'Love Pots'

Two weeks ago, when I was heading up to Kingston for supplies at Baileys Ceramics, I originally planned on crossing the river and driving north on scenic 9A past West Point Military Academy. The drive is like parts of Route 1 along the California coast; tight, winding, beautiful, distracting, with no margin for error. Determined as I was on my mission, there was a greater one taking place at the same time. Across the river, President Obama was speaking to the West Point cadets about their impending future in Afghanistan. I couldn't help but feel sad and utterly helpless while a helicopter hovered above. Knowing full well that these are things way beyond my control; the war will go on whether I like it or not. The fact that a significant portion of West Point families attend my kids’ high school makes the pain more palpable as not a dinner conversation goes by without the heart breaking news involving the deployment of a classmate’s parent.

So I changed course, stayed on the east side of the river and continued on my little mission to do what I set out to do; make something positive and beautiful; a new line of pieces aptly named 'Love Pots'. Created from molds of the last surviving Morning Glories before November's hard frost. the bowl was formed from a wooden salad bowl (which I have since slump mold cast) and then slip applied five leaves spaced evenly around the bowl. The high fire brown stoneware clay suits the organic heart shaped leaves, but now I'm inspired to make more in different color schemes. And of course, what would I do without the Berkely & Jensen peanut butter filled pretzels to fuel my creativity...mmmm. The porcelain cup was done with the same process but I thought it would be fun to use a seltzer bottle form. There is a large porcelain platter I'm decorating now which is part of this theme and hope to Cone 6 this weekend if we're not snowed in that is.