500!

Hey All, 

I return! It has been a heck of a week, I've missed you all and I am glad to be back. Thanks to everyone for their kind wishes, I didn't have Swine Flu, just the normal, early school year plague. It set in Sunday, the day after the move. I could feel it creeping as Rose, Dan and I were working on the electrical. By Monday morning it kicked in full steam, and I made the mistake of going into work anyway. I did not treat my recovery properly and I paid the price. You see, we had a company come into town that we are doing research for. They scheduled to be here all week and it was my responsibility to work with them on the project. So after being sent home on Monday after a few hours, I returned on Tuesday, and proceeded to work very hard on this project for the next 4 days. Needless to say, the cold possibly got worse through the week. I made it out alive but I still can't shake some of the symptoms. The good news is that I was able to solve some problems that the company had been suffering from for months. 

The house is coming together well, We only have one room of stuff still in boxes. We still have lots of work, to do, but we got the wall paper stripped from two rooms, including the kitchen which was the worst offender. We still have a lot of spackle and paint to get to, all in good time. 

Also, I was asked to teach Freshman Foundations next semester. Oh Man! I am excited and having terrifying flashbacks all at the same time. I haven't been around foundations since my own horrifying experience. Any of those of you out there who went through Art School, will know what I am talking about. I have to keep telling myself, "You made it out alive." and "They are only kids, they can't hurt you..."



I am back to functional and doing everything I need to do to catch up, Like getting back to the blog. 

So quickly. 500. That's right. the list of ceramics blogs is now 500. Seriously. OMFG. You all out there love the clay!

The honor of the 500th blog goes to Niswander Ceramics. Congrats!

Niswander Blog is a newer blog started in September written by Laurie who is a potter and sculptor living in the Baltimore/DC area. So everyone stop by and give her some words of welcome.

Glad to be back!

I'm Still here

Hey All,
I just wanted to give a quick heads up. I'm still alive, but I'm a little rough around the edges.
We moved into the new house, and we couldn't have done it with out the help of Karen, Kyra, Janna, Dan, Corey and Claire. The all came in and made it a breeze. Except for when Kyra told us that we need to give us Ceramics and take up Origami while moving the studio (Not gonna happen). None the less, we are in and slowly unpacking and decoration, stripping wallpaper, and and fixing electrical problems (Thanks Dan!).

The bad news is that Mrs. Rose got sick late last week, and she recovered in time for the move. But I came down with her cold on Sunday, the day after the move. So I am a little out of it, and I am trying to get work done, so that maybe I can return home (...isn't that nice to say? Home....) and get some more rest.  So until I get all these duck in  a row later this week I'm not going to be able to post. But I will be back soon. 

The Potter

I came across this video first at Ceramika Sylwia Kolasinska and at Jesse Lu's The (mud)bucket blog.




I have some questions. but for now I am just going to assume that apparently the world views ceramicists as friendly, mystical monsters.


I hope everyone had a good weekend. Mrs. Rose and I had a good time, not packing. Friday with our friends the Fecteau-Volk's, and Janna at the Stuben County Fair for a night of Fire and Destruction (Literally how it was advertised). Monster Trucks, Motorcycle Jumping, and men lighting themselves on fire (intentionally and not, don't play with fire kids).


This is a picture of a guy who was being dragged behind an ATV into a pool of burning gasoline. About 1/2 second after this picture, the guy let go too early and ended up on fire. Luckily he was was put out with only burns on his hands, but pretty freaky none the less.

Thanks to Mrs. Fecteau-Volk for the Pictures.

Good times.

310!

I hope everyone had a excellent weekend. Mrs. Rose and I had a nice relaxing time. Working around the house etc. Saturday we had our first showing of the year at our Outdoor Theater, The Dark Crystal. It was great. Plus this was the first time we got to use our Nintendo Wii at the theater. Sooo much fun. except for the part where our Friends Corey and Dan's almost 5 year old daughter Claire, beat the pants off me at boxing...Yes I do feel inadequate.

Here is a picture of the theater. It is tons of fun. It dosen't show well in the picture, but the screen is 20' wide! Learn more about Outdoor Theaters Here and Here.



Ok, Back to Clay.

I have been working on a project for a couple of days that some of you may have noticed. On the right side of the blog, you will now notice a long list, labeled Ceramic Blogs-Master List. I started this the other day when I realized that my own collection of bookmarked ceramic blogs was a mess. So I decided to start a list of EVERY ceramic blogs out there. So far the list is 310 (310!) blogs long (not including this very blog). I can't believe the size of the list, and it keeps growing. It goes to show, how big the ceramics community out there is. If you know one that I missed, let me know by posting a comment with this post. I made this list with the help of my friends on Twitter. On a side note, everyone should really head over to Twitter and start a profile. I didn't think too much of it at first. When I found the ceramics community, it became a whole new thing. You can find the community from my profile. It is a great group of people and ever growing.
http://twitter.com/matt_davesclays


Also I want to welcome a new member to the Slipcast community. We are going to have a guest Blogger in July, Avi Arenfeld. Avi is an old student of mine and a great potter. Avi Is from NYC and has his BFA from Alfred. he is currently in California, as last year he was a resident at the Mendocino Art Center.

On top of that, he is a web designer. He did the website for mattanddavesclays.com. If you are looking for a great web designer, contact Avi.

Avi is going to Japan in July for a couple of weeks and he is going to report on all thing ceramics going on in the land of the Rising Sun. Should be awesome!


Check out his newest pots here Aviarenfeld.com

The pots up top are Teacup Balconies, in Tokyo. Found on Flickr, by JMRocher.