Friday, August 5, 2011
Wednesday, August 3, 2011
Figured it Out
I figured out how I was messing up the pictures on the website. Fixed 'em.
August 10th, about 1 PM, I will say in the voice of Igor, "It's aliiiive," come what may. I have some wee itsy imperfect things going on, but so what. Mistakes and all, I own this sucker now.
Now to spiff up the homepage, and connect the URL so you can find it when you want to.
Adrenaline.
August 10th, about 1 PM, I will say in the voice of Igor, "It's aliiiive," come what may. I have some wee itsy imperfect things going on, but so what. Mistakes and all, I own this sucker now.
Now to spiff up the homepage, and connect the URL so you can find it when you want to.
Adrenaline.
Monday, July 25, 2011
I'm Following Instructions, But
I really am following instructions.
At least I THINK I'm following instructions.
Photos are going up on my new website prior to launching.
At least, they are SUPPOSED to be going up. I think I am doing the right things, then pressing "Publish," and the (insert expletive) photos are not publishing. Guess I am not doing the right things.
This, for example, will not publish on the website but happily goes up here on blogger:
(The vase is 7.5" tall, and 4.5" wide at its widest part, by the way. It has a price tag of $48.)
Boy, the learning curve is steep at the beginning of a new process.
Let me say that again. BOY, THE LEARNING CURVE IS STEEP AT THE BEGINNING OF A NEW PROCESS.
Pardon my "Aaaaaaargh!"
At least I THINK I'm following instructions.
Photos are going up on my new website prior to launching.
At least, they are SUPPOSED to be going up. I think I am doing the right things, then pressing "Publish," and the (insert expletive) photos are not publishing. Guess I am not doing the right things.
This, for example, will not publish on the website but happily goes up here on blogger:
(The vase is 7.5" tall, and 4.5" wide at its widest part, by the way. It has a price tag of $48.)
Boy, the learning curve is steep at the beginning of a new process.
Let me say that again. BOY, THE LEARNING CURVE IS STEEP AT THE BEGINNING OF A NEW PROCESS.
Pardon my "Aaaaaaargh!"
Saturday, July 23, 2011
Photos of a Good & Interesting Time
By late afternoon today, I had exhausted my last run of library books and read a bunch of newspapers. Browsing for something else to read, I went leafing through the children's books on our den shelves, and pulled out one of those great little Usborne nature books, this one a lift-the-flap book called Animal Homes. (I love these.)
Imagine my surprise when I opened the book and discovered I'd stashed two photos in it long ago, from my days as pottery counselor at that camp I mentioned recently! I used to keep a "Wall of Fame" in the Pot Shop, which was a bulletin board I plastered with photos of kids and counselors at the start of each season. I know the two photos I found in the book were from the Wall of Fame, because of the still-slightly-tacky spots on their backs from the old tape.
I look at the images and think, I was a pretty good pottery counselor. I worked hard, and I loved it.
This one was sometime around 1998ish. Wish I could have shown the two kids standing with me in this first photo. They were cute, noisy little guys. I don't know what became of them, but as far as I know, confidentiality rules still apply to showing their faces. I tried leaving them in but just fading out their features, but the symbolism of doing that to the face of children who once had cancer was too weird.
And from my last year there, 2001:
Looks like I was helping someone make a mug. We made them out of slabs, which we shaped by wrapping them around glaze jars that were covered in newspaper. These were crude but effective. Some of them probably exist as pencil jars in the States, Israel, Australia and Russia to this day.
I heard this week from a relative who is working at the camp this summer that the Pot Shop was moved to where the old Wood Shop used to be. I was always jealous of Woody's space and used to kid him about it. He had a spacious double room, while we had one narrow room that had to hold kids, supplies and also the kiln.
It was a good and interesting time in my pottery life.
Imagine my surprise when I opened the book and discovered I'd stashed two photos in it long ago, from my days as pottery counselor at that camp I mentioned recently! I used to keep a "Wall of Fame" in the Pot Shop, which was a bulletin board I plastered with photos of kids and counselors at the start of each season. I know the two photos I found in the book were from the Wall of Fame, because of the still-slightly-tacky spots on their backs from the old tape.
I look at the images and think, I was a pretty good pottery counselor. I worked hard, and I loved it.
