Sunday, July 11, 2010

All Work and No Play...

makes Kari cranky! Every day since Tuesday, I've been in the studio, making wine bottle coasters and teardrops (photos later). My back hurts. I'm tired of slaving away. I'm out of ware boards. And I'm pretty certain that I'll need to buy some shelves for the electric kiln just to get all this work bisqued. And with a show coming up, I need to buy another canopy to replace the one that was "misplaced" by the friend to whom I leant it. Actually, her soon-to-be ex stole it. Oh well, shit happens.


Last weekend, after I got home from the beach, I found Jay shovelling a trench around his garage. There is no drainage, and everything inside has been slowly molding: camping equipment, fishing gear, tools. Yup, tools. These are the things that mean something to him. The trench is narrow and the dirt must be removed by 5 gallon bucket. It's another dream home improvement project that could have been completely avoided had the original owners done it right to begin with.

Anyway, Jay removed three small evergreens in front of the garage so that he could maneuver. Behind the stumps we found a boneyard. From the contents, it looks like Elizabeth's. She was the previous potter here, between the Craven's and us. I'm not sure how long she worked here, but she left buckets of unlabelled glazes, multiple shelves of shoddy bisqueware and apparently a boneyard to rival that of a potter with twice her years worth of work. I raked up 4 boxes of broken pottery and added to them several broken Craven pieces. It was another exercise in ownership.
Personally, I don't believe in boneyards. I will not live forever, and someone will be left to deal with my unwanted pots. I hammer up my rejects and with deep regret include them with my household trash. If anyone has a better solution, I'm all ears. I just look at a boneyard like composting by tossing apple cores and onion peels straight into the backyard. It's just not the right thing to do.

What do you do with your rejects?

2 comments:

  1. If mine are fired I send them to the dump; but I wonder if one of those concrete recycle plants would take them? or someone wanting clean fill, they would make good drainage rock in ditches if they were chopped up. Seems like every house we've moved to drainage hasn't been addressed properly. so far this house is ok, but many we have had to shovel in tight spaces just like you describe. Ugh, what a pain. bummer you don't have your tent; What type of tent are you going to get? I saw one at a show today that I loved, but it was expensive but nice. I have an ez up now. What type of shelves do you stack your work on? I'm looking to improve the look of my booth with some height, rather than my low tables.

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  2. I smash up the shards and use them decoratively, mosaics on the ugly concrete well covers, shards around the gas hook up thingy, and then there are little weird sculptures all along the trails behind our house, and a bone yard. Have a good week!!!

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