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Sunday in the studio
Oct. 27th, 2014 09:38 pmI spent Saturday morning mixing glaze and setting out brushes, to start glazing Sunday. Slow day, 12 pie plates and six batter bowls. Here's some of the art:
Oct. 27th, 2014
Ferry tale
Oct. 27th, 2014 09:49 pmOn the road today, delivering pots to a gallery. Not my favorite thing--it always feels like I could be more productive at home making pots, or, in today's case, glazing them. But I set my glaze firing back a couple of days to have time to get Valley Arts Gallery stocked for their November opening, so that's today's project. Besides, it's the only day this week without rain in the forecast, and I need to open pottery boxes in the carport to sort, choose, re-sticker.
I was actually ready to leave a little after 10 am--after I'd picked out bowls and mugs, I hit lucky and found a box of pots from my last firing that had everything else I needed: pie plates, pastas, squared bakers in both sizes. I figured I'd be in Forest Grove in time for lunch, back mid-afternoon to cool the bisque kiln and reload with newly dry pots.
Oh foolish, foolish man.
West central Oregon is a mess for driving. If it's not right on I-5, you're not going to get there anytime soon. The most direct route to where I was going involves driving to the southern suburbs of Portland, and then left-turning into a horrific expanse of urban sprawl, fast-food strips, and auto dealerships. At forty miles per hour, with stoplights.
So I was delighted when my Garmin satellite navigator, who we named Kerensky (after a character in a scifi novel), proposed a different route. It took me off of the interstate just north of Salem, in the little town of Brooks, then wound me through the streets to the railroad crossing. That's when I started to get a bad feeling.
Kerensky has this thing about boats, you see, ferry boats, in particular. He likes to include them in the trip. Whether you want them or not. Whenever I deliver work to a gallery in Indepence, Oregon, he tries to take me across the Willamette on the Buena Vista ferry, which is only rarely running. This summer, when we stayed in Oak Harbor, Washington while attending the Anacortes Arts Festival, he wanted us to take the Mukilteo Ferry to the south end of Whidbey Island when there's a perfectly good bridge from Anacortes on the north end. We had to turn the darn thing off for a good twenty miles so he'd stop telling us to take the next exit and u-turn back down I-5 again.
So when I got to Brooks and knew I was well north of Buena Vista, I was looking forward to a leisurely drive through the autumn countryside, all grapevines and orchards and nurseries. And then, while waiting for a very short, but very slow train to clear the crossing, I saw a sign that read "Wheatland Ferry. No service Thanksgiving or Christmas." And hinged to the bottom, in eight inch letters, "CLOSED."
Oh, hell no. I went through the intersection, drove a mile to the next turn, and saw "Wheatland Ferry Road" flash on the screen. So I doubled back to the rail crossing, where the train was going through again, the other direction. Got out my phone and asked Google Maps for its opinion.
Google Maps obliged with a cross-country route with about 400 distinct steps, starting with the Woodburn exit. After I was safely away from the ferry, I turned Kerensky back on and let them squabble about the route, the rest of the way there….
I was actually ready to leave a little after 10 am--after I'd picked out bowls and mugs, I hit lucky and found a box of pots from my last firing that had everything else I needed: pie plates, pastas, squared bakers in both sizes. I figured I'd be in Forest Grove in time for lunch, back mid-afternoon to cool the bisque kiln and reload with newly dry pots.
Oh foolish, foolish man.
West central Oregon is a mess for driving. If it's not right on I-5, you're not going to get there anytime soon. The most direct route to where I was going involves driving to the southern suburbs of Portland, and then left-turning into a horrific expanse of urban sprawl, fast-food strips, and auto dealerships. At forty miles per hour, with stoplights.
So I was delighted when my Garmin satellite navigator, who we named Kerensky (after a character in a scifi novel), proposed a different route. It took me off of the interstate just north of Salem, in the little town of Brooks, then wound me through the streets to the railroad crossing. That's when I started to get a bad feeling.
Kerensky has this thing about boats, you see, ferry boats, in particular. He likes to include them in the trip. Whether you want them or not. Whenever I deliver work to a gallery in Indepence, Oregon, he tries to take me across the Willamette on the Buena Vista ferry, which is only rarely running. This summer, when we stayed in Oak Harbor, Washington while attending the Anacortes Arts Festival, he wanted us to take the Mukilteo Ferry to the south end of Whidbey Island when there's a perfectly good bridge from Anacortes on the north end. We had to turn the darn thing off for a good twenty miles so he'd stop telling us to take the next exit and u-turn back down I-5 again.
So when I got to Brooks and knew I was well north of Buena Vista, I was looking forward to a leisurely drive through the autumn countryside, all grapevines and orchards and nurseries. And then, while waiting for a very short, but very slow train to clear the crossing, I saw a sign that read "Wheatland Ferry. No service Thanksgiving or Christmas." And hinged to the bottom, in eight inch letters, "CLOSED."
Oh, hell no. I went through the intersection, drove a mile to the next turn, and saw "Wheatland Ferry Road" flash on the screen. So I doubled back to the rail crossing, where the train was going through again, the other direction. Got out my phone and asked Google Maps for its opinion.
Google Maps obliged with a cross-country route with about 400 distinct steps, starting with the Woodburn exit. After I was safely away from the ferry, I turned Kerensky back on and let them squabble about the route, the rest of the way there….