bodner045

trees imbeded in side of pot cut out trees to add to pottery surface a variety of size and shapes to play with landscape idea makes for fast Christmas decorating! my collector trees making new variations every year working on small affordable versions of my landscape pots for Christmas giving landscape as patchwork collage feel in clay, another festival idea So here is what I've been working on this week getting ready to add a few new pieces to the Philbook show.  I think I have done this show for about 16 years. Time flies I suppose. So here are some ideas in the works.  These pieces are raw clay and will later have deep bright colors on the surface. It is a continuation and variation of my landscape series. I want trees in the project but not really Christmas trees.  Who wants to put a nice pot away for a year? So here are the ideas in the works.

Beatrice Wood Pot, low fire with luster Stuff, things, crap, treasures, icons. There I laid soaking in a hot steamy deep bathtub trying to figure out the importance of objects again. A beautiful cool day, sun is beaming through the bathroom window and the vision of Beatrice Wood's golden goblet and tea bowl with her Dada figures dancing around the edge kept coming to mind. Spiritual. Sunday morning. The golden work of Beatrice is the most spiritual object I can imagine.  It radiates golden light. I also remember the lighthearted figures dancing around another bowl creating the lighthearted free spirit feeling I have deep in my soul. I remember as a child in a very conservative Lutheran Church in southern Indiana overhearing conversations about those threatening Catholics who worshiped idols.  There was the Mary thing and the statues, and crosses and rosaries, they felt were just so wrong in their opinions.  This was being said below their gold and white statue of the Germ...

Mischievousness stability moody blues life is precious tenacity strength age and wisdom positive thinking inner light I looked out my bedroom window and this is what I saw.

It is all about using the clay like a canvas for me and the New Mexico Landscape. I always think I want to paint but I cannot leave the clay behind.  Interpreting earth shapes form and color in clay makes so much sense to me. So here are the latest vessels averaging about 15 inches in height. I apologize for the snapshot like photography. Want to get these on my blog and not wait for the perfect photo.

Potters always wring their hands trying to figure out what they should make.  I have asked myself this for about 35 or more years.  Should I make show pots or should I be the village potter?  I kick the dirt around and the I always come to the same conclusion.  You don't have to choose. Make both.   Recently one of my students who is a great marketer suggested to Ian my son and struggling artist, that he have two lines.  He spends hours carving and laboring over every pot he makes.  He keeps complete notes on his glazing and that is something we all strive to do and most of us don't because we think we will remember. I have a lot of empty notebooks because I just want to do it, glaze and fire.  I think I will take that advice as well, two lines of work. I have gratefully gotten into a really good show titled Vision Makers.  I feel lucky because the juror only chose 23 out of 185.  I had the pots made way in advance taking time to make "s...

What a pleasure to be on the faculty at Rogers State and get to participate in the first show in the incredibly beautiful new gallery.  I am continuing to work on my landscape series as I use the clay like a painters canvas. As you can see, these are works in progress.  I am now moving on to wall pieces, round and square, treating the clay even more like canvas.   Many times I think I want to stop working in clay but I cannot help myself.  I know the martial so well and I love 3-d.  It is so basic.  It helps to literally ground me.   I love the smell, the way it bends and the glassy surface that always surprise me at the end of the firing.  It is a real pain to lift, to hang around in the dust and to never be finished.  But how can I resist.  The clay calls my name.

Black bird singing in the dead of night Take these sunken eyes and learn to see all your life you were only waiting for this moment to be free Blackbird fly, Blackbird fly Into the light of the dark black night. Blackbird fly, Blackbird fly Into the light of the dark black night. Blackbird singing in the dead of night Take these broken wings and learn to fly All your life You were only waiting for this moment to arise, You were only waiting for this moment to arise, Beatle's lyrics

So what is the best cupcake recipe I have ever tasted doing on my Pottery blog?  Anyone who reads this knows I write about life and pottery and this recipe did come to me my pottery class.  I was talking to one of my students and she said she was divorced and the best thing she got out of the marriage was this recipe.  It was her ex mother in law's recipe.  Somehow the name of these cupcakes will have to reflect that fact sooner or later. We ate and enjoyed and tried to stay away from having a 2nd one.  We were like bees and honey. And then this wonderful quiet woman brings a surprise to class.  The cupcakes. We ate and enjoyed and tried to stay away from having a 2nd one.  We were like bees and honey.  Just when I thought I was over chocolate moving on to raspberries and yogurt ice cream as a favorite, these jewels to the tongue appear. She told me I could share it so here goes. The Best Damned Chocolate Cupcakes from an Ex Husbands Mother ...