After graduation, campus changes. Half the students depart, and we are left in a quieter place as the rest of spring unfolds, as the days stretch longer and longer (it's still light at 10:30pm now; I haven't stayed up late enough to check, but I think we have now entered that period of light when... Continue Reading →
Spring Updates: Cooking, Poetry, Pinch Pots, and a Persistent Winter
I'm only up for a short post today. I've had a lot of evening events during the last week. I'm behind on grading papers. I'm squeezing out some time to keep up with my writing, but only a bit. We're trying to figure out summer plans. Things keep rushing on and keeping up's a challenge.... Continue Reading →
Reading Bernard Leach’s The Potter’s Challenge
As part of my research for the novel I'm working on, which focuses on ceramics, I've been taking some of my writing time to explore what I can of an important figure in the craft, one who was a "great grandfather" to me in terms of my ceramics education (that is, a teacher of my... Continue Reading →
Summer Raku: Working with the Elements
My husband and I took the money we would have spent on a trip back to the US this summer and bought a Raku kiln for our ongoing ceramics adventure. After more than a month's wait, the kit arrived finally in late July, and my husband spent a whole day (until about 11:00pm) working through... Continue Reading →
The Bowl Split
I nipped into the ceramics room during my free block the other day, flipped the kiln on so the temperature would show--24 degrees. I flipped it off. I'd left my two bowls at the bottom of the kiln, quick glazed them up last week after five hours of oral exams, until at last I could... Continue Reading →