starting to look good!

I've been working diligently to finish some special orders and ease my hand back into regular use. Today was pretty marvelous, no Aleve, no ice and I got everything I had started finished. Tomorrow morning we'll load the kiln and get it started on low heat for about 12 hours and then we'll fire it up.







Here are the pictures of what will be inside, PLUS some bonus tiles from Rowan. We got some new underglazes and some black waxline underglaze and she has been busy drawing intricate Henna based patterns on tiles all evening. Check her page for pictures later..as of this writing I don't have any.






Tomorrow I have some goblets planned and then I think some Tankards from the 181 white clay. The color response is amazing on it.

Easy, Easy, Gentle

I eased back into throwing yesterday with some soft porcelain bowls. I got back to throwing in a more serious way today. First I trimmed the wee bowls and cereal bowls I did yesterday, then I got into wedging for plates and a crock that are a special order. I was hesitant to wedge and throw 6lbs of clay at a time, but with ice and Aleve it worked out just fine. Here's what I did. Not bad for a guy who had shooting pain just days before :) Hopefully tomorrow will be even more productive. What's this? It's a holiday? Not for this guy..The wife is off celebrating with her family without me, so I'm going to make it a workday so I don't sit around and waste the day away.Take away the normal structure of a day and it's hard to maintain discipline :)

Disapppointing Weekend Ahead

So far it looks that way. We had some big plans for the weekend, but they are falling through. Our plans were divergent. I was going to go to the NCECA conference in Philadelphia and Ro and Catherine were going to head off for the holiday weekend with her folks in NJ. Ro made it to NJ, but I am going to end up stuck at home. Which could be good, I can relax, refocus, get some good studio time in, maybe go out on the town, party like a wild man, cut loose, go crazy etc! Except that most of the cutting lose stuff just isn't me and the studio plans are being stymied as well. I seem to have a pinched nerve somewhere. When I open my left hand wide I get a shooting nerve pain down the middle finger and into the wrist. I also get the same pain when I press on anything with my left palm. I tried to throw a little while ago and it just isn't going to happen. Maybe tomorrow. I'm going to do some stretching exercises to try to open it up.

This leaves me with relax and refocus, which I'm not very good at either. So I'm sitting here is mild discontent waiting for the bright spot of my night to happen. Morgan is bringing home a "Rita" pizza from Corrinados's where he works. I'm looking forward to dinner and the company. It's been a long day with just me and the dog :) We did have some nice porch time, the weather was gorgeous and Pepper loved being outside for a while. I am thinking after dinner tonight I might take Pepper for a long walk. It's been a while since the weather was decent enough for it and I need it as much as he does. The exercise will probably cheer me up.

Tomorrow I am going to try to throw again and failing that I'm going to clean the studio and at least prepare for throwing. Hopefully this will work itself out quickly.