Confession time. When I bought the pottery studio in May, I thought to myself that I would see how it went for six months. Technically it won't be six months of my ownership until the end of October, but it has been six months that Allen has been gone and that I've been operating the place without him. Checks are written and bills are paid for the sixth time, and we are still there. I am so grateful to Ronnie, Gail and Lisa for sticking with me. I'm grateful to Jeff for understanding why I'm NEVER home anymore and there are very few home cooked meals at our house. I'm proud of the fact that we've made it half a year. I still miss Allen every day. I'm less freaked out about everything all the time. That probably has as much to do with being too busy to really dwell on how inadequate I feel and how much I still don't know as it does with gaining experience. Pots get made, the kiln gets fired, and ideas and techniques are still shared. There is still laughter and sometimes a few tears.
If the next six months fly by as fast, I'll be talking about my first year as the owner of A Griffin Pottery Associates before we know it. I hope by then I'm less exhausted. I know that I'll still be grateful for all the blessings.
Friday night while the Golden Lions were on the TV at our house, I worked on Christmas ornaments. (How can you get a high school game on TV? Find the video feed online and then Chromecast to the TV.) Yes. Christmas ornaments. It will be that time soon and if I want to sell ornaments, I have to make them now.
This felt like a lot of work at the time, but I may wish that I had more of them. Every time I've made things like this, I swear off (again) making things like this. Its just not very fun.
There will be more information about the pots pictured below later, but for now I can tell you this. Most of that work is Allen's. He made a bunch of things and sat them aside to be fired sometime in a salt or soda kiln. It feels like the right time for me to do something about taking care of that now. I made a few pieces myself and I think all together, there's about half a kiln load. Unpacking those boxes was emotional. I had no idea what was there, and I found some real treasures. Allen's work is so uniquely his. I see him in those pots as much as I see him in the handwritten notes that are still all over the studio and as much as I see him in the photographs that I have. There's work that I'll be doing in the next little bit to get them ready to fire. I'll try to remember to take a few more pictures and share them.
Hey! There's an Art Walk in Uptown Shelby on Thursday, Oct 6.
I'll be at the studio doing demos from 5:30 to 8:30. I hope that lots and lots of you will come for a visit! I would love to see you. I even cleaned up a little bit. This explains the lack of pictures of new pots from this week. I cleaned instead of making things. I even ran the vacuum. This is a big deal.
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