I'm moving my pottery to a new space out at Renningers!!  I will have a whole new gallery, with a new look and feel to it. Its a little bit bigger and it will feature mainly my pottery, but it will be more like my home. room to sit and visit and hang out, and I'll have wall space to use for wall pockets and tiles and sconces,, lots of funky old florida martiness to it.. I've been thinking about it for awhile and finally stoppped putting it off and Im getting busy next week and moving [broken leg and all]
Iv'e just been sitting in the same spot for so long doing the same thing,, i need a change, and isn't ''change'' this years slogan?


my new gallery is in the same aisle and on the same side but just at the other end of the hall,,, Im still close to Vanessa's resturant, thats most important,,
So Iv'e got bob and clint all lined up  for construction and lighting and  friends to help move stuff,, Im very excited about the whole project, I will be moved and opened on Febuary 7th,, so stop on by! if you get lost call me [352-223-0959] and i will guide you there

As you can see from the picture i got my latest batch of pots finished via the kitchen studio,, Im most happy with them and folks seem to like them,, the kitchen studio is moved back into the old studio out back,,[its back to springtime again] and my kiln broke down again, and eric will be by thursday to fix it again [hope suzy comes too]
also im out of clay and have to figure out how to get to ococee to the bennets pottery supply to get more,,''its always something!'' ain't it
well im off to the moose lodge shortly for ''all you can eat spagetti'' i swear everybody from eustis eats there,
i will post new gallery pictures next week as it unfolds

its colder than judas's lap here in florida, 40 yesterday and  30 degrees this morning,, of course its glazing time,, so i packed up little tubs of glaze [14 in all] and lugged them into my kitchen and ive been hand painting glaze on 13 pots for 2 days straight now,,  just sitting in the kitchen patiently glazing pots for hours on end,, at the end of 2 days i have 4 pots finished,, 2 almost finished and 7 half finished,, i do the hardest ones first,, so i figure to be done by noon tomorrow,, and then fire up the kiln and [in theroy]  i'll have a dozen new pots ready to go on saturday,,

you will notice the photo of my new studio [kitchen],,, that means i have a new camera,,, i sent my mom to the walmart w/ a note to give the salesperson as to what i wanted,,, the good news is i got a better camera [video! that means ''look out u-tube!''] and it was 30 bucks cheaper,, however the camera is purple and comes w/ a chic lavender vinyal carrying case,,, oh well its better than riding the walmart wheel chair, 

i was doing laundry and left my camera in my pants,, luckily i rescued it before it got too wet,, i dried it out and it worked fine so i stuck it in my shirt pocket and then it fell out into a bucket of glaze,,, i washed it off and now its drying,, but its not working,  my next camera will be one of those childrens indestuctable toy cameras

well the extraganza weekend was a rough one,, i felt like i was reruning the november show,, nothing new and exciting,, i just couldnt get anything made to ''wow'' folks,, and i wasnt feeling good to begin w/,,, hopping around wore out my good leg and i mostly spent the weekend trying not to trip and break something,, i did fall once but i grabbed the door handle so it looked like i was going outside quickly,,
it was fun seeing everybody and i heard hundreds of ''broken leg stories'' so now i dont feel alone in my stupidity,,, even worse is i couldnt go out in the field in search of treasures,, but i did see an amazing pot by ''volarius''  that  a friend found

and on the same dreary topic of my crippledness,, i went to the walmart today and rode the little motorized wheelchir thingy,, i thought it would be fun, but it was a grim experience,,, on the scooter im only 4 ft. tall and can't see or reach anything and the worst is how people treat you,, i was an invisable annoyance, those scooters are hard to drive and even harder to get down the aisles and stay out of everybodies way, and folks just refused to cut me any slack,, it was embarassing and damned near impossible to have any fun shopping ,,,by the time i left i really felt like crying


 i SWEAR from now on  till i die that every person in a wheelchair i see  i will smile at  them and give them plenty of room to wheel around in, and offer to help them out,,
i urge everybody that reads this to follow  along and take a second to be nice to folks driving around on wheelchairs,, its not as fun as it looks

i do have the ten pots i threw over the weekend firing in the kiln, all of them  are to have hand glazed designs on them [ i have plenty of time to fart around w/ them] and now im busy coming up w/ cool surprizes for the Febuary show,,
[hey paige i was planet of the apes the other night and thought of you]
ok its dinner time

15 hours till my best weekend of the year,,, renningers january extraganza,, and i'll be damned but im all set to go!

