primalmommy on wed 8 nov 06
We got our Captain Kiln postcards here last week. Connor has been in
charge of getting the mail, as today is his 11th birthday, and he
brought it in giggling to show his siblings. He kind of feels
proprietary about David Hendley, because his favorite
coffee-with-mostly-milk cup is one of David's pony-hoof,
lusterish-shinoish-things with a bead-crawl glaze. He once wrote David a
fan letter about the cup and David sent him a bag of volcanic ash to
test in mom's glazes.
The kids have David's "pottery all stars" trading cards and remember
fondly the "Hairy Potter" card from last time. Plus we all like the
extrudinaires CD. It just goes to show ya -- you can come up with a fun
marketing technique if you stay in touch with your inner fourth grader
;0)
I love that the cups in our cupboard have names. If I ask one of my kids
to pour me a big cup of coffee, they say, "Which mug? Mel, or Captain
Mark? We have two Tony Clennell coffee mugs and I make a point of
putting both out for a kid and asking him/her to choose one. I've been
doing that for years - I show them pages of images in American Craft or
CM, and I say, "What's the best thing on this page? Why?"
I am beginning to realize that a big part of the process of my MFA has
been training my eye. You can't make good pots until you can SEE good
pots. I want my kids to make decisions about form and function, color
and surface, and put it into language. Now. While it's less complicated
-- before their egoes are involved, and the issues muddied. Context
complicates everything. If Tony writes something stupid, I reach right
past his mug for a day or two and pick another. If Diana's really hard
on me at school, her little cup gets pushed to the back of the cupboard
today. Mels' mug just has to ride through the dishwasher several times
if he ticks me off. Voodoo by coffee mug.
Today was Connor's "Iron Chef" birthday party. He's a junior foodie.
Jeff bought tall paper chef's hats at a restaurant supply, we got canvas
aprons and ironed on each guest's name, and they made their own pizza
crusts/pizzas, muffins to frost and ice cream sundaes. Connor would have
preferred creme brulee or sushi, but his little pals might not have been
quite so adventurous. I'll post a birthday party picture at my blog
tonight after the evening's family festivities.
One more thing! My dad's cat is a big hunter. Winters in florida, it's
lizards; summers in Michigan it's chipmunks. In typical cat
live-for-the-chase fashion, he'll keep releasing a chipmunk and catching
it, again and again, until it's too broken to run.
He's discovered that if he gets tired of playing with a chipmunk but
it's not completely used up, he can bring it in through the dog door and
leave it in the bathtub. Then, after a nap, he can come back and resume
the game.
My dad is a softie, and rescues whatever traumatized critters he finds
in the tub. It's a strange paradox. He shoots a deer every year but I
have seen him in traffic in the dark, scooping baby ducks into his shirt
because somebody hit mama... or giving CPR to a squirrel who fell in the
pool. We decide which critters to get involved with, based on no logic
at all. People who love birds hate cats. My mom used to say, "if worms
were prettier, folks would hate birds."
It's like I explained to Molly. Miss Bianca, her ginger and white mouse
and best friend, is family. We feed her toasted pumpkin seeds and would
take her to the vet if she had the sniffles. But if there was a mouse in
my pantry, I'd set a trap. We know that chicken McNuggets were chickens,
and hot dogs used to be big doe-eyed cattle, and everybody helps when we
turn our deer into packages of venison. For better or worse, we've
killed off the wolves and cougars, and keep building neighborhoods on
deer habitat, so it is what it is. Even when I was a vegetarian I knew
somebody killed my birkenstocks.
Jeff's home -- birthday round two is beginning.
Yours
kelly in Ohio
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Lee Love on thu 9 nov 06
On 11/9/06, primalmommy wrote:
> I am beginning to realize that a big part of the process of my MFA has
> been training my eye. You can't make good pots until you can SEE good
> pots. I want my kids to make decisions about form and function, color
> and surface, and put it into language.
It is frustrating, but for the artist, it is better to have an
eye stronger than the hand.
But is seeing enough? Mr. Miyagi might say,
"Daniel-san. Best way know good tea bowl is make tea ." Actually,
my Zen sewing teacher, Tomoe Katagiri Sensei , told me this when I
asked her about 20 years ago, "What makes a good tea bowl?"
>Even when I was a vegetarian I knew somebody killed my birkenstocks.
China is big into leather export now. The Eddie Bauer
leather belt Jean brought back from the States for me this spring is
Made In China. Thing is, they never imported or killed a single cow
to make leather goods. Most hide is thrown away. Making use of the
hide is only showing respect for the sacrificed life.
The cattle boom in China is related to the milk program that
is helping the infant size there to be better. Takes a lot of
water/grain. And it is a resource they are running out of.
--
Lee in Mashiko, Japan
http://potters.blogspot.com/
"Let the beauty we love be what we do." - Rumi
"When we all do better. We ALL do better." -Paul Wellstone
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