Liz Zlot Summerfield box

Here's a lovely box by Liz Zlot Summerfield that was part of the Penland benefit auction for her. She's an incredible hand builder, as you can see. Her boxes are like little treasures.

Having a 5 month old kitty as a studio mate is proving to be interesting to say the least. Yesterday she learned to climb higher on the ware carts, decided the hanging brushes were a great toy, particularly when she could knock them down to the floor and roll them around. I'm afraid that once I start making pots, she is going to have to be relegated to the kitty day care center in our bathroom/laundry room area, since she finds my toys so much more interesting than her own.

Yesterday I hung some pictures, moved the last of the glaze buckets, got a lot of small stuff sorted and stored away, cleared some things off the slab roller which was covered with the grow light fixtures that I used all winter when I indoored my tropical plants in the studio, swept the floor and moved some of the bagged clay off my wedging table.

When I decided to re-organize this section of the studio, (a job I had put off for quite a while) I had no idea it would take me this long; but it's been well worth the time and effort.

After breakfast I want to get one of the timber bamboo planted, and then I'll head for the studio, with Bonnie Kitty. I want to move all the bottles of oxide washes out of the portable cart and get them on to the new shelves and put the small jars of slips that I use while throwing on to the cart so I can move it next to the wheel when throwing and move it back when I'm not. That will clear the table between both wheels for freshly thrown pots. All this reorganization is going to minimize my walking on the hard concrete which is hard on my new hip and bad knees.

Dinner tonight is the pizza I was going to make the other night, so after lunch I'll make my dough and get the toppings ready and maybe get back in the studio for another couple of hours.

Timber bamboo

Here's a timber bamboo, one of two new bamboos waiting to get planted. It will eventually get 40-50 feet tall and about 4-5", maybe more in diameter (pottery tools in a few years!).

It's a foggy mountain morning. The air is so still, it's almost meditative to sit on the porch with that first morning cup of tea.

Yesterday was one of those shopping days where the main items on your list, are not available. We drove to Asheville (a 2 1/2 round trip) mainly for clay and Meyer lemons for tonight's porch sitting with our friends Jim and Laura (our weekly ritual). Highwater was out of both of my clay choices. Seems they've been using the mixer for a lot of special clay blends recently and they won't be making Phoenix and Moon White till next week. This was a first in my 36 years of buying clay. Maybe they need a second mixer. Earth Fare didn't have the Meyer lemons, which make the best margaritas! But, we did have a nice lunch and picked up a few grocery items.

There is still another shelf to put up and a bit more organizing to do today. The low table that held my small containers of slips for hand painting, as well as extra brushes, etc. has been moved to sit between both wheels. The bottom shelf holds bats, and my intent is get most things off the table except the scale, and a couple of cups of brushes and a small sketch notebook with measurements of some of my forms. That will free up most of the table for freshly thrown pots.