Mermaids & Fire

I took this picture a few years ago and came across it while moving photos from Dave's computer to my new computer. I was an artist in another lifetime, and one of the things I used to do in the studio when I got stuck was make mermaids. Here are two of them sitting on my shelf. I wonder where the others have gone to. I like mermaids even though I'm apprehensive about the ocean. I like the mythology that surrounds them. I like the poetry that celebrates them. I just like them.



This is Dave's photo of the gas kiln being fired. You can see why pottery would draw in people who love to play with fire--though that was never my interest in pottery. In fact, I was never much interested in the specifics of firing. I wanted things done fast, which meant that I gravitated toward electric firing which uses smaller kilns (so it's easier and faster to make enough work to fill up a kiln) and fires off faster (16 hours or so from loading to unloading, versus, say two days minimum for a gas kiln).

I'm thinking about the studio more and more these days.