Life is getting better. And if I see my boyfriend less often, if I can be there for him less often, still, the time we do have together is very good and we cherish it more for its infrequency.

Been making pottery on a fairly regular basis. I made a Gina Fruen inspired teapot, because I had the opportunity to attend a workshop by her while I was at my college ceramics class. While finishing it up, realized I didn't like it. It's chunky, ungainly, no graceful lines, no simpicity or elegance, cluttered up with texture, even though I had substituted botanical textures for her more industrial type textures. Further, realized I didn't like her work that much, either, so why the hell I made anything after her style is beyond me, but by this time, it was almost done, so I gave it a suitably wonky handle and set it on the shelf to dry. :-/

Most of my work is folded, draped sheets of clay that have been impressed with leaves, stems and pine needles. The clay has been handled as if it were soft, heavy cloth, cut only when necessary. The shapes are clean. These are the forms I like best. I used up 25# of stoneware clay (Sea Mix) and now have purchased a block of porcelain (Turner Porcelain), which to my dismay was crumbly, stiff, cracks easily, hard to handle. Not sure if it had dried out a little in the bag or if it's always like this, so I crumbled some of it up, moistened it really well, and wrapped it in plastic. Will try working with it in a day or two and see if it's easier to work with. The plan was to make chess sets with the porcelain, as well as experiemnting with leaf impressions that would then get assembled into vessels. I am missing the cone 10 stoneware I used to work with (Klondike). It was better, in my recollection, for handbuilding...sagged less, held up better...but this studio only fires to cone 5, so I now have to adapt to different clays and find something I can work with.