it was good

Last night's sunset was pretty nice.

But the full moon rising over the cornfield was pretty awesome too. I took several pictures of it from the backyard, the sunset in front of me, the moon behind.

Today we had an honest-to-god real spring day. Clear blue sky, temps in the 60s, a gentle breeze from the south.

A pair of blue jays are engaged in nest building. They keep breaking small twigs off my crepe myrtle trees and then flying across the road to the pine tree with them. I never was able to get a picture of one of them but while I was waiting, I noticed these little yew tree berries sprouting at my feet.

This cardinal was a little more cooperative. He was perched in the yew tree singing his little heart out.

I noticed this rose bud.

And saw that the ginkgo tree is covered with very fat buds.

I decided to work in the back yard and get the rest of the cannas dug up from around the peach tree. The ornamental peach tree is in full bloom.

Finally, at the end of the day I wandered over to the confederate rose to see how it was doing. It was 10 feet tall last year and froze to the ground with our 20˚ weather last January. I'm happy to see that it is already coming out from the very bottom.

the time I didn't meet Mick Jagger

In 1965, when I was 15, my parents had some friends who lived in Hawaii on the island of Oahu. The father was in the service, the Navy more specifically. They had four kids in the same age range as my parents who had three kids and so that summer, my family went to Hawaii to stay for two weeks with my parent's friends. It was (and still is I'm quite sure) an exotic and beautiful place. My parents took us on many excursions on Oahu and the island of Hawaii.

We walked across the lava field of Moana Loa. This was a few years after it had erupted after a long period of dormancy.

We walked right up to the rim of Kilauea and peered down into the smoky sulfuric depths and looked for Pele's tears.

We saw black sand beaches.

We stopped on the road side on our way to Hilo to look at the wild orchids growing there. I heard laughter and pushed into the undergrowth a little ways and saw some teenagers swimming in a natural little spring fed pool. They called to me to join them and I did.

We went to all the famous beaches. I went surfing and quickly realized I was out of my depth.

We drove up to the mountain pass where King Kamehameha forced his enemies off the cliff and where the wind was blowing so strongly that it literally blew me over backwards (I was a scrawny kid and my calves were up against the parking rail).

I ate pineapple picked fresh from the field and it was so good that I have never been able to eat store bought pineapple since.

My mother and sister and I bought bikinis! This was before bikinis were de riguer for beachwear and were considered quite scandalous. We weren't actually allowed to wear them on the beach in Galveston when we returned but we could wear them at home around the swimming pool.

It was a most wonderful vacation.

You're probably wondering right about now what the hell this has to do with me not meeting Mick Jagger.

For some reason, my parent's friends invited me back the following summer, the summer I was 16. My parents allowed me to go, said they would pay my air fare but that I had to earn my spending money by doing the filing for my dad's lab for the nearly two months in the summer before my trip. When the time finally came, I was looking at a long plane ride from Houston to Los Angeles, a short lay over and an even longer plane ride to Honolulu. Coach class boarded first in Los Angeles and once we were all aboard, the curtain was unceremoniously closed between coach and first class and it stayed closed the whole time. I had flown several times before but not enough to think it strange that the curtain was kept closed.

Once we landed on the tarmac, we waited and waited and waited to disembark and then we waited some more. Finally, the curtain was opened and we were allowed to get off the plane. I was met by the family and a huge crowd of people. The tarmac was packed. Back then, the plane taxied near the concourse, a stairway was rolled up and you disembarked on the tarmac and walked into the terminal.

Immediately, the family, the kids who came to meet my plane bombarded me with questions.

“Did you see them?”

“Did I see who? And what are all these people here for?” I wanted to know.

“The Rolling Stones! They were on your plane! You didn't see them?!”

“Yeah right.” I responded.

“No really, the Rolling Stones were on your plane!” they insisted.

“No way, you're pulling my leg.” I refused to be taken in.

I didn't believe them until they dragged me over to where all the instruments and amps were being unloaded and they told me we all had tickets for the concert the next day.

So now all the delays and the closed curtain made sense. And, no, I didn't see them. At least not on the plane. But I did see them in concert the next night.

yee-haw!

