.

I went to college with Erica Wurtz, but the truth is I was in pottery kindergarten and she was in college. By the time she was a sophomore, her work was more accomplished than mine is now, and I have been working with clay 23 plus years. Yeah, she was good, only got better.
Erica took a whole different route to art school. At 18 she apprenticed to a potter, and at 19 was a freshman. I noticed when I was a college student that all the folks who had worked for a while straight out of high school were miles ahead of the rest of us in maturity, and simple gratitude to be locked up on a campus with the bills paid and the food in the dining room ready to eat. So, not to sound like I worship this woman's ability or talent, but she happens to be extremely nice (well, she was 20 years ago), creative and hard working. I was a slacker in most ways, and a slob. But enough comparison, just check out this web site and her work. So in recent years I have stumbled over her work everywhere, visiting Chicago, 'oh Erika made those pots!' or Northampton, Mass 'Oh, more pots by Erika!' in a magazine, 'wow, Erika's work looks GOOD'. I believe that she sketches ideas, makes parts and shapes on the wheel, and when they have dried somewhat she chops, whacks and smoothes them together. Pretty darn cool.

cow and zebra coffee pots

Making Blooger Behave

Un huh, that's right.....

BLOOGER CAN BE SO DYSFUNCTIONAL

Anyway, Maggie and Deb, have a look over on the right in the new 'gallery nook'. Stuff you had asked about.

Not an 80s Big Hair Metal Band

Blooger is doing it again: all these pictures I wanna post and NOPE, no dice.
So, who bridged 80s hair metal bands and grunge? Maybe it was Soundgarden, here's 'Loud Love' for tunes o' the day.

like 2 holes in the head

So, I say 'hey, before I make another rack of piggies, let's quick fix the door!' The studio door, you see, is ancient, but unlike the rest, or most of the rest of the house, it didn't work very well. It can be excused, however, as it is very old and has seen many comings and goings. Easy to imagine it as STATE OF THE ART, special ordered, back in 1906. Really! So, it is a bit banged up, but worth fixing. Unlike my friends Denis, Greg and Gordo, and especially my wife, I have NO carpentry abilities or talents. But I have a cordless drill.
OK, in the end, after 4 hours, and it was dark and cold, the door was done and works GREAT, although my repair looks terrible from the inside. C'est la vie. There was one point though when I was holding a little block of wood and merrily drilling away I was struck by a story told to me this weekend by a sculptor friend who we will call here 'John', because he would be embarrassed about his part in the story. John ran a drill press through his right hand last week, and what else does a sculptor, OR POTTER have, but his hands? (luckily, my hands drilled only wood Tuesday :^) OK, so John and his wife head to the emergency room with a sad and bloody mess. But they were second in line. This being Ithaca, they had to wait a LOOONG time in line, because the gentleman in front of them was into body modification and had pushed two three inch nails into his forehead. And there was the guy, sitting in the waiting room, with other concerned citizens, with two nails sticking out of his head. The man had to be dragged to the emergency room, and he liked the nails where they were, so the whole thing was time consuming....
Oh yeah, I fixed the bathhtub drain too.

Toasty warm

Glaze firing here every third day usually; reached temperature around 2200 degrees last evening, cooled to 100 something and lid up around one pm, unloaded about 3 pm. There are orders here for Helen, and maybe Deb and Maggie too, plus other people I hope I have notes. You guessed it: opening the kiln is like Christmas morning.
Still making millions of piggy banks, lower pic is the before and after.

Tortellini Taco

Italian-Mex rides again! Look at those nice blue corn tacos with cheese tortellinis, tomato sauce and veggies.
Its not all wine, woman, and song here in the studio, no sirree, its leftovers for lunch too!

Sammy goes online

Obligatory shot of cat on computer.
Trans Siberian Orchestra has more Christmas stuff, speaking of cats, to put you in that holiday mood. This one's for YOU, Gordo.
Academic nightmare last night: end of term and I have to complete a calculus assignment in one hour and I don't have the problems. Good thing I took Calculus 20 years ago, you can bet I use it every day in the studio.

tough guy

Planted these flowers back in late May. How often, in the frozen North, do you have flowers blooming in December? Of course, most of the fall was mild. What a little fighter.

