The week in review:

I can’t believe it has been a week since the last entry! Some significant happenings:

I have applied (and been accepted) to exhibit at the Craft and Music Festival at Northwood Presbyterian Church mid-October. Cat is also planning to exhibit and we’ve been promised to be placed next to one another. The festival is just one day and that is more in line with my capacity right now than a whole weekend! I am enthusiastic about it now but know I’ll be pretty nervous starting around the first of October.

Herb Risch loaned me some tapes of the Bill Van Gilder TV show on pottery making. Each episode focuses on a different form of functional pottery. I am really enjoying watching the tapes. For one reason, I am as addicted to watching someone throw as I am to throwing myself! And I pick up some new clue or hint from each viewing—it is very stimulating.

I’ve been cranking out the greenware! I’m sure I have more than a kiln load now ready to be bisqued. But I have some awful glaze drips on my kiln shelves that I have to try to remove before I fire again. The last firing with all those tests produced some really bad flows down onto the shelves. I tried clearing them this morning using a chisel and hammer—but have some real stubbon spots. Tomorrow I will try using my Dremmel tool—then I will have to try to grind the shelves clean with a grinder. What a pain!

On a happier note, this evening we celebrated as a family of exhibiting artists! Jim has 4 small canvases hanging at La Tuna downtown near Blue Star and Ben has a piece hanging at Studio B not far away. Jim and I visited the gallery with Ben’s piece then we went to La Tuna to see Jim’s work where Ben joined us for dinner. Very pleasant evening—such a newly shared focus in our lives! Has Jim talking about moving into the downtown area instead of out to the country when/if our home sells. What interesting twists and turns life introduces.