This one was sometime around 1998ish. Wish I could have shown the two kids standing with me in this first photo. They were cute, noisy little guys. I don't know what became of them, but as far as I know, confidentiality rules still apply to showing their faces. I tried leaving them in but just fading out their features, but the symbolism of doing that to the face of children who once had cancer was too weird.
And from my last year there, 2001:
Looks like I was helping someone make a mug. We made them out of slabs, which we shaped by wrapping them around glaze jars that were covered in newspaper. These were crude but effective. Some of them probably exist as pencil jars in the States, Israel, Australia and Russia to this day.
I heard this week from a relative who is working at the camp this summer that the Pot Shop was moved to where the old Wood Shop used to be. I was always jealous of Woody's space and used to kid him about it. He had a spacious double room, while we had one narrow room that had to hold kids, supplies and also the kiln.
It was a good and interesting time in my pottery life.
Tuesday, July 12, 2011
Nerdly Birdly Pottery Thoughts
Lots of time to observe, here in Maine. Sketching plans for rectangular vases with rock-textured and water-textured surfaces. Planning patterns on bowls like the dotted black and white of the common loons on the lake, with two small red dots like their red eyes. Colors on all kinds of pots, as found in the irridescent neckfeathers of hummingbird, deep yellow of the oriole and rust, buff and soft yellow of the crested flycatcher I see through binoculars from the porch. Thinking of splotching variegated browns and whites, as on the juvenile eagles over the Kennebec River. So much to do when I get back in the studio. So much birdly and earthly nerdiness to translate into pots.
Monday, June 27, 2011
Withstanding the Fire
In the spring of 1994 I had a most interesting offer. A friend asked me to consider putting together and running a pottery room at a camp for kids with cancer and blood disorders. She had been hired as head counselor and wanted to fill out the program possibilities. It seemed like a change from all the "alone time" in the studio, and I wanted to scope it out, so I drove the two hours with her to camp one day.
My friend showed me a building like a long bungalow. The sign over the first of the four doors on the porch read: “Pot Shop.” We opened the door to a room full of old trash, dead flies, and buried among them, two cheap and listing pottery wheels, and a crumbling old kiln. I knew right then that it could become a neat and functional little pottery workshop, with lots of elbow grease and some fixes for the equipment. I said Yes, and got right on it, drawing up lists, sketching ideas, making practice projects. Finally, as the season was just about underway, I ordered the supplies, and two staffers came to help me dig the room out from under.
I would be there for the next eight summers. We would eventually have two wheels, a slab roller, and a beautiful new kiln. Till then, we made do with dowel rolling pins from Wood Shop, tables and benches from here and there, and lots of effort.
That first summer, I was also working with kids for the first time. Green as an unripe apple, without an assistant, I enlisted my 13-year old daughter to be my sounding-board and helper. I did not ask to get paid, as I was not sure I would do a good job. I figured it would be charity, and if I couldn't make a go of it, no one could say I wasn't worth my salt. I had a hard time acclimating to the emotional fallout I felt dealing with sick kids, but quickly found out there were some really shiny silver linings to this gig. For one thing, I thoroughly enjoyed the interaction with the kids and their very dedicated counselors. As it turned out, I also really loved showing the kids how to work with with my favorite art medium, and to my surprise and joy, they responded with enthusiasm. It was awesome.
(Working with Melissa at the wheel. She was great to work with and laugh with. Last heard, she had a family of her own.)
The pot shop was usually noisy with children and crowded with action. Some children made brief projects as they passed through pottery on their way to sports. That was already good. There were so many other things to do at camp. But some children had so much fun that they kept coming back whenever they could. These children got to know me, and I got to know them. A camp session was only 2 1/2 weeks long, partly because many children needed to get back to a less immuno-compromising environment than camp. But even with the brevity of the season, or maybe because of it, these weeks were intense. We got to know one another pretty quickly. Best of all, as I would discover, some of the children came back year after year, and regulars gravitated right back to the pottery room. By Season Two I felt like a pro. This is what I found out: Kids have fun in Pottery, and fun is therapeutic.
(I did get great outside assistants after the first season. Here is one of my two Dannys*. He was a great help, and always great for morale.)(*Other Danny, send me a picture!)
Ten years since I last ran the pot shop at camp, I try to imagine the children I once knew when they had cancer, as currently healthy grownups, with spouses and children perhaps, with jobs and full lives. I know many of them made it through their diseases, and went on to healthy situations.
(Mikey- one of my most fun pals over the years. We had great chats. Heard later that he was doing great.)
