Futility Now

I continue to make things.  There’s been a brief lull between the end of one class and the beginning of another, but in the meantime I’ve become a working partner here (effective yesterday) & this is making me feel like a real *cough* artist.

Today was the Miller luncheon and the 26 of us lucky ducks plus our principals were showered with cupcakes and money.  I am very grateful to the board for conceiving of a project that supports teachers in this way, and I also think the gift is prescient for me in particular because of where I’m at in my learning/production/inspiration curve.  By which I mean I won’t fritter it all away humdrumming my fingers and feeling insecure.  A little more about clay and then some other things:

I actually made something with a large enough opening to be used for… well, something.  The gloss on this glaze is lovely, but I think it was not the right choice in this case.  It obscures the texture at the edge to the point that it (the texture) reads as accidental.

It’s hard to know what to do with projects that I don’t necessarily want to keep or feature as part of my (eventual) portfolio.  Giving them away is kind of disingenuous — “here, take my castoff, it’s lovely still, of course, of course.”  Maybe I will open a secret etsy shop that’s just the derelicts and sell them for small amounts & use the money for supplies for my students who can’t afford them.

Telling you about it here was probably not a great way to start it out as a secret.

While it’s only been since last summer that I’ve been working with clay steadily, I did handbuild during 06-07, the year I first started teaching.  Before that point, I hadn’t touched raw clay since I was in 3rd or 4th grade.  So I was very near my students in terms of (lack of) technique, although my background with architecture, drawing, and fibers of many sorts meant that I had a reasonable lexicon and quite impressive fine motor skills and could bluff the rest.  And I did.

06 was also the year that I met jmags, and we began our cross-continental romance.  The white heart was my first real project with clay, and I sent it out to him in the fall for his birthday (before I’d even made the trip once myself).  It finally made it home when he moved to Portland last winter.

Food.  I haven’t been covering this very well.  It’s not that I haven’t been cooking, I’ve just mainly been sticking with roasting things with lots of olive oil and sea salt.  But I do have a project coming up that should make for some excellent photos.  As part of our preparation for getting a house, we’re going to be having a garage & bake sale the last weekend in May. Our hope is to shed some unwanted belongings while spreading sugary cheer and bolstering our down-payment fund.  My very good friend, whose cooking I happily admit far outshines my own (she of the pavlova, the beef-heart, and the roasted tomatoes), is going to contribute a tray of delicious snacks, too.  Right now my tentative menu features Mexican chocolate brownies, limeade, parmesan popcorn, and coffeecake (which means there really should be coffee, too).

But.

There’s this thing we haven’t really brought up on FN yet.  And that’s that our whole house-hunting and buying process is going to be filmed for television, for a show called “My First Place” on HGTV.  I know, weird, kind of cool, definitely weird, asked for it to happen so must want it, even if you feel a little strange about it, right?  And they will be at our garage/bake sale, too, filming our earnest boot-strap pulling.  So it kind of needs to be a success.

Also.

I have to commit to a hairstyle between now and the end of September, for the same reason. For TV continuity.  I know that has nothing to do with the bake sale, but cognitive leaps are just that, and now I’m thinking about the particular state of my hair.  It’s very different these days.  When I post a photo, you’ll see.

Our first film shoot is the 12th, so there isn’t much time to sort this out.  Most likely not the thing I should be worried about as a part of the home-buying process, but it’s better than endlessly trolling RMLS.