Me, Myself, and A Work in Progress

I started this piece four months ago. It began as kind of a throwaway piece, using up leftover clay.

I liked it at that stage, my favorite stage, when it's all brown, unfired, still just clay. That is when most of the decisions are easy.

Once it comes time to put color on something, that's when it starts to get difficult. I'm not good with color. The simpler the better. Skulls and skeletons are always white, but beyond that? I just don't even know.

Sometimes I go with a color just because I have extra underglaze or because I want to use up an underglaze that is drying out or that I don't like. That's how I ended up making this sweater yellow with green and blue stripes.

Once the piece was fired to cone 3, I put a wash of black underglaze on. I put underglaze on the whole piece, but I started with the eyes and teeth. I liked the way this looked.

Then I wipe it off. The change is subtle, but I like it. I ended up doing a wash of black on the entire piece just because I love it so much.

This will go into the next cone 06 firing.

Strange (Birth) Days

It's been a couple of days since Dave's birthday. He took the day (Wednesday) off and slept in while I went to my morning A&P lecture. (I left early because the act of looking from my notes to the power point slides was triggering my vertigo and making me feel sick to my stomach.) After I got home, we went out to get some banh mi for brunch.

At the restaurant, we helped a very pregnant woman who passed out near the front door. No, really. She was sitting next to us, got up to leave, and passed out right near the front door. I caught her and lowered her to the floor and then Dave came over and when she came to, he helped me get her up into a chair. She felt cold and clammy and told us that she was anemic. Of course she was embarrassed and didn't want us to make a fuss, so after we asked her if she wanted an ambulance or if there was anyone we could call for her, we left her alone. She rested for a bit before leaving (we asked again if she wanted us to call someone or even drive her home, but she refused). So that was weird.

After that, we drove up to Santa Fe. We wanted to see an art installation type thing called Meow Wolf that opened about four months ago.  We drove up, paid $15 each, walked in, looked around for three minutes, and walked out again. It was...disappointing. First, it was extremely dark and loud and there were a lot of school-aged children running around, all of which annoyed me. Second, the "art" was something high school students or failed art school students think art is, like a cross between a church rummage sale and a poorly-planned rave complete with DayGlo paint.

After leaving Meow Wolf, we didn't want to stick around Santa Fe so we came home and relaxed for awhile. I've been feeling particularly stressed and anxious recently and just wanted some down time. On the drive home from Santa Fe, I suddenly got a cramp in my side that had me yelling in pain. We had to pull over to the side of the busy highway so that I could get out of the car and stretch it out. Every time I tried to sit, it would cramp up again. Since our stupid car seats don't recline, I ended up stretched out in the backseat the rest of the way home. (Forty-eight hours later, my side was still sore.)

After lazying around for awhile in the afternoon (I napped mostly), we made dinner, Dave's favorite macaroni and cheese with steamed broccoli. These days we have it once a year, on his birthday. For dessert we had ice cream sandwiches made with chocolate chip cookies and Talenti vanilla gelato. So that was good.

There were pressies, too, including some good ones even. Dave got lots of books, some handmade t-shirts, a messenger bag, and an outdoor folding rocking chair for his birthday.

Thursdaze

I had a doctor's appointment on Thursday morning that Dave drove me to since my vertigo has me doubting my driving abilities. I had the doctor check my ear which has been achy, but which he said looked fine. (I'm not sure I trust him on that since the last time I had an earache, he said it looked like my eardrum was punctured so he sent me to an ENT. The ENT took one look at it and said it was ear wax.) Anyway, it was okay since by the time I got an appointment, my ear was already starting to feel a bit better. At the end of the visit, I talked to him about my recent insane levels of anxiety and he gave me a prescription for that. So we'll see how that goes. Maybe a pill will finally fix me?