The Well Dressed Potter

When considering what to wear to the studio, comfort and function are the only real guidelines for the lonely potter. This is especially important for him, as he tends to forget about time when his is creating, often for hours on end,  and usually pays a painful price the next day.

 The first thing we bought for the lonely potter was a comfortable pair of shoes. The studio floor is heated, but it is concrete, and he needed something that would protect his feet, ankles, and knees from that unforgiving surface. The shoes were good, but not great, so the next thing was a set of new fangled inserts for the shoes, that would, they said, correct his incorrect gate and posture. Walking, despite what you may think, is not as easy as it looks. Standing is even more problematic. Despite the fancy shoes and inserts,  a long day in the studio can still produce painful results, but it does help, so it is worth the expense and the effort.  As you can see, these are well used. I still don't have a deal with the manufacturers of these items, so I won't give the names here. If you want to know what these products are, drop me a line.

The next thing was an apron. Playing with mud is a messy business, and washing clothes every night goes against the economically and environmentally minded lonely potter's values. So, with size and design provided by the lonely potter, two aprons were produced. They're not perfect (nothing ever is) but  good enough to get covered in clay and glaze and protect his other clothes from permanent damage.

The final essential item is the face mask, used when the lonely potter is mixing glazes. I don't have a picture of his mask, but let me assure you  it was not inexpensive, and it took some serious shopping to find the right one. The mask has to fit right and it has to be able to filter out very fine particulate. Even "safe"glazes are made of many minerals and chemicals that you just don't want to breath in, at least in the powder form. Once they are mixed with water they are easier to handle, but then if the glaze is sprayed on, it's time to use a mask again! If you want to know which mask the lonely potter uses, just ask.

No matter what goes on underneath, a sturdy apron is a must for the lonely potter. Who knows, if it gets really hot this summer, that may be all he wears.  Along with his shoes and mask, of course
(Note to potters who do not have a wife to sew their apron - I could be convinced to sew one like the lonely potter's for you - but it'll cost about $40.00!  Love is not cheap.)

Now for Something Completely Different

What does an artist do when he needs inspiration? Travel to Paris and hang out on the Left Bank? Stow away on a ship bound for Tahiti? Not the lonely potter. He heads into the bush and starts clearing. And clearing. And clearing. As the dead and dying trees come down, sunlight gets to places it hasn't been for years, and new grass starts to show through the detritus. Maybe it's a metaphor for clearing the mind and getting a fresh start.

Winter took a break in February and forgot to come back until April, so for most of February and all of March, the lonely potter abandoned the pottery studio for the great outdoors, and set to work with his chainsaw. His goal was to create a park from an unkempt piece of land. There were other benefits, like lots of firewood put away for winters to come; sick little trees finding new life as fence poles; big, dead trees assigned to the sawmill, to be turned into boards and lumber; and, unexpectedly, a holiday from pain.

Maybe he was just too busy to think about pain, but there is no doubt that after six weeks of hard labour, he was sleeping better and moving easier than he has for years. Whatever has happened, it is wonderful. Maybe, with the sun shining in and the aches and pains of arthritis at bay, the studio will begin to look more appealing soon. Unless, of course, the sawmill, the fence mending, and the firewood spliting chores call their sirene calls, and the clay is forced to sit idle for a few more months.

What will the spring bring?

Christmas Comes Late

There are no children at the Lonely Potter's house, so Christmas tends to be focussed on food rather than gift giving. The Christmas of 2009 was no different. There were no wild scrambles to find the "just what I wanted" gift, no mountains of wrapping paper to recycle, just a peaceful enjoyment of good company, a beautiful tree, and, of course, excellent food. When the tree started to drop it's needles it was time to put away the Christmas decorations and get back to "normal", without having experienced "abnormal". Then, a few days before Valentine's Day, a box arrived that almost made up for the anticipation, excitement, ripping open of packages, and finally, the exclamations of delight we didn't experience at Christmas.

The Lonely Potter dislikes urban life so he has chosen to live just outside a small community, three hours drive from anything like a major centre and six hours from Vancouver. This creates some inconveniences, such as being unable to easily connect with other pottery people and being unable to shop for those special tools and supplies he needs to experiment and develop his own style of pottery. This has led to hours of trolling the internet, searching for really good pottery websites, with videos of other potters demonstrating their skills, and shopping sites from pottery suppliers. (Here is where, if I had a polular blog, I would put links to these sites, and you would click on them, and I might make a couple of dollars. Until more people start to read this blog, however, convincing them to pay me for sending customers their way might be a challenge. Instead, if you want any of their addresses, contact me and I will give them to you, but you have to promise to tell them who sent you!)

There is a pottery supplier that is like a potters' toyland, and  the box that arrived before Valentine's Day, was an order from there. It was a large box, packed full of wooden, metal and bamboo tools, brushes and decorations. It took about five minutes from the time this box arrived until it was unpacked, wrapping paper tossed aside and all the contents examined and exclaimed over. This was better than Christmas - these things had been wished for years ago, and each one held the promise of being able to try new things, to learn, and to, perhaps, find fulfilment.

For those of us who don't feel a rush of excitment when we discover a new tool or a better tool, this reaction may be hard to understand. The only comparison I can think of is in cooking. When I look at the collection of cooking implements we have accumulated over the years, I can't remember when or why any of them seemed important. To this day, I hardly ever use anything other than a sharp knife, a fork and a wooden spoon when I cook. Still, there is a feeling of security in knowing that, if I need to whisk, grate, or sieve, I can. I suppose it is the same for the lonely potter. As he becomes more comfortable with the basics of pottery, he begins to see new forms he would like to try, new shapes, textures and other variations. Perhaps, just by looking at a new tool, he can create a vision of what will, one day, become a piece of pottery. If a box full of tools can provide the inspiration he needs to enjoy pottery, I'll trade Christmas for pottery day any time.

Meanwhile, the pottery studio is starting to fill up, and the lonely potter is definitely making it his own.

Shelves and kiln packed with greenware, tools, paintbrushes... looks like a real pottey studio