Finals week

School's almost out. . . I have 3 exams to give and a final class meeting with the campaigns class (we'll have pizza and give out fun awards), plus a stack of papers to grade. Saturday is graduation. It's not coming quickly enough.

I have a potential buyer for the house. We're negotiating now. I hope this comes through -- it would mean that I don't have to go through a realtor.

I'm meeting friends at the Susquehanna Music and Arts Festival in Darlington, MD, weekend after next. Should be a nice get-away, and this will likely be the last time I see them before I go to Germany in June.

Cowboy Chunky

Friend Kim sent this photo of her cat Cali, affectionately known as Chunky. This is Chunky's Halloween costume. After she had the costume on for a while, Kim & husband Wayne tried to take it off but Chunky wouldn't let them! She loves being dressed up, and she loves it when they put ribbons in her hair. What a drama queen!

Ocean views

I picked up the rest of my ceramic pieces at the museum last night, then had sushi and beer at the local sushi joint with a couple of classmates.

These are my two favorite pieces from the entire 10-week class. I've worried for the past week about whether they'd actually come out or not. I thought I'd made some mistakes with the glazes, and you've seen where that can get me. Actually, I was just concerned that the white glaze was going to bleed because it was so thick, and that this would cause problems in the kiln.

These two pieces don't have names yet, but they're part of my ocean series. I love the way the "watery blue" glaze pools at the bottom of a piece. It's such a thin glaze that we can only use it on the inside of pieces -- otherwise it would run onto the kiln.

The class was such a nice escape over the last semester. I'll miss it now that it's over.

Glazes gone terribly, terribly wrong

Glaze can make or break a ceramic piece. It can make an amateurish piece beautiful or a lovely piece completely unappealing. Here we have the worst-case scenario -- a perfectly amateurish piece turned into Gawdawful by the mix of glazes.

10 days and counting

So much is going on.

Clio started acting weird late last week, and I finally realized that she appeared to be in heat. I called the vet, who said that when they terminate a pregnancy and spay them at the same time (which is what he did last summer), sometimes it's difficult to get all of the uterine (ovarian?) tissue out. This causes heat-like behavior. Her crying and screeching and other behaviors have driven me nuts. I took her to the vet on Monday, and he opened her up to finish the spaying (gratis, thankfully). She's recovering now.

My ceramics class is over. Tonight I get to pick up my pieces that came out of the kiln earlier in the week. A couple of them are designs I really like, but I'm afraid that there may have been problems with the glaze and that they won't turn out. I won't go into detail, but there's good reason for these worries (my own missteps). I'll find out in a few hours.

This is the last week of classes, and graduation is May 5. I can't wait. If it's possible, I'm more ready for this than my students.

Tomorrow my campaigns students will give their presentation to the client, the local food bank, for whom they raised $10,000 at Empty Bowls. Most of the students have lost what little motivation they had, so the presentation is likely to be marginal at best. According to the campaign coordinator, the others don't think a poor presentation will affect their grades. Wrong, bucko!

I have so, so many papers to grade, two exams to write and give and grade, an awards ceremony to attend, grades to calculate and post, and graduation to attend. Then it'll finally be over.

THEN comes trying to sell the house, taking more unwanted/unused stuff to Goodwill and the consignment store, finding a home for the cats. My new job starts in Germany on June 25, so I have much to do between now and then.

Save the planet!

I just heard about a company called GreenDimes that does a couple of great things for you for a $36/year membership fee. It will help you cut down the junk mail that comes to your house by a huge amount, and it plants a tree for you every month.

According to the Web site:

"Unbelievably, we [humans] chop down 100,000,000 trees and waste 28 billion gallons of water EVERY YEAR producing this stuff [junk mail]. Most of this goes straight to the trash or recycling bin. For a dime-a-day, GreenDimes will reduce the marketing at your home, help you maintain your privacy and plant a bunch of trees on your behalf."

Yes, this is a for-profit company. But it's doing great things to help people go green. Read more about GreenDimes on the livegreen blog.

