Michael Kline pot

Here's one of Michael Kline's wonderful wood fired pots with some rhododendron I cut this morning. Michael and his wife Stacey Lane have a 6pm opening at the Crimson Laurel Gallery here in Bakersville, NC tonight. The show will feature some of Michael's new porcelain and other pieces and Stacey's jewelry. Here's a link where you can preview the show:

http://www.crimsonlaurelgallery.com/

Not sure how this day is going to shape up. I'm still feeling fluish; but I managed to get all the older seedlings back on the front porch, and once it warms up a bit more I'd like to transplant some of the paste tomatoes into big pots and get some of the larger, heirloom and other tomatoes planted on the knoll near my gallery.

A single cosmos seedling from the various flowers and veggies I planted just a couple of days ago has sprouted. I guess wrapping some of the peat pots in towels made for ideal, warm conditions.

John Britt may be coming over at some point to deliver the bees and get them into the hive and get the new plumbing on the Olympic kiln. I doubt if I'll get any studio time today but with possible rain forecast starting tonight and continuing every day this week, that will give me plenty of time for the studio.

Michael Kline decorating demonstration at Crabtree Creek Art Gallery

Here are some pictures of Michael Kline taken yesterday at his demonstration at the Crabtree Creek Art Gallery in Micaille, NC. Michael brought a lot of his bisqued pots to decorate for the demo, as well as a good group of fired pots.

Michael has devised a unique mixture of liquid wax resist and oxides for his beautiful brushwork, which is then covered with a white slip and fired in his wood kiln with a light salting at the end. As you can see, the results are some pretty spectacular looking pots!

Driving home from Michaels very generous, decorating and informative, as well as entertaining demonstration, I saw all the children in town dressed in their Halloween finery. What a joyous sight that was. I smiled the whole time on the way home. There were Princesses, Harry Potters, and assorted other characters and fashion plates parading down the main street with their bags of candy. All the businesses in town were participating in making a safe and Happy Halloween for the Bakersville children.  It was pure Americana, worthy of a Normal Rockwell Saturday Evening Post cover.

It rained hard overnight but had stopped by the time I walked Bodhi at 4:30 am. On this hazy, cloudy Sunday I think I'm going to see if I can find the right sized board in my scrap pile to create a support for my light box. If I hang it from available supports beams in the basement, the setup will be too close to the utility sink, so I need to nail a board on both beams and then hang the lightbox on had it so it will be better positioned. If I don't have the wood for that project, I'll try to get some studio time this afternoon. Most times, Sunday morning is for lazing, enjoying a leisurely breakfast and then reading the Sunday papers.

Dinner is just going to be some simple sauteed fresh potato pierogis that Jim got in Asheville the other day. They're not as good as my home made with my moms recipe, but they're better than the frozen ones that are generally available.  Making them is an all day process so I'll have to find time once the garden is finally put to bed to make a batch. I have 2 baskets of potatoes from this years planting, so we will have plenty of potatoes for the next couple of months for pierogis, potato pancakes, potato leek soup, etc.etc.

Time to think about breakfast - buckwheat pancakes this morning.

Michael Kline's booth at Spruce Pine Potters Market

Preview

Here are a few pictures of Michael Kline's booth from the recent Spruce Pine Potters market. He has the most amazing wood fired pots, with his unique stain/resist and slip decoration.

I thought I had a picture of Cynthia Bringle's booth, but it's not on the computer. Maybe it just didn't upload from the camera. I'll have to check that tomorrow.

I was up at 5am walking Bodhi and glad I didn't sleep in since the day seems to be flying by and I still have some things to do before friends show up for our regular Friday porch sitting (indoors in this weather!).

My pizza dough is on it's first rise, the salami appetizers, stuffed with horseradish flavored cream cheese are done, and all my pizza toppings are ready.  We have some frozen bacon wrapped shrimp that will be easy; and other than making the margaritas as soon as Jim comes back with the Tequila, and putting together the pizza, when guests arrive, the food prep is done.

Jim squeezed the lemon juice for me before he left for his doctors appointment; but he mistakenly thought we had a back up Tequila, so he'll have to stop and pick some up. Fortunately, they just opened an ABC store in Spruce Pine, so he won't have to drive too much out of his way.

I got some of the herbs that I've had drying, removed from them stems, crushed and into bottles. Right now my fingers smell like Thai basil! My indoor  plants need to be watered, the living room has to be tidied, and the pizza dough needs to be punched down and turned over . Then I can hit the shower, feed kitty and relax for a bit with some paper work while I wait for the pizza dough to finish it's second rise.

Jim just arrived with the tequila - time to finish the margarita mix.

Michael Kline's Etsy store opening

Here's a small sampling of Michael Kline's work. Michael's brand new Etsy shop opens today at 10am! Check out his wonderful wood and salt fired pots.

http://www.klinepottery.etsy.com

I never made it to the studio yesterday. Instead, I spent half the morning chopping veggies for a tomato based vegetable soup. I decided to make some parmesan coated garlic bread and have some of the soup for lunch and freeze the rest.

The slide copier I won on Ebay arrived, so I unpacked that and got the software installed. I'll test it out later today. The rest of the afternoon was spent on paper work and computer clean up. My back and chest are still very sore from a bad fall I took a few days ago. I should know better than to wear leather moccasins while walking on wet, grassy slopes without proper footwear. Bodhi pulled the lead and down I went hitting hard, flat on my back and I've been on 3 aspirins a day and practically bathing in a glucosamine chondroitin cream ever since.

Since we had a bigger lunch than normal we decided to put off our plans to go out to dinner till tonight, and instead I just made a little pasta to go with the leftover pesto sauce. We had a quiet evening watching the first few episodes of "I Claudius" which I was happy to find was available from Netflix.

This morning I'll hit the paper pile for a bit and then get to the studio with Bonnie after I check out Michael's new Etsy shop.

Bisque done another one going

Finally got everything decorated yesterday, unloaded the first bisque and loaded the second one and got it started at 6 am this morning. I was in the studio till around 9 last night and wound up staying up past midnight watching the Lakers. The least they could have done was win. Now they have to go to a 7th game.

We had thunderstorms going through last night, so I held off firing till this morning. More storms are expected this afternoon, but at least I'll be awake in case there's a power failure.

There are liner and accent glazes that haven't been used since last November that have to be mixed today. This should be fun, not! :-( I'm hoping I can get enough done before the studio gets too hot from the bisque kiln.

Every morning, I check the garden for new blooms. What's blooming this morning are a yellow and white Siberian Iris, the first roses (2 knockouts are blooming), perennial geraniums (just starting to bloom) and flax. It also looks like the first peony is going to open today or tomorrow. The variegated weigelia is also blooming. It's is such a beautiful shrub. I took some pictures of today's flowers and will post them tomorrow.

It was drizzling at 6am, so I don't think there's any chance of me or my helper getting in any garden time today. The only gardening I did yesterday was to get some corn and corno de toro (great frying peppers) seeds on wet hand towel paper to start sprouting; and some old Chico paste tomato seeds soaking. The first Chico pastes that I planted didn't sprout and these are old seeds, so I dumped the rest of the seeds in water and I'll be happy is just one sprouts so I can get more seeds saved this year.

Check out Michael Kline's blog. He's posted pictures of this weekends' firing and there are some great pot pictures there!

Till later,
June