How Does Our Garden Grow…

Our garden is growing nicely these days. Some of our plants are starting to flower, which is very exciting. Although some of our other plants are not doing so well. Take our corn for instance; our tallest one is only about 2 feet tall while the rest of them are struggling to reach a pathetic 6 inches. This doesn’t stop them from trying to grow full sized ears of corn (ears that are getting to be bigger than the plants), some of them are even trying to grow multiple ears. They are all (all but one) looking pretty sad, here is a picture of the one that is the most respectable out of the lot.



Here is a picture of the first flowers to pop up on our many tomato plants.



This is the first of our pepper plants to flower; I believe this one is the bell peppers.



This is the first sunflower flower to open up. These guys are looking pretty sad as well, although I still hold our hope for them unlike the corn.



And finally here is one of our lettuces; these guys are getting quite large. I’m actually surprised at how well they are doing. It looks like these will be the first things we will eat out of our garden.

A Dirty Wheel is a Happy Wheel

At least that’s what I always thought; although it might not be that healthy (all that dust isn’t good for the lungs you know). Anyway, work is being produced!! And here are some photos of said work, check it out…





These first two pictures are of some orchid planters that I threw for Keturah to carve into. As you can see there are quite a few of them, and she’s a bit over whelmed.



Here are the four that she has already carved into, and they look great I think.



This is a photo of some cups (obviously) that I made just the other day. I have always been bad at handles but I think these ones came out okay.



This last photo is of some butter dishes and some Japanese style tea bowls (these are my favorite type of cup to make, mostly because there are no handles). Anyway, that is the work so far, it’s taking quite a while for me to get back in the habit of working in the studio, but I’m gaining momentum. Next big project for me is to convert my electric kiln to a propane kiln, it should be fun!

Oh, here are some stamps I was making the other day with some old wire tool handles and my dremel tool.

Teach it and they will come . . .

At least I hope so. Big news I (David) will be teaching a beginning Ceramics class at the Firehouse Art Center here in Norman starting May 31st. I’m really excited to start teaching again, I really love teaching pottery. Before this opportunity I was thinking about offering private lessons through our studio in our garage, but I think this way is more practical (and it’s not in a garage, but a real studio!!). So if you know anyone who would like to take a ceramics class let them know that now’s the time! Here is a link to the ceramics page on the Firehouse website; it gives all the important information i.e. cost, times, and dates.

No Need to Knead

A couple of weeks ago our friend Andy came up to help us plant our garden, and he brought with him a wonderful recipe for bread. He then made us three loaves, and left us with two and a half. They were delicious; here are some pictures of the breads










There was an olive, white, and a wheat loaf. Since then I have made a couple more olive loaves and they were delicious as well. This post doesn’t have much to do with art but I haven’t done much art so there you go…

Garden Party II

Finally the garden has been planted!! It’s all very exciting. Our friend Andy came up form Dallas to help us plant everything, and he even showed us how to make an amazing no knead bread (more on that later). Here are a few pictures of our newly filled garden.





Update:
We lost a couple of plants due to very high winds and a little cold weather. We lost our pumpkin, watermelon, cantaloupe, a couple artichokes, and a pepper plant (I’m not sure which one). We have re-sown seeds directly into the ground in hopes that they will grow, we will see.

This blog is about our new garage studio, and how it came to be…

I started work on the studio by building a table to work on. It’s L-shaped to allow the most surface space for the limited floor space we have. In this photo you can see the table coming to life, I had to construct it upside down and on saw horses because that’s the only way I could think to build it.



Here the table has been finished, and I was feeling really satisfied with myself. That is until I realized that it was really heavy, and I had to flip it right side up before it would be of any use at all. So I had to devise some really clever way of flipping it by myself without breaking any of the legs off.



So while I try to come up with a clever table flipping idea, lets move on to the “damp room”. Which is not really a room at all; it’s just a couple of shelves that I decided to wrap in plastic (which I thought was pretty clever way of keeping pots damp). Here is a picture of the shelves, and as you can see I already have the plastic hung up behind and underneath them.



And with the magic of (a lot of) duct tape and some strategically placed velcro we now have a fully in closed damp “space” ready to be used.



Okay back to the table flipping. So I did manage to come up with some really clever way of flipping it (of course this was after several very unclever ways that almost ended up with the table in pieces). I also put canvas on the longer part of the table so it can be used for wedging and other things involving clay. While the shorter part was left with the wood showing so that we can use it for other projects such as wood working and so forth. So here is picture of the studio at the end of day one of construction (oh, I also added a shelf above the table, which should come in pretty handy). You can see the table, with the canvas on the far side, and you can see the damp “area” off to the right.



Tomorrow I am off to the city to buy some clay, and have some Pho. Right now I am off to make some pizza for dinner.

It all Starts with a Whisper

It’s the blog you all have been waiting for. I have finally assembled a pottery wheel, not a treadle wheel this time but a Shimpo VL Whisper Wheel (which was much easier to assemble). Here is my first view of the wheel as it arrived.




It’s a nice box but as my Dad said it might be tough to work in such a small space, so I opened it to see how much space I had to work with.



And you can imagine my dismay when I saw that it was made of wood just like my treadle wheel was. But it was just a packing layer; needless to say I was relieved.



Now here was the actual wheel and all the bits that came with it.



As you can see in this picture the wheel was very short, almost comically so.



Luckily it came with these leg extensions, so I wouldn’t have to lie down while I was throwing.



And after a little finagling (and at one point realizing that one leg was shorter than the rest) the wheel was finally put together and ready to get to work. But I didn’t have any clay so I couldn’t get to throwing just yet.



So instead I admired the foot peddle, which was quite a nice shape, and sat there listening to how quiet it was (they don’t call it the whisper wheel for nothing you know).

Next I will start setting up my studio so that I will have the space (well as much as you can get out of a one car garage) to actually work in. Here is a picture of our garage and soon to come will be a picture of the studio in this garage.