Everybody loves Sun Yat-Sen

My friend Tina (Nien Chiang) sent the link for her husband's, Wen Hung's, video on YouTube. This was taken in their neighborhood in Taipei. I hope he'll post more videos -- Taipei's a wonderful city, and Taiwan has many beautiful sites.

How many miles from home?

Sometime in the wee hours of the morning, friend Doug sent to me one of those e-mails where there are a bunch of questions that the sender has answered. As a recipient, I'm supposed to add my own answers and send this on to others.

One of the questions was "What's the furthest you've been from home?" I first had to determine where is "home." I don't have feel like I have one, really, having lived in a number of places I like. And then comes the question of how to measure the miles.

I went to a Web site I love called WorldAtlas.com and found a link to a site that gives mileage between two points. I used Cincinnati, OH, since I doubted it would recognize Podunk, WV. The furthest I've been was about 8,000 miles -- to Hong Kong. Doug had been 9,000 (California to Sri Lanka).

So guys, remember this: Where I'll be in Germany (near Nuernberg) is just 4700 miles, give or take a few hundred depending on where in the US you may be. I'll expect to see you there at some point. jk considered swimming for her next European trip, but I think she finally decided there are better ways to get there.

Roiling Ocean

I miss Okinawa, and what I miss most is the ocean. I lived about 200 yards from the ocean and therefore saw it every day. Many weekends over my last year there, I was out scuba diving when weather permitted.

Some of my strongest scuba memories are of working hard to get in and out of the water as the waves pushed against the dead reef I was trying to negotiate. At this particular location where I dove a number of times, I was always lucky enough to be with one or more strong Marines who could help me to my feet. I could not have done this on my own, as the great Pacific Ocean is truly a force of nature.

My latest ceramic creation is titled, "Roiling Ocean," in honor of the Pacific in all her power and glory. I have experienced the power firsthand, and I'm in awe.

A sad, sad day

Talking about the shootings at Virginia Tech first thing this morning is unpalatable, but it seems awfully insensitive not to. As a college-level instructor myself, I think about my own campus, try to imagine the horror of such an event, and wonder if any of my students are capable of such madness.

This is the end of the semester and the school year, a time when tension is high and students are wondering how much further they'll have to push themselves to get through with passing grades. I heard about the shootings yesterday just after getting out of class. The death toll at that time was about 30, and one of my first thoughts was that that's the number of students in the class I just walked out of.

The impact of such a tragedy is phenomenonal. Think of the families and friends of all of the dead and wounded, the 26,000-36,000 students on campus, plus the faculty and staff and the townspeople. Already we're way up in the thousands.

I just talked about crisis communications in my two classes yesterday, and my thoughts were of another school crisis 10 years ago, Columbine. I clearly remember talking about that in classes right after that occurred, too, and how disturbed the students were by watching some of the news reports in class and discussing the crisis communications involved. Students don't always like talking about such events in class when they hit so close to home. But they need to know that something like this could happen here or in their internship or summer job. . . or anywhere.

Back in the saddle

Yikes. It's been a while. I've had some nasty cold-but-worse virus for the past 10 days, and today was the first day I've felt completely human. In the midst of the virus came classes, advising, and a lot of extra time spent on my students' Empty Bowls project.

Despite going down a very bumpy road, it was very much a success. Patrons came to a local church and paid $10 for a handmade ceramic bowl and a soup kitchen-style lunch. It was a resounding success. They raised about $9,600 for the local food bank.

We actually had bowls left over this year, and many were to be sold at a couple of churches this weekend and the rest (we hope) at the art students' annual ceramics sale later this week. The total could potentially end up being $10,500-11,000. I'm hoping for the best.

Graduation is May 5. I can't wait.

Ceramics or pottery?

A friend wanted to know what is the difference between ceramics and pottery and about the creation process, and she was confused when I brought the word "clay" into the discussion. I asked my trusty friend Karal, who is a potter, since I'm a beginner and still learning the lingo and the methods.

So here's the deal. Everything starts out as clay, whether it's porcelain, stoneware, earthenware or some other type of clay, it's all still clay.

