Stuff and Nonsense

Gray Kitty spent two nights alone (we came down during the day) while our plumbing was messed up and we were camped up at Judi's house (Gray Kitty stayed home because he can use the litter box and he would not get along with Judi's dog). This was his expression after an extended lap time and belly pets from Dave on one of our home visits. He just collapsed and lay there for several minutes with his eyes glazed over.

 Look at that strange expression. He's a strange cat.

This is that black widow spider I wrote about last time.

I forgot I had taken a photo of her when I first discovered her web just under the sink ledge. I took it to see if I could enlarge it to look for the telltale red hourglass shape on her abdomen that identifies a black widow. After I snapped her pic, some movement I made scared her and she ran up under the sink ledge. I swept away her web, but there was no sign of her again until two days later when she surprised me in the shower.

This is a pretty blurry photo of the new sculpture that I'm calling "Fifth Decade" in honor of my 50th year on the planet.

The bottom two layers (the white painted, crazy-eyed skully and the more malevolent-eyed second skully coming out of the first) are bone dry. I made that part months ago and then it dried out over the holidays. I couldn't build on to them after that, so I decided I was going to just fire them and start the sculpture again. However, today I had a long period of uninterrupted studio time, I decided to make a second part (the upper three heads made of red clay) to sit atop the bottom two layers. 

This is a close up of the new part:

It consists of another skully, this one sleepy-eyed, then a rabbit (that looks a bit piggish from this angle, so I'll have to remedy that, maybe with some fur-like texture), and then the fifth layer at the very top. . .

. . . a spooky little ghost with a bow on her head.

That red clay is obviously still very moist. As it dries down, I'll paint it white and start adding painted details. I have a few days to work on it, but I'd also like to start a new smaller sculpture that I can finish in the next day or two. 

And that's been my week.

 A beautiful cloudy day today with the same predicted for tomorrow. Then by Friday, we're back into the mid-90s.  Summer is going to be hellish.