Oh, the times they are a-changin'
If this was on display at a really great public art gallery, it would probably be cause of outcry in some quarters, and give rise to learned critical acclaim in others. Some would say, "my five year old child would do better then that!", or "how could that pile of old building timber be worth thousands of dollars?"
The building timber installation is the cause of some consternation in this household too. There are those of us who would assert that it is not actually art, or insist that, if it is art, it is not Good Art! The liberating thing is that, art or not, it will in time assist the making of it! You see, the timber is destined to become a large drying rack for freshly made pots. The consternation it has generated is mostly because the drying rack has to go somewhere, and that "Somewhere" has resulted in a complete rethink of how we use more than half of our building. Also that "Somewhere" has been a treasured place, hallowed ground, and that ground is not given up easily, and nor should it!
The Guardian of said "Hallowed Ground", is not an unreasonable force, and, it has to be stated, the change should, in the fullness of time, make possible better things for both of us. You could say that She is moving into the light, and I am going to the Dark Side...of the house that is!
Getting there is chaos. Getting there is painful. Getting there is messy!
And..., take a look at this. This is our bedroom!
We can't get in it anymore as it is full of stuff that needs to go somewhere whilst Somewhere is being created for it! Meantime, we are bedding down on the couch in the living room.
I have been drawing up plans, revising them, revising them again... I am up to the 9th revised standard version, and I think I am now close!
For those of you that may be interested, I use a programme called "Inkscape" for doing plans and all sorts of other useful things. It is great for cards, adverts, posters, you name it! The programme is open source, free, and really great to use.
I am running a Linux operating system, currently pclinuxos http://www.pclinuxos.com, having moved away from Windows several year's ago, but there are versions of Inkscape available for Windows and Mac at http://www.inkscape.org Prior to moving to Inkscape, I used Open Office Draw for similar projects. Open Office Draw is part of the wonderful Open Office office suite which is freely available for Windows, Linux, Solaris, and Mac. http://www.openoffice.org
Just to show I haven't quite forgotten about potting, here are some jug shots! The jugs are some that I currently have got on display at the Stuart Street Potter's Co-operative in Dunedin.
Comments
That sounds like a cool program and I will check it out.
Your pots are beautiful, You can actually see some of the room in the reflection and possibly that figure is you.
Hope it all comes together for you soon.
"frustrating", "maddening", you are quite right, but it is self inflicted. Laura says that I "always" have a big change around or demolish a wall after an exhibition! The "coppery glaze" is a shino glaze that can come out really coppery in my wood fired kiln. It seems to get more lustered every time I fire the kiln, so I do wonder if the accumulation of natural ash glaze on the fire bricks of the kiln becomes volatile at high temperatures and assists glazing the pots. The room is reflected in the pots and... that blurry figure is me, although the curvature of the pots do rather strange things to my reflected appearence!
Inkscape is a great programme, if you do install it Patti, do let me know how you get on. I might be able to point you to some guides on using it, or give you a few pointers myself.
(I intended to write helps about some programmes in my Linux helps blog, but have so far not had time (or organised myself well enough) to get that done. It may happen though!).
Must get to work now..., I'm going to put some vinyl down on the floor in one of the studio rooms, so we can keep it more dust free.
Best Wishes, Peter
The jugs are beautiful!
Hope all is well.
Pat
I gather from the boffins on the radio that Dunedin has moved about half an inch closer to Australia, and parts of NZ that were nearer the epicentre of the quake moved more than 4 inches closer, which is a lot in only 2 minutes of activity.
The quake was a long, slow rolling one which was very fortunate as it released its energy gradually. If it had been more abrupt there would have been a very different outcome as the quake was of a very large magnitude.
My first clue that anything was happening was when a pot plant started to shiver, then my computer screen began shaking and lights starting to swing, and something loose in the attic began to thump. Laura had fallen asleep in a chair and, I finally decided to wake her as the quake gradually increased in severity, as her chair was near a window. Poor soul was a little shocked to find the place on the move when she woke.
Earthquakes are very strange things to experience, they are so much outside our control. When they begin, there is no indication as to how long they will go on for, or if they will get progressively worse, or fade away. We do wonder how we will manage in a really bad one, as our building is brick and built on what was a swamp (not a good combination!), but the old place is nearly 102 years old, so it has done well so far!
Best Wishes,
Peter and Laura