The basic process is to throw or build your piece, then let it dry or partially dry, trim it (smooth the rough edges, perhaps make a foot on it, etc.), then let it dry some more.

The piece gets bisque fired. Then the bottom and about 1/4 inch up the side is waxed with a liquid wax that dries quickly so that glaze doesn't go all the way to the base when the piece is fired in the kiln. Glaze is rather glass-like, and if it reaches the shelf, the piece often has to be knocked off the shelf with a hammer. And yes, the piece will often break. Even if it doesn't, the bottom can be a mess and the piece may not be worth salvaging.

After waxing, glaze (usually color and coating) is added. The basic method is to use tongs and dunk the piece in a large can or barrel of glaze, then set the piece on its base to dry. This just takes a few minutes. Then the piece may go back into the kiln for the final firing.

There are many different glaze colors, and people get the "recipes" and mix them to a certain consistency (adding water if too thick, for instance). There's a real science to it. Classes are taught on glazes alone.

Firing is something of an art -- some glazes are fired at Cone 6 and others at other numbers (I don't know what they mean yet). Kilns may be set at different temperatures, and there are different types of kilns (gas, electric, maybe others, too). The ones I've seen vary in size and could probably hold at least 60-100+ soup bowls, for example. Pieces that have been dunked in glaze may sit for several days or longer before fired. They're not necessarily fired immediately, nor do they have to be.

That finished piece may be called ceramic or pottery, and the person who created it may be called a ceramicist or potter. It's really just a personal preference.

I've just described the most basic method of creating a basic piece such as a bowl or pot, but please know there are many variations in the creation, firing and coloring/glazing processes. It's far more complicated than I ever dreamt. . . and more interesting, too.

Some of my creations

These are some of the pieces I created in the ceramics class and at the ceramics lab at school. The professor loved the design of the tenmoku box so much that she was inspired to create her own. High praise from an accomplished ceramicist. By the way, tenmoku is the name of the glaze -- I'm referring to the dark brown, distorted piece with brownish-orange edges.

Welcome to my new addiction

Last year about this time I got to make my first-ever piece of pottery. It's not very attractive, but I love the glaze and will hold on to it. It is not the piece shown here. I swore that I'd take a class some day. I finally took one at the art museum this spring with the artist-in-residence. The photo is of one of my new pinch pots.

I was frustrated on the wheel. Because the class had students at all levels, I really didn't get much individual attention, nor did the instructor spend much time giving beginning instruction. She was great in so many ways, so I'm not going to complain.

I decided to chuck the wheel and go for hand building. I'll take a true beginner's class later.

I spent about 6 out of 10 classes hand building and enjoyed it more and more with each class. I was free to try anything I wanted, and the instructor would answer any questions I had. Once pieces were bisque fired, I could start to see places where I could improve my technique, such as ensuring that the entire piece had a uniform thickness and getting rid of sharp edges.

Because my own students are working on the Empty Bowls campaign and the ceramics prof and her students at school are working madly to produce 1,000 bowls, I started spending some time at the ceramics lab, too, as I'm friends with the prof and an older student.

I'm starting to love creating with clay and am sorry that the class and the semester are almost over. I'll have to find a way to take another class very soon.

Clio here

Hi. M's working again, so I thought I'd take this opportunity to introduce myself and to complain about M a bit.

She keeps trying to get me to be cuddly like Pumpkin. She doesn't realize that I was sent here to protect her, and Pumpkin was sent here to love her. I don't want to snuggle, and I don't want to be held in her arms. I sleep near her head at night to keep the gremlins away, and I awaken at her feet in the morning, ever vigilant against evil that lurks just beyond the bedscape in dreamworld.

She thinks, "Oh poor little Clio, wayward girl who was living on the streets and who came here pregnant and unwanted." She doesn't know that that was all a ruse to get her to feel sorry for me and eventually love me, which she does. I'm not here to cuddle, and she needs to get over it.

She also needs to live up to her end of the deal. I protect her, and she's supposed to play with me morning, noon and night when I'm not in protection mode. But she skimps and plays the same old games. Will she ever come around?