environments

the environment i live in is important to me... and my mental well being.  right now i feel like i am in limbo.  most of my belongings are in boxes and there are just a few things left hanging on the walls that will be packed as soon as i find boxes to accommodate them.  my home is starting to look generic.

our new home in north carolina will be a challenge but i think it will be fun to creatively make it "ours".  for one, it is a rustic log cabin with a wrap around porch... this makes for dark living spaces.  jeff says in the summer heat and humidity i will come to appreciate it!  my little house in northwood is only a couple of years old - everything is painted white and it's bright and cheery.
our seagrove home is on the main road (great for the pottery business)... and the yard is quite private...the porch will be a great place to relax in the morning with coffee or in the evening with a glass of wine...

porch - not our furniture - we have some that is more comfortable!

kitchen (more counter & cabinets than i have now)

very challenging spiral staircase leading to upstairs...

lil' soup bowls with handles ~ you can get them in Concord!

it's hard to think about soup when it 90 degrees outside (a rarity for the month of may in NH) but they would also be fabulous for serving ice cream... these bowls were part of my first shipment review for the League of NH Craftsmen.  yesterday i dropped them off, with a variety of other pots, at the league gallery in Concord, NH.  if you are looking to purchase my work you can now find it in Concord!

family, friends, food & drink

sunday evening jeff and i invited family and friends over to the house for an evening of good cheer before we head south.  we had sooo much fun. we had a ton of food and now jeff and i can live off of the leftovers and not cook this week.  that is a good thing because yesterday i packed up most of the kitchen and there are only a few dishes left in the cabinets!

was so happy that there was pate leftover because i love it!  jeff thinks it's icky so i get to eat ALL of it
 :-).

the amazing tom terrific made awesome dirty martinis for jen, harris and me. jeff and kurt did their usual sake ritual...

...and harris partook in that as well, i wonder how she was feeling the next day :o)
at the end of the night i was feeling sad about leaving my friends and family (especially danielle) in nh.  i have to remember that we will be coming back to visit as often as we can.
thank you to all who came... it was a special evening for jeff and me.

fresh from the kiln...

last week was crazy... we took a quick trip to seagrove with our first busload of stuff.  left on sunday and back on wednesday.  i think it took 2 days to recover!  i did learn to drive the bus... just don't ask me to parallel park!

i unloaded the kiln at the end of the week...

we got great reduction this time so the shinos and copper reds were yummy.
...back to packing boxes, i will be so glad when the moving is behind us and we are settled in to our new home in seagrove.

do we have stowaways?

we lined the inside of the bus windows with cardboard... to protect them and for security.  i spray painted the cardboard black and before we hung it jeff decided to spray on "peepers"!
we fired the gas kiln on thursday and couldn't resist unbricking the door and taking a peek before we hit the road.  it was a great firing... lots of reduction.  luscious copper reds and the shinos look fabulous!!!

and one more bus pic for the road...

... makes me laugh every time i look at it. catch up with you later when we arrive in the 'grove.

the continuing adventures of the gypsy potter and swirly girl...

the seats are out of the bus!  once jeff figured out the trick to getting them unbolted it went pretty smoothly... he worked under the bus and i worked inside with a ratchet.  most of the bolts we just snapped off.  when we were done we caulked all the holes with silicone.

one of our concerns was about how to get rid of bus seats... hurray for facebook! we posted that we had seats to give away and very quickly they are almost all spoken for and taken away.  people wanted them for all kinds of things... seating around a campfire, extra seats for a musicians bus... the best one is tree-house furniture!  we are feeling good about recycling them.
today we covered all the windows - i can't WAIT to post pictures of how that turned out.
...we started to load the studio into the bus tonight - tomorrow we load some household stuff and head to seagrove for trip number one.
stay tuned for more of our headin' south in a bus adventure!

oh my aching fingers...

i am wiped out tonight.  i spent most of the day at the studio... the first part of the day was spent getting more of the gas kiln loaded.  the second part of the day was spent removing any lettering that referenced "school bus" on our bus as well as any reference to massachusetts since that is where it came from... we new hampshire people don't want to be driving down the highway and have people thinking we are "massholes"! oh...did i really just say that???  wasn't a very nice thing to say was it?  i apologize to any of my mass friends & readers... of course there are lots of  nice people in massachusetts... and some of them might even be good drivers.

removing the lettering involved a hairdryer, a scraper and peeling with fingers... those fingers now look like they have taken a beating... good thing i am NOT the long painted fingernails type of girl.  the only nails that get painted here are toenails!

