Long Weekend

Thanksgiving

We took macaroni and cheese, green beans, and ciabatta spread with garlic butter to my mother's house to add to the ham, dressing, mashed potatoes, and gravy that she made. My brother brought apple and pumpkin pies, fruit, and ice cream for dessert. My aunt, now able to be out and about a week and a half after surgery, came and brought my cousins. We sat down to a huge dinner and rolled out stuffed. No one had to say what they were thankful for, thank God, but I think we were all thinking the same thing.

Friday

We did not shop on Friday. We hunkered down at home in the morning, went to the studio in the afternoon, then went to a movie with Judi and Paul. We saw Interstellar. It was terrible. The best thing about the movie was the popcorn. Dave and I took Crunch for a walk after.

Saturday

We were up a bit early. I hadn't slept very well, was up most of the night, and when Dave woke me up at 8:30, my first words to him were, "I have a headache." The headache stayed with me more or less all day.

We had breakfast (burritos and sodas from Blake's) and went to the studio.

I worked more on the sculptures, not just this one but all of them. (The last firing was a great disappointment to me. Everything came out worse than it went in as far as I am concerned.)


They change incrementally.


Here on the face you can see some of those changes: The effects of a wash of black underglaze that adds a shadowy layer among the roses, deepens the eyes, makes the teeth stand out more distinctly. (None of that is a natural shadow. That's all deliberately applied underglaze.)  I also added a second layer of gray around the eyes, a bit of light green to the irises, and the slightest hint of a pink blush to the cheeks. After the next firing, I'll deepen the shadows beneath the cheekbones and decide whether or not to add a shiny, clear glaze to the roses, leaves, and eyes. (Once the clear glaze goes on, it's no longer possible to change what's underneath, so I've started to think of the clear glaze as a kind of "game over" for that part of the piece.)

It's tedious. I'm resisting the urge to get frustrated with them and with myself. Working in this new style, I've finished not a single piece since June. That's a long time to try to keep moving forward with failure nipping at my heels.

Dave threw some new things, bowls mostly. He also put handles on a pair of large stein-y mugs that he and Lu Ann talked about when we ran into them a couple of weeks ago.

We also fired a kiln today, a cone 6 (glaze) kiln. We're still testing out cone 6 glazes. We have about 30 or so glazes that we've bought in pints and we're running tests now to see how they look and whether or not we want to invest in any gallon or larger amounts of any of them.  The kiln finished firing around 5:30 p.m. and will cool overnight. Tomorrow we'll open it up and see our results.

In the afternoon while the kiln was firing, we went to the local clay supply store and bought a bunch of things, low-fire glazes and underglazes for me (they were having a sale, so I went a bit nuts), kiln furniture and witness cones for Dave.

On the way back to the studio, we stopped at Panera and had an adequate lunch. (It was that kind of day.)

Judi and I took Crunch out for his evening walk at 4:30 and it was dark before we got back to Judi's.

Dave and I came home via the pet store where we bought a shitload of cat food, cat litter, and a box of dog treats to surreptitiously give to Crunch when Judi's not looking. (She has that poor dog on a perpetual diet and I do everything possible to thwart it.)