Musica

Apr. 28th, 2025 10:30 pm
offcntr: (radiobear)
It's been just over ten years since I retired from my radio show; for those who joined me more recently, I hosted a folk/singer-songwriter program called The Saturday Cafe on KLCC public radio in Eugene for 25 years, from 1990 to 2015. I still get five or six emails from musicians every year, touting their new releases. I generally reply asking them to contact the station (and take me off their mailing list). Most of the folks I worked with have since retired; I don't have any personal contacts there anymore.

So I was surprised to get an envelope in the mail from KLCC last week. The address was hand-written, so I didn't think it was a fundraising pitch. Opened it to find another envelope within, addressed to "Frank Gosar (Folk)" at the station address. From CUBA.

Inside was this half-page letter; It's been 45 years since my college Spanish, so I'm not at all sure what he's saying. Is he offering to send me a CD? It seems to be "Cuban Love Rock Metal Punk, Heavy, Thrash, Doom, [Gothic?], Death."

Certainly not folk.

offcntr: (chinatown bear)
Good afternoon, Mr. Gosar

I heard your interview on Productivity Alchemy with Kevin Sonney. If you have a moment, I have a question about worn pottery glazing on a finished bowl.

I have a finished bowl that I believe is stoneware. It belonged to my great-grandmother. It was one of her mixing bowls. And it is a well-used, well-loved mixing bowl.

The glaze around the rim of the bowl has been worn away from years of use. Is it still safe to use the bowl? Should I try to have it reglazed? Or should I use it as a display bowl?

Thank you for your time,

~xxxxxx


Hi xxxxxx!

Greetings to another Productivity Alchemy listener!

If the bowl is indeed stoneware, worn glaze is not a concern. Stoneware, even when unglazed, is waterproof, so there shouldn't be any absorption of liquid into the bowl.

That said, it's possible that the bowl was never glazed there at all. If the design is like this one that I inherited from my great-aunt, the top and bottom of the rim were left unglazed, so the potter could stack them one on top of another, with the foot of the bowl suspended inside the one beneath. This saved on kiln space, both because the ware could be so closely packed and because they didn't need to use as many shelves and posts in the stack. A lot of crocks have a similar design, with no glaze on the top of the rim nor on the outside edge of the bottom, for the same reason.

A clever potter could stack his kiln floor to ceiling, no kiln furniture needed, with pots designed this way.

I'll have to look in on your blog next week, while I'm firing *my* kiln.

Frank

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