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3 hand and slab built raku clay torsos by Tammy Vitale, cooling in the kiln

These torsos are my next project: raku firing.  I have one torso that wasn’t dry enough to put in the kiln, so there’s another project, making enough product for a full kiln load.  After this weekend’s Unique Boutique show, I will know if I need to make more fish and word tiles (hope so!).  These three represent at least an hour’s work glazing each and then the whole firing thing (which requires lugging buckets of water, raking leaves and pine needles, toting gloves, mask, ignitor, torsos, etc. up to where I fire).  Great weather for raku, though.  Crisp November air (we’re having an early cold snap according to the weather folks), hot raku fire, flannel shirt….no sweat (like in the summer).  And the mosquitos should be gone too.

Packed the car to the gills yesterday for today’s load in at Unique Boutique.  I like that we can do it today.  If I forget something, I can bring it tomorrow.  I think I’ve managed to gather everything except my bank.  I even got the hand truck in the front seat, with the back seat area (I long ago pulled the back seat out of my car) for 2 carpeted and 2 wire screens – the kind that break down into 2 parts.  That way they fit.  I played with the carpeted screens and sure enough, they will work set up in halves on a table.  I plan to put the wire screens up full (about 6 ft tall) and hang torsos and totems on them.  I’m taking toros just to attract attention.  I expect the smaller items to be the better sellers.  Am glad I learned about PayPal charge card access.  It’s the easiest, cheapest and quickest to get my money process I’ve tried so far.

Realize I don’t have a picture of the torso called "Sisters" which I finished in time to pack.  If I work at it, I’ll remember to bring my camera and post pictures of Unique Boutique.  That’s about all I’ll have time for.  Saturday and Sunday are 10 – 5 days, and Sunday evening I have to repack what’s left and load out, too.  Husband should be dancing.  He’ll have the house all to himself on Sunday – something that rarely happens for him.  He’s having a very long week at the 9:30 Club, so I’m sure he will enjoy it immensely.  Hope so, because I want to draft him to help with raku on Monday (I need these torsos for Joie de Vivre show in Cambridge – load in November 6…he’s helping with that too).  Aside:  Husband says once this art business really takes off, he’ll stay home and be my shipping manager and driver-to-location person.  Works for me! 

Am jumping a bit ahead of my November one-a-day art projects (practicing).  Here’s Bloom.  Kat (see left side bar if you’d like to participate with her one-a-day art in Novmeber) says it can be art, poetry, writing, whatever.  And if it isn’t everyday, well then, as often as you can.   I’m all excited about it – the "good student" part of me just knows I’ll be able to pull this off (or make myself crazy trying to…."A" student syndrome).  At any rate, I’m looking forward enough to it that I just had to start early.  If you click on it (or any picture on this blog) it comes up really big and very detailed.

thought for the day:  Told that we are not gifted in certain areas, we are all too ready to believe it.  Believing it, we repeat the damning words to ourselves and guarantee our own negative results.  ‘I can’t  dance,’ ‘I can’t sing,’ ‘I have no color sense,’ we parrot – without exploring whether the lack is real or merely a part of our familial conditioning.  Julia Cameron, The Veing of Gold:  A Journey to Your Creative Heart

Over and over, we have to go back to the beginning.  We should not be ashamed of this.  It is good.  It’s like drinking water.  Natalie Goldberg