primalmommy on fri 5 aug 05
Elizabeth, my mom came of age in the 50s. Her dream WAS children. From
baby dolls to baby brother to wedding-dress-paper-dolls to homecoming
queen to marrying the cute boy from a nice part of town, it was all
about being a mommy one day.
She did a good job, in a June Cleaverish sort of way, but when we left
for college when she was my age and she and had no purpose anymore. She
was absolutely lost. (Happy ending, she trained and became and art
museum docent, and life went well from there -- but I remember when she
was miserable, thinking, "That's not gonna be me".)
(Of course, I was never going to marry, or have kids, or own anything
that didn't fit in my duffel bag. I was headed for Tibet and India and
Africa and Japan, as a National Geographic photographer or something...)
I could never write my life in a couple of paragraphs. I'm too wordy,
and would trip over too many side stories that wanted telling. Potter
life though: that's easy. My arty aunt had a kiln, let me make little
critters when I was small, and glaze them. I still have them in my
studio for good luck. Later, at Ohio State University, I joined some
kind of clay club, set up a little workspace in a spare room in my funky
old brick townhouse on high street. At U of Oregon, doing a masters in
Folklore/Anthro/Fine arts, I took classes from George Kokis. (Masters
thesis: occupational culture and regional identity as expressed in
rodeos, tractor pulls and timber carnivals.) I worked as a folklorist
after that, moving from grant to grant, documenting North Carolina coon
hunters, moonshiners and tugboat men, and later South Carolina's AME
gospel tradition, Chesapeake bay crabbers and oystermen, Maryland's
Amish and century farms. No time or place for clay.
And I never had any brakes. From the time I left home at 19 to the time
I married at 29, I had no roomies, no worries, no commitments and no
fear. I rolled in life like a beagle rolls in a dead thing. Wild
romances, altered states, wilderness camping, political rallies, jumping
off waterfalls, grateful dead shows, whitewater rafting, whatever I did
I over-did. I managed to get OK grades but my dad had sent me off with
Mark Twain's admonition: "Don't let too much studying get in the way of
your education". I had an apartment in Paris for a spring and summer, a
sweetheart with a motorcycle in Italy, hung out in Amsterdam. I hung
with the loggers and cowboys in Oregon, cooked in an off-the-grid log
cabin in the Blue mountains for elk hunters. (I'm a good skinner).
OK, that's two paragraphs already and I'm not even married yet. Jeff was
the bartender in a place called Paddy's Hollow in Wilmington, NC's
Cotton Exchange. Some of the tugboat men I interviewed hung out there,
and I usually came in for dinner on my way home from the green swamp. I
had surf fishing rods and tiki torches tied to the roof rack of my
Bronco, cowboy boots (for snakes) and a boot knife. Fast forward: Jeff
and I took off for Clear Lake, Texas, where he worked on a research
vessel in the gulf. I sold roses form a cart, bought a little kiln and
made pots at the kitchen table. We got engaged. A year later, married,
we headed for Maryland, and I built myself a potter's wheel from a
picture in a Reader's Digest book. The first pot I ever threw was on
that wheel, in 1990.
The rest is history. We moved to my hometown of Toledo, Ohio to have
kids, so they could have grandparent/aunts/uncles nearby. When I was
pregnant with my 9 year old we built my studio, a 12X24 shed facing the
veggie garden, back to back with my garage. I shingled it it myself. I
have 2 kicks and 3 electrics, 2 evenheat kilns, a raku kiln, extruder,
slab roller and (woohoo!) a new 1976 bluebird, all scrounged second hand
or paid for with studio/teaching profits. My kids are 11, 9 and 7 and
can manage their chores and homeschooling pretty independently, which
gives me more time in the studio. I have no questions about where my
energy will go when they leave for college. I will not be 40-something,
though, like my mom. I will be almost 60.
I still have no brakes. I have been in the studio on an off
allafternooon, then from dinnertime until 3 or 4 am every night for four
nights, and am in the same ragged condition I was in after NCECA from
sleep deprivation (Nan and Steph's fault.) . I have one kiln of bisque
and one of glaze full at all times, three tables set up on the studio
deck with stuff to trim, stuff to wax, stuff to glaze. If it rains on my
one day of craft fair in a few weeks, I am going to have to build a barn
to house all these pots. (Not considering the possibility that the sun
will shine but nobody will buy any.)
Tonight the old candle-at-both-ends routine got to be too much and I
quit at midnight. I had loaded the biggest kiln -- three layers of
shelves, packed -- and then dropped a tool in the kiln, tired and
clumsy, and had to unload the whole thing again. Time for me to go to
bed.. and sleep in tomorrow.
Yours
Kelly in Ohio
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claybair on sat 6 aug 05
Kelly,
You need to get one of my favorite tools!
I don't know the name of it but have used it to retrieve
kiln sitter cones/bars etc. that have fallen into my loaded
kiln without having to empty it.
It's a long spring (at least 2 ft) with a syringe like end. You press the
that end and out the other end comes the little grabber wires like a little
hand
& grabs the errant tool/cone/whatever. I love this tool!!!! It has saved me
several times! Of course the dropped item has to be visible so you can get
it.
I get them at the dollar store but have seen them at auto stores too.
Gayle Bair
Bainbridge Island, WA
Tucson, AZ
http://claybair.com
-----Original Message-----
From: Clayart primalmommy
snip<
Tonight the old candle-at-both-ends routine got to be too much and I
quit at midnight. I had loaded the biggest kiln -- three layers of
shelves, packed -- and then dropped a tool in the kiln, tired and
clumsy, and had to unload the whole thing again. Time for me to go to
bed.. and sleep in tomorrow.
Yours
Kelly in Ohio
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Overall's on mon 8 aug 05
Kelly,
You are my heroine
And there ain't too many of them.
My mom and my sister are the first two.
Firstly, I love the way you write.
Now I learnt you were in Clear Lake, Texas!
Hell,
That's right near besides me.
Cool.
Guess I'll have to mosey up north one day.
Kim Overall
Houston, TX
http://www.houstonpotters.com
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