Tasui Shimaoka's studio

Here are a couple of photos of Tasui Shimaoka's studio in Mashiko, Japan. He graciously did a throwing demonstration for us. Unfortunately a lot of my photos, as you can see, are pretty bad quality. Shimaoka's father was a rope maker, and impressed rope designs are one of the trademarks of his work. Tomorrow I'll post a couple of examples of his work.

Yesterday was a cooking day. I got 7 jars of grape jelly made with the grapes my friend Lisa brought over Saturday. Unfortunately, I was prepared to do the easy freezer version, only to find that I needed special freezer jars, which I didn't have. So I had to do the traditional canning method. I just hope that the balance of juice and sugar and pectin that I used for freezer jelly will work with the hot bath method. I'll find out later when I test it.

The fettucine with the sauteed garlic, onion and shitake mushrooms was great and we have leftovers for another day. Tonight I'm doing cajun shrimp - easy, spicy and delicious.

I'm not sure what the day holds. Last night I was so tired I didn't work on the light box, and this morning I woke up with swollen glands again and am still tired.

We're expecting showers most of the day so there won't be any weeding. My chest is still very sore when I try to do too much, so I'm going to put throwing on hold. Maybe I'll head to the studio this afternoon and weight up some glaze tests. Or, if I don't perk up I might just watch the US Open tennis, load up on vitamins, cook and do my couch potato imitation the rest of the time.