Kent McLaughlin Bowl

Here's another great pot from my collection. It's a huge, rope impressed,stoneware bowl by Kent McLaughlin. Kent is what I consider a "potters potter" always producing, beautiful, solid work that transcends gimmicks and the latest fads. He has a solid understanding of all parts of the process of making which is evident in all his work.

This week's been a constant reminder of that lovely saying "Man plan, God laughs"!
Life has impacted all my plans to get in the studio. Yesterday the plan was to get some seed starting in the morning, make a blueberry pie and get to the studio. Instead, the painter arrived; but sat around with me keeping her company for an hour and a half while she waited for the rest of the crew to show up with the paint she needed to get started. That ate up the pie making time! Fortunately she's a very intersting gal with amazing life experiences, so I didn't really mind the delay to my own plans. Then the crew needed input on where to place the pedestal sink, what more needed painting, approval of the new plumbing, and on and on it went. I was only happy I wasn't in the studio and had to keep coming back to the house to deal with all these questions and decisions.

So I decided to get on with my indoor seeding planting which took just about the rest of the day other than meal prep in between. So far I've planted onion, leeks, scallion, kale, spinach, artichokes, lettuce and a bunch of perennials. I've found places for all of them either in the greenhouse window in the kitchen or under the grow lux lights in the basement. Don't know where I'll put the seedlings once they need transplanting but I'll deal with that when the time comes. I may just have to buy more light fixtures and grow lux lights in another month!

Today was a nesting day which I decided to devote to cleaning up my huge paper pile in the living room, unpacking some of my jewelry making supplies in the basement, and making a nice, early, vegetarian dinner - tossed salad with garlic vinagrette and mushrooms stroganoff. Jim loved it so much he had seconds, so that is definitely a keeper recipe. He's open to vegetarian recipes as long as the man part of the recipe is not tofu! Although, I must say, that I've found if I deep fry cubes of tofu, and use them instead of chicken, for instance, in Indian or Chinese recipes, he will eat it. I think the problem for non vegetarians is getting weaned off the texture of meat as well as the taste; but I'm cooking 1/2 vegetarian and half non currently hoping to get the balance to about 80-90% vegetarian down the line.

None of the workers showed this morning even though, to Jim and I who grew up in the the Northeast (New York and Pennsylvania), the roads weren't that bad. There was only about 1 1/2" of snow; but the road was slippery. My 75 year old husband drove into town to pick up the mail and get me some sour cream for my mushrooms stroganoff. He just drove slowly and had no problem. The weather here years ago was much worse - 3' snow falls were common ten years ago; but these days 2" of snow keeps people home and schools closed. Go figure!

We were grateful to have a quiet day with no workers in the house, so I'm not complaining! It's been something of a cozy, vacation day with no studio time other than going in there after dinner to water plants, cooking and paper organizing and computer work (I turned the computer on this morning only to be faced with the blue screen of death, which took an hour or more to fix), and watching the snow fall.

I'll get in the studio tomorrow and get some work done and get away from the noise and mess of construction. That is, if the crew shows up. In any case, I'm still planning on studio time since I'm feeling guilty about staying away so long and there are pots than need slipping and decorating and more pots to make. But I have enjoyed these days off to catch up on things in the house that needed tending to.

Well, that's it for this cold (was 5F this morning)snowy, day.

Till later,
June