(This is a re-post from last year. I don't think I had much of a readership then, having only had my blog for a month or so, so I feel fairly certain that most of you haven't already read this.)

Put on your boots and hat and fancy duds because today is Go Texan Day in Houston. For the uninitiated, this is the day all the trail rides end and come into town for the start of the rodeo. They all end up at Memorial Park and party hearty all night. For those of you who don’t know what a trail ride is, it is a week or two of following one of the old trails for getting your cattle to market. Participants truck their horses and wagons to whichever starting point and then spend the next however many weeks riding those same horses and wagons back to town. I had a friend in high school who would get a leave of absence from school every year so she could participate. I think the one she went on was only a week long. Back then, schools would let you do that.

The rodeo and livestock show start tomorrow preceded by the parade downtown. There’s also a carnival that sets up and a huge vendor show as well. Houston has one of the largest rodeos with associated events in the country. Maybe the largest. The livestock show (we called it the fat stock show back when) is the competition, exhibition and auction of the animals that kids from elementary school through high school raise and groom through the Future Farmers of America programs at the schools. Mostly the rural and suburban schools now. I don’t know if the schools in the city still sponsor these programs.

I haven’t been to the rodeo in many years. I guess the last time was when the kids were small. Marc and I tried to go a couple of years ago. A friend gave us a pair of tickets. We got there in the afternoon, took our time looking at all the animals, browsed through the vendor show and then headed over to the stadium since the rodeo was getting ready to start. Well, it wasn’t getting ready to start, it was ending. We had never looked at the tickets and turned out they were for the afternoon show. So we went over to the carnival and Marc tried one of those fried twinkies. Gross.

The thing I remember most about Go Texan Day is that it was, when I was growing up, the only day of the year that girls could wear pants to school.

the first thing you do is sue somebody

While in Austin this past week, a guy who was totally fed up with the fucked up system of taxes in this country, the protection of the richest 10% of the population by the government at the expense of everyone else and about to lose everything (again) decided to put a permanent end to the screwing he's been getting by flying his small plane into the IRS building. Before his fatal connection with said building, he posted his assessment on his website and while I don't agree with his final solution (the poor slobs who work in that building were not at fault), his essay or 'suicide note' as the authorities termed it is in no way an unintelligible rant. In fact it is quite lucid. The powers that be had it removed promptly, of course. God forbid that anyone should read this man's writing that so well points out the extreme inequity in this country that the government continues to support (and I don't mean either political party here or rather I mean both). Before it could be shut down, however, it was archived on the smoking gun website. I encourage everyone to read it.

So now, the widow of the one person who died in the attack on the building has decided to sue the widow of the perpetrator. Really? She's going to sue someone who had nothing to do with it, was totally shocked at what her husband did, whose life is totally destroyed because of it. How is it even possible that widow A can be allowed to sue widow B? Her (widow A) reasoning is this...widow B should have warned people about her husband's state of mind. I'm thinking widow B had no idea her husband was about to commit suicide by flying his plane into the IRS building. I think that's a pretty safe assumption. So what was she supposed to do? Take out an ad in the paper that her husband was a little depressed, that he was angry about his situation? Has widow A warned everyone every time her husband has been depressed, stressed out or angry? The saddest part about all this is that widow A will be allowed to pursue this lawsuit, will probably win because in this country, nothing just happens. Someone is always at fault and it is always someone else's fault. And that someone needs to pay. If that person isn't available to sue, then sue everyone who knew that person.  Never mind that widow B was not at fault and her life is in shambles around her. She hasn't quite been ground completely into the dust yet.

This, the system that will allow widow A to grind widow B into the dust, is just one more example of what's wrong in this country, the very reason widow B's husband chose to die in such a dramatic way. To try to get people to think and act and refuse, instead of being sheep.

The thing that really outrages me though is not that widow A will be allowed to pursue her lawsuit, but that she thinks she should, that her sense of entitlement is such that it even occurred to her to do it. Really, widow A? Will it really help you, or anyone, to further destroy widow B's life? Isn't she just as much a victim of her husband's actions as you are?