What a lot of emotional ups and downs there were.
In my first year or so at camp, I met a boy of 16, (I’ll call him E.) so sick and frail in his wheelchair he could hardly lift his hand. E.’s counselor wheeled him into Pottery separately from his group, so I could give him individual attention. He made a gift for his mother. Then he signed the back, “To Mom,” with his name, and added the names of his brother and sister, which touched me so much that I stepped out onto the porch to blink away damp eyes. I just didn't think he would make it. But E. did not die. The next summer he returned with crutches, not quite so skeletal and pale. The summer after, E. was walking. We had some good talks. The year after that, he told me he had finished his last treatment, and there had been no sign of cancer for a long while. He was well. A couple of years later, I heard that E. had gotten married.
There were wonderful surprises, assuredly. But then there was always some of that other part.
This week I received a sad surprise. It was old news, four years old, in fact, but because I hadn’t heard, it felt painfully fresh. My daughter came across an “In Memory of” page on Facebook in L.’s name, and called me. Not L.!! “I’m going to put down the phone,” I told her. I had to let out a howl of hurt, and needed to wait until I could speak again. L. was my youngest child's age, and they had been friends at camp.
He wasn’t even one of the ones with cancer. He had a manageable blood disorder. But life is unpredictable. L. received a double whammy. He was diagnosed with cancer just a year or so after I last saw him, and died of it two years later, at age 19. I looked at the photos on his Facebook memorial page hoping somehow it wasn't him, but yes, it was L. all right. In one of the photos he was smiling his wicked and sweet smile, half mischievous, half shy, pale as usual, and sitting at a table in study hall with a study partner and a teacher. It was so like the way he’d sat in the Pot Shop with his counselor and me for all of those summers, talking about life, messing about with bits of clay, and having a lot of good laughs between earnest conversations.
So life goes round and round like a potter's wheel. Sometimes the vessels that are made on it are so beautiful. Sometimes they withstand the fire, and once in a while they just do not. I am sending out a wave to "my" campers, a figurative wave to the ones I can only remember now, and the ones who are busy making ongoing lives (you know who you are!). Wherever you are, health and wholeness go with you!
My friend showed me a building like a long bungalow. The sign over the first of the four doors on the porch read: “Pot Shop.” We opened the door to a room full of old trash, dead flies, and buried among them, two cheap and listing pottery wheels, and a crumbling old kiln. I knew right then that it could become a neat and functional little pottery workshop, with lots of elbow grease and some fixes for the equipment. I said Yes, and got right on it, drawing up lists, sketching ideas, making practice projects. Finally, as the season was just about underway, I ordered the supplies, and two staffers came to help me dig the room out from under.
I would be there for the next eight summers. We would eventually have two wheels, a slab roller, and a beautiful new kiln. Till then, we made do with dowel rolling pins from Wood Shop, tables and benches from here and there, and lots of effort.
That first summer, I was also working with kids for the first time. Green as an unripe apple, without an assistant, I enlisted my 13-year old daughter to be my sounding-board and helper. I did not ask to get paid, as I was not sure I would do a good job. I figured it would be charity, and if I couldn't make a go of it, no one could say I wasn't worth my salt. I had a hard time acclimating to the emotional fallout I felt dealing with sick kids, but quickly found out there were some really shiny silver linings to this gig. For one thing, I thoroughly enjoyed the interaction with the kids and their very dedicated counselors. As it turned out, I also really loved showing the kids how to work with with my favorite art medium, and to my surprise and joy, they responded with enthusiasm. It was awesome.
The pot shop was usually noisy with children and crowded with action. Some children made brief projects as they passed through pottery on their way to sports. That was already good. There were so many other things to do at camp. But some children had so much fun that they kept coming back whenever they could. These children got to know me, and I got to know them. A camp session was only 2 1/2 weeks long, partly because many children needed to get back to a less immuno-compromising environment than camp. But even with the brevity of the season, or maybe because of it, these weeks were intense. We got to know one another pretty quickly. Best of all, as I would discover, some of the children came back year after year, and regulars gravitated right back to the pottery room. By Season Two I felt like a pro. This is what I found out: Kids have fun in Pottery, and fun is therapeutic.
Ten years since I last ran the pot shop at camp, I try to imagine the children I once knew when they had cancer, as currently healthy grownups, with spouses and children perhaps, with jobs and full lives. I know many of them made it through their diseases, and went on to healthy situations.
