New Year And

Judi, Dave and I went back to yoga tonight, to a "therapeutic yoga" class that caters to the walking wounded types and lazy lie about types like ourselves. Mostly we were aiming for a gentle reintroduction to the practice, and it was that--and we very much needed it, each of us. I've backslid so far since the last yoga class I took, about five years ago. Crazy.

We came home, Dave and I, after class via the hippie-dippy co-op for dinner supplies; we had garbanzo bean salad sandwiches and baby carrots. (I also had some roasted chicken and chocolate-covered pretzels.) Now I'm lazing about, listening to the complaints of the muscles in my back, left shoulder and glutes, none of which have been worked in years.

In the afternoon before all that, Judi and I spend a few hours at the studio. I'm working on my cells still and today the first of them (my test cell) came out of the bisque kiln. I call it a test cell because it's one I didn't like after I was almost halfway finished with it, so I decided to use it to test decorating and glaze techniques on it. Should be finished sometime next week, I hope.

I'm having a bit of a dilemma at the moment, trying to decide whether or not to participate in an anagama kiln firing at the end of February. It would mean a three weekend commitment (and a number of one hour drives to and from the kiln) and having to fill a 4'x4' pallet with bisqued cone 10 work before then. I have never worked with cone 10 stuff, never wood fired work, never been so involved with a non-electric firing before. However, there are some super advantages to doing this particular firing: One is the cost (dropped from $250 to $100 to encourage participation). The other is the wood situation (normally participants have to cut and stack the massive amounts of wood used in the four-day firing, but because the last firing was cancelled, the wood is already cut and stacked). I'm almost inclined to do it, but it's such a massive undertaking in so many ways that I'm hesitating.