Wednesday, May 28, 2014

good news and new handles

Well, I am saying goodbye to my little hatchback tonight. I have had it for 5 years now, but the lease is up and I needed to make a decision. Buy it out, refinance for another 2 years w/o a warranty, or trade it in. I opted to trade it in. So tonight I am picking up my new car. It is a compact SUV, but is definitely bigger than my little one. I should now have more cargo capacity to allow me to transport more pots. Who knows, maybe I will hit the road and do out of town summer craft fairs next year. I have always found it a struggle to fit both the pots and display materials (even as minimal  inside one vehicle comfortably and safely. I have often though that if I were to get in an accident, I could easily be killed by multiple pots being dislodged from their cartons and winging their way up towards my head.
Last year was a year of loss for me. I was forced to “let go” so speak of almost all that I owned. This year will be the year of renewal, I can only hope that the turmoil of the past 11.5 months will settle down and life can carry on at a more sedate pace. It is still looking good for a move in date somewhere in the 2nd week of June, so I will be taking some much needed time off to calmly reorganize my life and get settled again.

In pottery news, I have been working on a new type of handle/knob for my casseroles. This is one area where I have always struggled to get something that looks good. My handles have either looked like they were an after thought, or were either too big or too small. I have thrown knobs, used strap handles, pulled and attached or pulled in place lugs, rolled lugs etc. Sometimes they come out nice, but usually they either look contrived, or tortured into submission. Then one day I was watching YouTube videos and came across a Bill Van Gilder video of how he makes a “shell” handle by gradually slapping and stretching a coil into a “shell” shape. I have played around with it on rims of batter bowls (see previous posts) and then I added a whole bunch of them to a rim to add some height and decorative interest. Then I had a thought that they would look good if they were more 3D. So I made 2 of equal size, bulged them out a bit and then attached them edge to edge to achieve a hollow yet full knob for the lid. I added 2 smaller “shells” to the side for lugs. I think this worked out fairly well. I will play around a bit more, but so far it’s looking good.
And last but definitely not least, I won the draw for the Michael Kline cup for the Christa Assad fundraiser and it arrived in the mail the other day. It is the sweetest little thing and drinks very well. It will find a nice home in my new condo with all the other pots from other potters that I already have.

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