What a lot of emotional ups and downs there were.
In my first year or so at camp, I met a boy of 16, (I’ll call him E.) so sick and frail in his wheelchair he could hardly lift his hand. E.’s counselor wheeled him into Pottery separately from his group, so I could give him individual attention. He made a gift for his mother. Then he signed the back, “To Mom,” with his name, and added the names of his brother and sister, which touched me so much that I stepped out onto the porch to blink away damp eyes. I just didn't think he would make it. But E. did not die. The next summer he returned with crutches, not quite so skeletal and pale. The summer after, E. was walking. We had some good talks. The year after that, he told me he had finished his last treatment, and there had been no sign of cancer for a long while. He was well. A couple of years later, I heard that E. had gotten married.
There were wonderful surprises, assuredly. But then there was always some of that other part.
This week I received a sad surprise. It was old news, four years old, in fact, but because I hadn’t heard, it felt painfully fresh. My daughter came across an “In Memory of” page on Facebook in L.’s name, and called me. Not L.!! “I’m going to put down the phone,” I told her. I had to let out a howl of hurt, and needed to wait until I could speak again. L. was my youngest child's age, and they had been friends at camp.
He wasn’t even one of the ones with cancer. He had a manageable blood disorder. But life is unpredictable. L. received a double whammy. He was diagnosed with cancer just a year or so after I last saw him, and died of it two years later, at age 19. I looked at the photos on his Facebook memorial page hoping somehow it wasn't him, but yes, it was L. all right. In one of the photos he was smiling his wicked and sweet smile, half mischievous, half shy, pale as usual, and sitting at a table in study hall with a study partner and a teacher. It was so like the way he’d sat in the Pot Shop with his counselor and me for all of those summers, talking about life, messing about with bits of clay, and having a lot of good laughs between earnest conversations.
So life goes round and round like a potter's wheel. Sometimes the vessels that are made on it are so beautiful. Sometimes they withstand the fire, and once in a while they just do not. I am sending out a wave to "my" campers, a figurative wave to the ones I can only remember now, and the ones who are busy making ongoing lives (you know who you are!). Wherever you are, health and wholeness go with you!
Sunday, June 5, 2011
Edmund's Pottery Day, Revisited
Been a while since I checked in. I was under the weather, and out of the studio for almost a month. The studio has a musty, fusty air of neglect and disorder. It has an accumulation of unglazed ware that I swear is GLARING at me, and a chalked list of to-do items that is growing unchecked.
But if I couldn't get down to the heavy business of work, and while I was putting on a few pounds sitting and lying around, spending waaay too much time on computer and TV, and being cranky, I could still organize my thoughts about the website, research shipping, and bust my website builder's chops a lot.
Website work continued. The news: we plan to go live July 18th. Compared to my late, dysfunctional, unlamented website, this one will be a streamlined and spare gallery that works as it is supposed to.
While at my computer over the weeks, leafing through my hefty file of stories for children, I browsed through my old Edmund's Pottery Day illustrations. Several years ago I sent out this picture book manuscript to a few publishing houses, but it was ignored or received rejections for a while, and I put it away to work on other picture book manuscripts. I knew the original story was too teach-y. I knew the illustrations I sent with it were not spontaneous or skilled enough to satisfy me (never mind a publishing house), but they still have some charm. So while I sat around not feeling well, I began putting them up on Facebook, one or two a day, with very little explanation. Here they are, minus text. Click on each picture for a larger version:
But if I couldn't get down to the heavy business of work, and while I was putting on a few pounds sitting and lying around, spending waaay too much time on computer and TV, and being cranky, I could still organize my thoughts about the website, research shipping, and bust my website builder's chops a lot.
Website work continued. The news: we plan to go live July 18th. Compared to my late, dysfunctional, unlamented website, this one will be a streamlined and spare gallery that works as it is supposed to.
While at my computer over the weeks, leafing through my hefty file of stories for children, I browsed through my old Edmund's Pottery Day illustrations. Several years ago I sent out this picture book manuscript to a few publishing houses, but it was ignored or received rejections for a while, and I put it away to work on other picture book manuscripts. I knew the original story was too teach-y. I knew the illustrations I sent with it were not spontaneous or skilled enough to satisfy me (never mind a publishing house), but they still have some charm. So while I sat around not feeling well, I began putting them up on Facebook, one or two a day, with very little explanation. Here they are, minus text. Click on each picture for a larger version:
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