Slab-built clay torso, Island Girl, by Tammy Vitale of Tam’s Originals

It was hard getting into the studio yesterday.  So I did some productive procrastination with my numbers for the year.  I hate doing numbers as a rule but didn’t mind it yesterday so took advantage of the mood and spread them on my spreadsheets, by hand, which is the way I do things.  I actually have Quicken this year and have never gotten into the habit of using it.  I should.  But it’s just one of those things where there’s a learning curve and I’m not really interested.

Then I took a nap and then I finally got into the studio where I made two new torsos who have kindly named themselves already:  Mother Mother Ocean (who has turtle symbols) and Sister Sea (who is a mermaid and will have shells from OBX) (see pictures following).   I wanted to see if I could do a great finny fish tail on the mermaid.  Actuality didn’t quite meet the picture in my head, but it’ll do for now.  I’ll try more later. 

I also glazed 18 fish (the other fish that were drying will be cooked and then stained) and managed to get everything I had drying into the kiln for a very full up to the very top load.  Efficient use of energy.  Makes me happy.  It’s still cooking right now since it’s a 12 hour cook cycle and another 12 hours of cooling if I leave it alone and don’t try to push the cooling by opening the kiln, which I do alot.  Until I read that can be hard on the elements.  And since it costs $250 to buy new elements and takes a lot of time to put them in (thank you very much Husband), I have a vested interest in not punishing the elements.  So I have been patient the last two loads and waited until it was down to the 300s which is the 2nd 12 hour time period (which is really too long when I want to see how things turned out).  This load contained all the work from the class I taught last Saturday which has been drying with a dehumidifier and fan all week – I am sure they all made it through fine.  I’m not so sure about some of my word tiles which I may have pushed a bit drying to fill up this load. (and here’s a picture of my trusty Skutt kiln cooking away) 

The word tiles are 1/2" thick.  They take longer.  The fish are built on a 3/8" thick slab and so dry faster and easier.

Still to do is pulling several zodiac sets and some butterfly tiles and I want, as I mentioned, to design a few OBX tiles.  But today I’m going to a winery opening that is going to have art too, and that may be interested in my art.  I forgot Husband isn’t working since it’s a Saturday and he always works on Saturday but there’s a big festival going on so the 9:30 Club is closed and everyone is working at the festival.  He’s going to move his drums upstairs to his office room.  That’s good.  Maybe he’ll play more.  It also gives me a whole nother space for clay.  I have to take the rug up.  It’s the only one I have left from my parents, having taken the big one to the thrift store.  I’m going to have the rug professionally cleaned and the backing rejuvenated and put it in my office.  That will feel very good.

So even though it was hard getting started, it was a veyr productive day in the art neighborhood yesterday.  I am very pleased.

thought for the day: Step out onto the Planet.  Draw a circle a hundred feet round.  Inside the cirle are 300 things nobody understands and maye nobody’s ever really seen.  How many can you find?  Lew Welch  Earth Preayers, Ed by Elizabeth Roberts and Elias Amidon