Drinks at the Studio

You've seen my little studio space, but I don't think I've shown you the open, communal areas of the studio. So this is it:

That is where the magic happens. Not quite what you were expecting, no? This is looking out over the handbuilding tables. To the left (not in the photo) is a row of wheels. To the right are student shelves.  I took this with my back to Dave and my little studio space.

We--Dave, Karen, Mike, and I--stayed after Dave's class ended so that we could have drinks.

Karen's pretty hard core. After she polished off a bottle of whiskey she had on her shelf, she went for the vodka.

Mike drank Midori melon liqueur, which smells like ipecac and tastes somewhat worse than Ny-Quil mixed with anisette and paint thinner. After a couple of shots of that nastiness, Mike was much less hazy.

(That's my gallon of water there, nearly hiding Mike who was caught unaware so, for once, was not affecting cool.)

Dave had a sip of beer and made this face.

Then he made a rum and coke and all was aright.

Then he had some ouzo, which is what Satan uses to top off his windshield wiper fluid reservoir when hell freezes over. Ouzo is nasty stuff.

I don't drink really, but I had a sip of a beer and a couple of sips of a rum and coke. Then I nursed my iced tea from Subway. Then I drank half a gallon of water.

I still ended up being the blurriest of the lot. (Karen took that picture, by the way.)  Oh, but check it: That's the old man sweater that I wear at the studio while I'm working. That is the oldest mannest old man sweater that ever was and it's gray and thick and it's so dirty with clay and iron oxide that I think it might be able to stand up on its own.

Did I get any work done, you ask. Yes, a little. I finished a carved bowl that I started last night and I carved a small platter with a horse/fish design (one of the "sea-horses" that Poseidon rides). And I glazed a small retablo. It wasn't enough to justify six hours of studio time--nor was it enough to reward with drinks, but oh well.

Kindle Update: I finished The Lovely Bones and downloaded half a dozen samples to peruse before buying my next book. I finally decided on a non-fiction book called In the Land of White Death: An Epic Story of Survival in the Siberian Arctic by Valerian Albanov. It's translated from the Russian.  Sounds exciting.