the week started out in the toilet,, monday morning i found out my kiln full of pots were only half fired,, the kiln had died,,, no big deal as i have 2 kilns in case something like this happens,, so i ''hopped'' the pots over  into the other kiln and fired it up,, an hour later it DIED too!!!  whats the odds of having both kilns die within hours of each other,?????, so i tore the first kiln apart and found the problem,, however w/ the broke leg there was no way i could squat down to replace the burnt wires,, and there was nobody but nobody around who could help me out
    
then i recalled my teacher/mentor  suzyvey's husband was a whizz kiln fixer upper,, so i gave her a call and the next morning they were here to save my ass,,needless to say my brain and overall being was frizzled,,, the strange thing was that i spent the day sitting on the couch chatting w/ suzy while eric worked on the kilns,, and spending the day telling tales and remincing w/ suzy cured me of all my dread,, when suzy left i felt inspired and energized and completly calm and in control,,,

god bless suzy

anyways the rest of the week has been hopping around like bugs bunny trying to get something made to take to the show,, and i just got finished packing pots and im ready to go
oh yeah i went to the broken bone doctor today  and begged him to take the f*cking cast off ,, he didnt but he did say it would come off on febuary 19th at 8:30 am!!!! and he would put an inflatable cast on and i could wear a shoe and walk and everything
so the future is bright,,, time to eat digornos stuffed crust pizza dinner

well i've had the broken leg ten days now and i just had my third cast put on this morning! oh boy!
yesterday my artist pal Ann came over to help me load up the kiln [crutches and clay pots dont mix well] and she commented on my ''slippery rug'' in the living room and she started rolling it up and out of the way,, so i told her to quit and i'd do it later/later i slipped and fell on the ''slippery rug'', i seemed fine and i went back to work on making my new tile mold, when i noticed my swollen purple toes sticking out of the cast,, so i went and layed upside down on the couch and propped my leg up the wall and called the doctor,, he said i was just fine nothing to worry about,, i wasnt convinced so i went in for an xray this morning,,, before i went to the doc i figured i better break down and take a shower so i duck-taped my leg into a garbage bag and jumped in the shower,, imediately the garbage bag filled w/ water,, so i got clean and dried my foot off best i could,,
when the ''cast-master'' tech noticed my soggy foot he told me the cast would have to come off or my  wet leg would turn into stinky zombie sludge skin,,,

''GODDAMN IT! JUST CUT THE GODDAMN LEG OFF!!"

i calmed down shortly and he cut off the old cast and put on a new one,, this time angling my foot so that when this cast comes off  i should be pidgeon-toed on my right leg,,, lets hope the third time is a charm when i comes to leg casts

i forgot to mention when i sat down on the bed last night it collapsed under me causing me to hit myself in the jaw w/ the crutch,, you can see why im getting frustrated with this whole borken leg thing

well i did manage to get the pots from the kiln to the studio for glazing [this is a blog about pottery  right?] i do have some good stuff started, 2 lamps, wall sconce things, and a couple of hand painted somethings  [ i havent figured it out yet] and the ''really big show'' isnt till next friday [8 am, be there! or be square!] so im just gonna take my time and do a good job, and try and go out to the market tomorrow and practice throwing pots in a lawn chair w/ my leg up on a bucket,, wish me luck

Heres me, crutches and all,,,, notice the home depot nail pouch, its good for carrying snacks,coffee and so on,,

i went to the orthopedaitrical doctor yesterday ,, completly confident that he would tell me that my leg was all better and tear the cast off and send me on my way
BUT HELL NO
he put an even bigger cast on my leg,, told me it was broke in 2 places and i'll be wearing the bigass cast for at least a month or more,, that means no driving!

what a mess,, i tried sitting at the wheel and i think i can manage a pot or two,, but i havent actually tried, getting on and off the stool looks to be the hard part, and trying to carry the wet pot around,, i dont know how thats gonna work,,

ironically i was reading the latest copy of ''THE AMERICAN ART POTTERY JOURNAL'' and they did a great article about grubey faience tiles,, and the pictures of the tiles are gorgeous  AND they even give info in the article on how they were done,, so i think i may head myself artistically in that direction  the name for my line of tiles will be ''one-legged tiles'',, i took a tile class from a tile maker from the morovian tile works in pennselvania,, so i kinda have an idea about how it works,, however i have a big pile of warped tiles that ive made piled up in the garage,,, so i dont know,,,
     [is it fate? or damage control?]

i have to say everybody around me has rallied to my aid,,, bob has been waiting on me hand and foot [its hard to make a poptart balancing on one leg] and clint went to all the trouble of building me a stair rail so i can get in and out of the house w/out having to do the butt bounce down the steps and my folks has been babying me,, and julie and mag brought me over fudge and oranges and a book [no pictures or sex]
and vanessa my chef pal is bringing me by dinner tonight,,[ shes the reason i have to wear elastic waist pants]
also bob is evern drivng down to fort pierce to pick up my pots from my show down there,,,,,,,,,, thats over thats an eight hour round trip,,
i dont know what ive done to deserve friends like these,,

i have to mention that none of them want to give me a sponge bath,,,

well i actually got 2 pots carved today,,i have my bum leg propped up on a glaze bucket and i balance my self on my stool,, i guess i could drag a lawn chair into the studio now that im writing this,, that would be much more comfortabler

i guess my big booth remodel is on hold,,,im thinking a bigger change but i haven figured out what just yet,, move to micanopy?,, circus tent out in the field? maybe the pottery gods are trying to tell me something? i was checking the kiln when i fell after all,,
ok thats all ill post a picture of my tragic leg when i can,, and everybody is invited to come and sign my cast  [BYO-felt pen]