keep centered

So after spending a little under $1000. in 2 & 1/2 months and having it repaired again yesterday the pellet stove quit working in the middle of the night again last night. At least it wasn't way below zero. To say I am discouraged is an understatement. Not sure of what the next step is, but it will come.

There has not been a huge amount of snow recently, but enough that I was able to get my good snow plow guy to plow my road, and plow it he did. The foreseeable forecast is an inch every once in awhile, which is not bad at all. I was concerned about getting back to my house after 12th Night, but that doesn't seem a concern now.

I have put a photo from my Cambodian adventure on my desktop. I want to think only of that good time.
Crossing the Rainbow Bridge to Angor Wat. Japanese tourist flirting with young Monks.


9 9
Farmer watching her buffalo next to Preup Wat.

Decided that it wouldn't be a good idea to do a recap of 2015.
It wasn't a particularly bad year for me, however, December/January are terrible times of the year for me, and whatever I wrote would reflect that. I was really quite happy last Spring, I would have said ”Joyous”, but my kiln wasn't working. I was even pretty happy during the Summer in spite of the extended heat wave and also extended smoke. But dealing with all the crap the weather throws at me gets physically harder and more discouraging to deal with.

I haven't gone back to the studio yet. I hope that I am gathering material on a subconscious level, which is what my research on creativity says happens. In the meantime I am practicing Sumi-E brushwork and doing a lot of different styles of art for the signatures for the book a couple of friends and I are doing. A wide variety of different styles and mediums. I am really enjoying doing them.

We have had a lot of snow. It has snowed every day and is really piling up. But recently it has become wetter than the dry fluffy stuff. So in the midst of my flu last night, an avalanche slid off the roof of my front porch into the front window breaking part of it out. This means I have snow in the house. And then the electricity (includes heat, water, telephone)went out with me not feeling strong enough to take measures.

Things are more or less back to usual now. The electricity is back on after about 8 hours. I have cardboard over the broken window, Adam and dancing_guru are here bringing gifts of presto-logs (my wood source and path to it are covered in snow) for my back-up heat source; and are shoveling the snow away from the broken window. (Although the snow was thick & heavy enough to provide some insulation).

Amby won't let me out of his sight. He sticks to me like glue. He is a faithful hound.

My Spring Break starts after school today
and not a moment too soon!!!

It is my feeling that it lasts longer if I plan it, so I've planned it. Half of the plans will come to naught if those stupid 5" of stupid snow we got last night doesn't melt and I mean melt now!!! Are you listening snow??!!.

But after my plans achieve victory. Later in next week I am coming to Portland to visit handsome middle son. Then Saturday, April 5th, around 12:00 noon we are going to Daedin's with more nefarious plans. We are going to paint bisque bowls for the Empty Bowls charity I have been working towards.

You are invited to join us. It would be so wonderful to see you and to have you make a bowl for donation.
I will have plenty of bisqued bowls ready to go and some ideas for designs for people who are unsure of what to do. If you have ideas though, this is even more better. I will then take the bowls back to the studio, glaze fire them, then photograph them for you to see the final results of your good works.

In terms of what we will do, the bowl glazing will be more similar to scribal arts than vessel making. You can get just as elaborate as could be imagined on these, on the other hand if you are less than sure of yourself with scribal stuff even something like simple stripes can be very beautiful on bowls!!

I was originally thinking of us using maiolica technique, but there might be less bunping off of glaze if we use underglazes on the bowls and I put the overglaze on them when I get back home. However, I am more than willing to bring stuff for maiolica too if you let me know.

Which reminds me, if you can let daedin and/or me know we'll make sure there are supplies for everyone*.

It would be so good to see a bunch of people. There is even rumor of a Gavin sighting. How rare is that ;-)

I am writing this in the morning before I go to work and have had enough coffee, so I may not have all the info. but will either edit or write again when I am awake.

*Oh don't tell Daedin, it's going to be a surprise.

*joke heh, heh*

Mud and Spirits was fun. I don't exactly know how much I made because the C.A.G.N.I. folk organized the payments and will send an inventory and a check. I know I covered expenses, but don't have an idea if I did better than last year. I would have loved to sell more, I had some to haul home of course.

It's about the nicest show we all do, the customers come because they want to buy pottery; it's not the casual entertainment wandering-around of most art fairs. But they also seem more courteous than others. Maybe it was just a good day, all around was happiness. Such a stark contrast to my weekly workday.

I picked Amby up from the spa this morning. His spa is in the country and I took a short cut on roads that were even more back country. The snow had drifted a foot and a half in some places. I plowed through them with the AWD and studded sawdusts. Dayum that was fun (POW, SWOOSH), I still have loads to do in the house here, but for a while considered finding more backroads and spending the day swooshing through them. (That would have had disaster written all over it.)
( pics of M&S )