Onta, Japan

Here are a few pictures of Onta, Japan. It's a mountain village of potters who rely on the clay deposit you see above the kiln photo. When I was first there in the early 80's they said that only one member of a household was permitted to become a potter because they projected that they had about 100 years worth of clay left for the community. The whole nature of the place was so spiritual to me. The sounds of the bamboo forest, where it seemed you could hear the bamboo growing, and the rushing water and clay crushers formed this amazing pulse beat that was almost transcendent. The residents live and breathe their craft - shops attached to the their homes, pots drying on shelves overhead in their living space, etc.

Yesterday I spent a lot of time scanning some of the Japan slides, so I'll be sharing more in the days to come.

It's another rainy morning, which will help the newly planted bamboo; but it's sure taking the flavor out of the tomatoes!

I'm taking it easy this morning after a fun night of porch sitting with friends. I wouldn't say I had too much wine, but it was enough to get me to sleep the minute my head hit the pillow!

Today I'm just going to continue on my scanning project and see if I can figure out Pain Shop Pro enough to right some of the colors on some of the pictures. At some point I'll get in the studio for a bit to wrap up some of the thrown pieces that caused my chest injury to flare up. I guess the universe is telling me it time to get some of these long postponed projects completed.