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critters and oxides

updated thu 2 nov 00

 

Joyce Lee on tue 31 oct 00


One of my delightfully talented mentees ..... not a critter at all....
but a lovely lady...... is giving me cause to re-think my "retired"
teaching/mentoring style, which apparently is much too casual.

Dori is one of those fortunate women who always looks just exactly
"right" wherever you see her. Her dress is appropriate without fail, and
her personal style permeates her appearance whether she's out by the
lake digging clay, in the city attending a concert, or taking part in a
workshop .... wherever she is, she's wearing sparkling cream or beige or
white ..... always looking as if she'd just climbed out of the
proverbial "bandbox," as Mama Luce used to say. It's the same in my
studio. She wears a freshly ironed, white lab coat with a towel nearby
to blot and soak up any mess. We each may have completed the same tasks,
but I'm the one with clay in her ear, up her nose, hanging in decorative
bits from her hair, and glazes from head to toe. I do NOT wear cream,
beige nor white.

This week Dori the Immaculate made test tiles for the first time and
applied various oxide washes and slips in differing percentages. This
day she did not wear her lab coat, but had on an aging, soft, lovely
linen shirt. She applied red iron oxide to the last test tiles of the
day, somehow liberally applying a fair amount to her hands, also. MUCH
TO MY SHOCK, just as I was getting the words formed to suggest that she
scrub her hands thoroughly before touching anything else, she raised
those RIO covered hands and rubbed them all down the sides of her linen
shirt and beautifully ironed chinos, leaving huge, powdery rust
splotches in their wake.

I gasped, of course, and explained why that was not such a good idea ...
ending by asking what possessed her to clean her hands thusly after a
whole year of being Ms Freshly Burnished. Dori, this mature
and marvelous artist, replied, "I see YOU do it all the time, and I
wanted to see how it feels to be like Joyce." .... oh, s*** .... In the
first place, I didn't know I did it "all the time"...... it's always
been a mystery to me how I got so dirty .... mystery is solved, and Dori
is out one "bandbox" outfit.

Joyce
In the Mojave

Cindy Strnad on wed 1 nov 00


Joyce,

What a delightful story. I'm still laughing. Like you, I would never even
consider wearing cream or white. I have one pair of "natural"
jeans which I ordered because I thought "natural--that means just plain
denim color--blue, of course". I wear them if everything else is in the
laundry and I'm going to be doing nothing messy, and always end up having to
wash them immediately after.

Cindy Strnad
Earthen Vessels Pottery
RR 1, Box 51
Custer, SD 57730
USA
earthenv@gwtc.net
http://www.earthenvesselssd.com

Tommy Humphries on wed 1 nov 00


Just as an aside to this story, if you ever get RIO stains on your clothes,
you can remove it with oxalic acid. This is an **EXTREMELY** toxic
substance, but will remove Iron stains from any material it is applied to.

Tommy Humphries

----- Original Message -----
From: "Joyce Lee"
To:
Sent: Tuesday, October 31, 2000 7:28 PM
Subject: critters and oxides


> One of my delightfully talented mentees ..... not a critter at all....
> but a lovely lady...... is giving me cause to re-think my "retired"
> teaching/mentoring style, which apparently is much too casual.
>
>
> This week... She applied red iron oxide to the last test tiles of the
> day, somehow liberally applying a fair amount to her hands, also. MUCH
> TO MY SHOCK, just as I was getting the words formed to suggest that she
> scrub her hands thoroughly before touching anything else, she raised
> those RIO covered hands and rubbed them all down the sides of her linen
> shirt and beautifully ironed chinos, leaving huge, powdery rust
> splotches in their wake.
>
>
> Joyce
> In the Mojave
>
>
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