a great day

This little pot is by my teacher and friend, Diana Kersey. It is small--maybe 3" all around--and will be our sugar bowl. I just love it--it makes me smile inside when I look at it! Some pots do that--but not many!

It was a great day because I got to run around looking at the pottery made by my friends and fellow potters. I started out at Clay Ole, the annual San Antonio Potters Guild sale. Most of the exhibitors are my friends from the guild and/or from classes at Southwest School of Art and Craft. There is a lot of 'overlap' between those two groups and it makes such a rich community--a treasure in itself. I loved getting to see the work of my friends--and I loved not having work there myself this year! Made me wonder why I am wanting to be a potter--I could just run around all the shows and look at the beautiful pottery--maybe even buy a piece once in a while. In fact, if I were not making pottery myself I'd have more room to have and enjoy the work of others. That is not really true. I am addicted to clay because I can try to make these beautiful things myself. I've always wanted to be able to make the things I love--food, clothing, babies and now pottery.

After my visit with friends at Clay Ole I went to the "Six Art Show and Sale" at Justin's on Main. That was a very interesting show as the "Six" artists each worked in a different medium. The only potter was Diana and that was where I got the wonderful little 'sugar bowl'. Of all work of Diana's that I've seen this is the first piece that I have fallen in love with--the first I felt had my name on it. I am really crazy about it!

Another of the artists that I knew was Jane Bishop who does beautiful work with textiles. She creates beautiful textiles by painting, dying, burning--yummy fabrics. And then she stitches them up into wonderful objects--some clothing but all kinds of other beautiful objects. I've spent a lot of years at the sewing machine and I think if I had encountered Jane before I fell in love with clay I'd have wished to learn to do what she does. Or to say it differently, if I had been able to do what she does with fabric I'd not have gotten involved with clay!

I had a fun chat with two of the other artists, Paula Cox and Rhonda Kuhlman, about the computer, the web and blogs. I was surprised that they seemed to shy away from using the computer except for email given what creative people they are and the creative work they had there to show. But maybe it is not so surprising. Using the computer is really not very creative. Of course, there are people who do very creative work on the computer but many others, like myself, use it like I use the sewing machine--not much creative work on either.

It really was a wonderful day! But it made me wonder if I am losing interest in my own clay work—because of my great relief at not exhibiting in the show. But I’m sure that is not the case. I have fought long and hard trying to conquer the problems I was having with finding the right clay (one that is viscous at ^6) and glazes to fit (no pinholes etc.) It was an incredible struggle to get ready for the show in October because of the high percentage of loss I was having in the process. I was just exhausted physically and emotionally. Now I am ready to change clay and start all the testing again. I’ve made some pieces with some BlackJack clay that Tony Clennell left here in March and I will fire it and test it out with some glazes to see if I am going to like how it looks under the glazes—assuming no problems.