jeff has already started to take the seats out... we are leaving two rows in the bus to make traveling a little more comfy.

self-portrait of ME with the kiln a little more than half loaded

just was thinking... i should have my daughter come and help with getting the letters off of this bus... when she turned 2 i bought her a lil' big wheel for her birthday... it was pink and when i assembled it i spent forever putting on all these cutesy stickers.  as soon as she got the big wheel she proceeded to peel ALL of the stickers off of it... in a matter of minutes!  i wonder if she would come and peel stickers off of a giant bus...

studio guest!

my friend ken from dover is a photographer.  he has visited the studio a couple of times and said he would love to try his hand at throwing pots on the wheel.  i told him that he had better come quickly or else he would have to drive to seagrove to throw pots... so today he drove out to northwood and gave the wheel a spin...

ken caught on to centering the clay quite quickly... i think he had some really good first pots...

pretty awesome for a first timer... don't ya think?
check out ken's great photographs here . he has lot's of pictures that capture the beauty and spirit of new hampshire.

"come on get happy!"

remember my last post said that jeff and i had an exciting morning? we have been trying to figure out how to move 1000 miles south and do it economically... we looked into lots of options and after reading potter linda starr's moving adventures on her blog and corresponding with her we made the decision to....

BUY A SCHOOL BUS!!!!!
we are going to remove the seats and all the "school bus stuff" and use it to move us to north carolina.

my first thought was "can we paint it like the partridge family?!"

when we are done moving we will either:

A. turn it into a traveling studio
or
B. sell and recoup our moving expenses

...i still can't believe i am a bus owner :-)

put some south in your mouth...

jeff and i had an exciting morning and i will blog more on that later.  after our exciting morning we stopped at goody cole's smokehouse in  brentwood and had some yummy bbq for lunch...

i have to start practicing to eat like a southerner... i think i will get the hang of it really quickly :o)!
check back later tonight or tomorrow for an update about our exciting morning...

can't keep my hands out of the clay...

we are moving within the month... i really should NOT being making more pots.  i just can't be at the studio and not make SOMETHING!  all my glazing is done, jeff is finishing up with his glazing and the goal is to fire the gas kiln next wednesday. i spent a couple of hours at the studio today and this is one of the things i did...

it's a cat!  but i am not sure it doesn't look like a dog...hmmmm.
the next idea i have dancing in my head are "girly-girls" made of clay.  or maybe i will call them
"swirly girls" :o)

speaking of girly things... a few years back i traded a raku piece and a bowl of candy for this beauty...

it's a two section ceramic purse made by keith martin.  i LOVE IT.  i keep jewelry in it (of course).  i like to tell people that i have keith martin's purse.  keith also makes great pots with frogs on them AND he is a talented caricature artist.  i have been bugging him to get juried into the league of nh craftsmen...since gary rith left the state we need someone new who puts animals on pots.

we have had some sultry, warm days here in new england.  a real treat for the beginning of may.  i enjoy the warm weather and i think i will acclimate to north carolina with ease.  i have been keeping up with the local seagrove news online and read the other day that it is strawberry season in NC right now.  we won't have local strawberries until at least mid-june here in NH.  this week our local northwood hannaford supermarket has had cali strawberries on sale and i think they are the best non-locals i have had!  jeff and i bought a carton last night and ate the WHOLE thing!  i went back today and bought another...

they are looking lovely in my berry bowl that john made.  the wine cup on the left is a beauty by new hampshire's chris archer.
i am enjoying the strawberries and wine while listening to a glenn miller orchestra cd.
oh and i almost forgot the important news... i have the honor of being an imaginary cousin of the very famous (and former NH resident) potter gary rith. you can never have too much family (even if they are imaginary)

and now for something COMPLETELY different...

...i fired a bisque kiln today.  firing a bisque is rather boring and uneventful.  sort of like turning the oven on and waiting for it to reach temperature.  during all this waiting i had a visit from my friend cindy... finished some mugs...

then decided to do something totally different while waiting...

i sculpted a sheep!  i really had a fun time creating him... i have to say i have never made animals out of clay before - in a former life i was an early childhood educator (for nearly 20 years) and i did make play-doh animals...BUT i had to stop because the children would say "make me a  dog" or a cat or whatever... and they wouldn't create their own once they saw mine.  it was really hard to refrain from making things!
don't ya just love the smile on this guy?!