I do a little pinhole photography. I need to do more, when I can make some time. Next up, final critiques and final grades. After that, restart work on my sculpture and, putting a proposal together on a 50K web site.

I arrived at the park at 10:30 am not expecting to see anyone and, I didn’t see anyone wanting to see me about my project. I talked with the local naturalist about returning to do a walking tour and she liked the idea. I took more pics. I walked around the park a bit (there [...]

I had a big phone argument with the woman organizing this exhibition. That it happened isn’t surprising. She has a large reputation for being difficult. And, you know, county employees are difficult to fire without a big fight so she has kept her job for a long time. She gets things done but, often takes [...]

As I may have previously mentioned, I have to reapply to have my contract renewed and, the deadline is Friday. Today I spent most of the day working on rewriting one page, Philosophy of Studio Art Practice and, sorting through images of student work to be sent in with my application. Good thing I started [...]

One gauge of the health of our coastal waters is the number of ospreys. When I first moved to Florida (1976) the number of ospreys was way down. Pesticides had endangered them as well as a number of other species. Ospreys have come back strong and, it’s interesting how they don’t seem to mind living [...]

I did two raku firings today and, still didn’t finish my last two pieces. Maybe I can get them finished on Thursday? I’m not going to do it unsupervised! Lighting the kiln is enough to keep me in my place, a novice if there ever was one and, away from doing things I know next [...]

The metallic glazed raku provoked comments but, the last image of a pit fired piece was uncommented. I continued work on pit firing, this time trying to get more of the effect I happened upon in my initial testing: smokey, crusty, rough, unfinished, fossilized, and flaking. Well, there’s no flaking but the other things I [...]

This closeup image was done last week of a low fire pit firing where the clay was smoked with horse hair. I’ll do more of this type of thing tomorrow although, I won’t use horse hair. I’ll reek of smoke in my clothing all day long and, I’m going to a lecture in the evening [...]

Okay, here’s today’s firing, my very first raku. I love raku and I love how these pieces came out. I have more to do but, not all of them will be raku. Some will just be pit fired for a smokey effect. I’m thinking about fossils now, like trilobytes.