We, the people, wonder why this country is circling the drain. Well, I don't wonder at all. I think it's pretty damn clear.

teaching experience

We're back. These workshops are six days long, the first three days 9 AM to 5 PM, the second three days 10 AM to 5 PM eating lunch in 5 out of 6 days. The studio that brought us in is Helios in Austin TX.

These are six intense days. We are 'on' all the time. The students make two pieces, a 4” tile and a 4” diameter cup. For the work to be out of the kiln before the end of the class, the first project has to be in the kiln by the end of the first day and the second by the end of the third day. The last three days are showing off while we wait for the castings to come out. We do a slide show and talk about our work and demo some reproduction molds with some hands on. And the last day we do cold work, finishing techniques.

We just started teaching workshops, doing one or two a year. I didn't think I would like it and so I dragged my heels for a long time. But you can only resist so long. I got so many requests for classes that I (and by I, I mean we) finally started about three years ago.

Turns out, I kinda like doing these workshops. I like helping people make a couple of things they are really happy about making. It's fun. All the classes we have done so far have been different, but they have all been fun. And tiring.

This last one, I was going to try to take pictures every day. I was real good the first two days. The third day, didn't take a single one. After that it varied. I think I missed another day as well and the days I got were sparse.

Anyway, here are some pictures.

Day 1, they make a clay model (the tile) and invest it, fill it with frit and it goes in the kiln at the end of the day.

making the model

making the coddle

the model invested

the model encased in the mold

filling the mold

Day 2, they make a wax model (the cup) and make the bottom part of the mold.

working on the model

the finished model

mixing the mold material (investment)

pouring the mold material

the model encased in the mold

Day 3, I didn't take a single picture. That's the day they make the second half of the mold (the core) and fill the mold with frit (crushed glass) and glass powders.

Day 4, they get their tiles out of the kiln and demold them, cleaning them up.

We also do a slide show on our work and how we got to point 'b' from point 'a'. Oh, and there is some math and firing schedules involved.

Day 5 I also, apparently, didn't take any pictures. We do reproduction molds and Q & A and the students can make another clay model and mold on their own if they want.

Day six we demold the cups, clean them up, do a critique and then finish work.

removing the core

demolding the cups

the tiles

the cups

I always enjoy seeing what is produced in the classes. People are so creative.

workshop week

We're headed back to the city today and then tomorrow to Austin to teach a 6 day pate de verre workshop. I find this to be a bit ingenious since I haven't personally done any, with two small exceptions last year, for about a year and a half. I did get some stirring going on in the studio last fall and have several models I started on but never finished. The back room here which is my model making studio is really cold in the winter and the wax is too difficult to work with, especially with the arthritis in my thumbs. I'll have to get a little electric heater I guess. Our plan is to devote our attention to this last big job and after it is finished, get back to work in the studio on a new body of work in the pate de verre.

In this workshop, the students make two projects...a 4” tile and a small cup which is 4” in diameter using two different types of molds. The picture above is one of the sample tiles I made for the class. It looks mostly the way it did after being broken out of the mold and cleaned up, although I have demonstrated some finishing techniques on parts of it.

We also demonstrate, with some hands on, different types of reproduction molds.

I'm borrowing my BIL's laptop to take with us, but I doubt I'll be doing much posting while we are gone. I know, I know, what will you all do? I'm sure you'll find ways to occupy your time while I am out of pocket and it will only be a week.

spring hopes eternal

a story in 12 sentences...

Winter came early and has been much colder than normal.

On February 12, 2010 there was snow on the ground in 49 of 50 states.

We used the same amount of propane at the country house in the last 6 weeks that we used for the previous 8 months.

The weather prognosticators are saying this weather might last for another 4 weeks.

I saw two pear trees and a japanese magnolia in full bloom yesterday, but then they have always been eager.

The birds are having territorial issues.

The cat went out today and didn't want back in after 5 minutes.

The weather prognosticators are often wrong.

Today was warm and sunny, warm enough to go barefoot and dig weeds out of the garden.

Alas, they are sometimes right.

Another week of cold wet gray days is currently blowing in.

It's not warm enough to go barefoot any more.