Piggy lurve

So a guy goes to fancy pants college and studies for years and works at the side of a master to learn GREAT ART and the years go by and he is surprised to find that he is a specialist in piggies.
One goal of this blog is to crack open my nearly empty head and peer inside and see WHAT ON EARTH I am thinking as I make stuff. You could say 'who cares?' but I know for a fact that my cat and my wife DO care, so on I go.
In 1988 or 89 I made my first piggy banks, which consist of a bottle turned over and added to and turned into a piggy. The banks got larger and smaller, and I successfully made other banks too, like penguins, cats, bunnies, maybe 16 different animal banks. But OH, I wanted so much more, and so one day I made a little pig to go inside a mug, on the bottom, and then other animals, then animals on the handles of the mugs, all over teapots, etc. The idea, of course, is to have FUN, but also CUTE SELLS (but never cutesy, no no). So, today is busy busy busy and I glazed and was messing around with a new teapot form which I over messed with so me and my tea sat down to make little animals for the sides of a stack of bowls. But there was a yearning 'let's go down the path, do something a little different' and I wasn't in the mood for anything but pigs (strange obsession, I agree) so then I thought:
'Cute may sell but CUDDLY REALLY SELLS' and this is a romantic month for me and the missus with our 14th wedding anniversary around the corner and all, so how about pigs snuggling together, on bowls?

Fall Creek in the Snow

The view behind Le studio is of the river and the little ducks floating downstream, their behinds up in the air and their heads underwater eating tasty fishes and we had an inch or two of snow which puts everybody in a holiday mood so that they go shopping.

at the gallery, dahlink

Guests were expected Sunday and I am a normally messy person so I had reason to tidy up, which is in the end satisfying. There is a corner of my workspace devoted to all the well-heeled customers who might stop in with their fat checkbooks. Sure, even my workspace got tidied, including the 'Gallery Nook', and this petit tableau looked picture worthy.
I am up to many things today, shoveling snow I suppose being one (no joke ya'll!) with glazing first, then I have this teapot thing going on. Dreamt I was at a store and the older dog Jack got loose and disappeared, later he was found but I swear half of me is still in bed.

You may find yourself....

...leading a charmed life. There were not one but TWO parties late Sunday, and when it came time to choose between desserts I did not, I ate both. I noted casually 'oh hey, that's a snow moon!' and how right I was, the world is covered with the stuff. Most festive looking, a snowy world.
The Talking Heads for tunes o' the day.

something every home needs

a little zebra pot

EUREKA!!!!

Oh yay! Blogger has shaped up! 'Free Hugs for Everybody' by Sick Puppy.
I'm so happy....

OK, I am Not so Dumb as Everyone Thinks

Alright, blogger can't handle me posting pics and links, WELL, CHECK OUT OUR NEW LOOK AND THE SIDELINES TOO. I guess I will simply move things around over on the right until this thing behaves again.
Yes, you wanted to know what I was dreaming: Squared Teapots, that is what I was dreaming. You just sorta whack it on four sides when it is still soft.

Day 2: what's the matter with blogger?

Still no pictures or links? This is disgusting!!!

Sweet Jane, tunes o' the day

Was listening to the Cowboy Junkies 'Miles from our home' Friday, fantastico, but no video for it, so click on the big title there and check out their 'Sweet Jane'.

this makes no sense

I have such terrific pictures and links but BLOGGER has the flu today or something so gawd, we just have to settle for WORDS. How boring is that?
Got one of those calls yesterday. It went like this:
'This is such and such store. We just sold all your mugs. Do you have any more?'
Therefore we can buy groceries and cat food.

lions and tigers and bears oh MY!

Loopy dreams, as usual, where on my way out to the tennis courts the rather large brown bear barely noticed me, but the lion looked hungry and I hoped if I walked slowly he wouldn't eat me.

piggy banks and sugar bowls, yesirree

I am not really procrastinating on piggy banks as you see, but messing around on the side with some kinky sugar bowls with pigs. That mug on the left needs a pig.

Procrastination, not just for breakfast anymore

So, YES, I do still have a massive order for dozens, well, hundreds of piggy banks. I, ahem, am not gonna quite have them delivered before Christmas, but the order came in very late, in retail terms. There's nothing like an order for a mountain of piggies that inspires a potter to LALALALALALALALA do other things. So, I was toying around with this sugar bowl idea, but it sure looks like it has mug potential too.

December First

Well, I dreamt of Buster and Jack (Jack is drinking) and awoke to Buster's wet nose urging me out of bed and the sound of Jack making loud vomiting sounds. Unlike the rest of the cats and dogs here, Jack is rarely sick, so this was merely a ploy to get me up to feed them.
The Trans-Siberian Orchestra give us Tunes o' the day. This is something schmaltzy that even my mom would enjoy.