August 17 was the first day of classes at Cleveland Community College. I've only got one "normal" class this semester, so the start of classes on campus wasn't really all that stressful for me. I can say that now since we are a week and a half in and I've forgotten how freaked out I get about the first day of class.
August 17 was also an Uptown Art Walk and I was in the studio doing demonstrations for folks who came by that evening. Gail and Lisa were both there working too, so we had stuff to show everyone about throwing, preparing bisque ware to glaze (Gail), and glazing (Lisa).
That night I made these 9 lumps of clay...
...into 9 mugs.
That was Thursday night. On Friday, I got handles on all the mugs. It seems like I did something else too, but I have no memory of what that was.
Saturday, August 19 we headed out to Greensboro for my niece's 3rd birthday party. (Her actual third birthday was Aug 17.) Lots of kids playing on the new "playground" her daddy built for her. Wish I had a picture of that. It's an impressive playground.
The highlight of the party was the visit by the ice cream truck. Yep, all those kids, and possibly a large number of the adults in the group, went running to the street when they realized that the truck was stopped for the party. I had no idea one could hire the ice cream truck (every time I type the words, I'm screaming in my head, "ICE CREAM TRUCK!!") for a party, but it is something that I will keep in mind next time I need to throw a party.
Here's niece Fiona with her ice cream.
The next day, Sunday now, we headed to Mount Pleasant, SC to see our good friends Liz and Rob (and Andrew too) and to be in place to see the eclipse on Monday, Aug 21. August 20 is actually my dad's birthday, but he encouraged us to get on the road early to avoid as much crazy eclipse traffic as possible.
Here we are with our wonderful friends on the dock at Liz's parents house. Jeff and I are sporting our cool eclipse glasses.
The difference between the almost total eclipse that folks in our neck of the woods saw and the actual total eclipse that we got to see is amazing. I really worried that we were going to a lot of trouble for that last 2%....AND I AM SO GLAD THAT WE DID!
This is looking across Charleston Harbor from the Prioleau's dock to Sullivan's Island. Notice the lights coming on over there.
Photo credit to Liz for this one.
COMPLETELY worth missing work and being crazy behind the rest of this week.
I know that this blog is supposed to be about pottery, but this was too awesome not to share. It also explains a little bit why I've not had much pottery to share.
I managed to get back to the studio a little bit on Thursday evening, a few hours Friday evening, and I was there all day today (Saturday). My task for this weekend was glazing.
I had so much bisque ware that it wouldn't all fit on the glazing table. After 6 hours in the studio today, I have all but three pieces glazed, and the kiln is loaded up with #1 of two glaze fires. My plan is to unload Monday after work and put the rest of the pieces in and fire them Monday night. Here's hoping that my plan works.
So what pressure is it that I'm feeling you ask? The pressure of getting all this done before classes start "for real" for me on Monday. I only have one "normal" class on the CCC campus this semester because the other 3 classes are all at Shelby High School. I'll be there first and fourth period every day and I am very nervous about how it is going to go with all the driving back and forth between campuses. This beginning-of-school-I-can't-possibly-do-all-that-I'm-supposed-to-do feeling is nothing new. I do this every year. This time though, it is intensified by the fact that I'm going to be having surgery on my foot on Thursday. It's minor surgery and nothing to worry about, but I am missing two days of school the first week and that makes me really nervous. I'm also not sure how long I'll be out of commission pottery-wise, so I really want to get things wrapped up before Thursday. So there's THAT pressure too.
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