A soul been to hell

The kind of glazes interest me the most, are those been to hell. To me, it means oxygen deprived for hours in thousands of degree. The poor soul came out with extreme clarity and layers of depth. The closest thing I can related to, is like a writer who had a difficult life (war/ jail/ death.....), through the prolong struggling, he found clarity and layers of meaning in life. You can see it in the writing. It's the kind of book makes you keep going back, and every time you will see a new layer.

Stranger wandered into my life

It's what happen when you let stranger wandered into your life. He will tame you. He got a name now, which is "Panda Boy" ,who also become the studio companion. He loves to follow me around like a dog. When I'm throwing on the wheel, he loves to lay on the cool tile in the bathroom. Like Fox say to little prince, "only with the heart that one can see rightly, what is essential is invisible to the eye." I become responsible for what I have tamed, I'm afraid.

A ride in hell

It's over 90F (32C) outside, but it's must be closer to 140F (60C) inside the kiln room. No one can stay in more than a minute at a time. Fortunately, this Bailey fire like a Porsche. ^08 to ^10 only take 4 hrs if you wanted. We will see how the shino turn out. My feeling is that, it will take me a while to learn to handle this kind of power, in the mean time, I just hold on to my seat tight.

一味三吃

Fig is in season. Buy one get one free in our Publix. So, I got online and found receipts to try out. Grilled Mission figs with Serrano ham and olive oil. Sound Delicious! I even put some goat cheese in. I hope some day one day, we can post not only words, sound and images, but also tastes and smells.

A big step

Always been an Apple fan, ever since Mac classic with 2 MB of memory and a 40 MB hard drive back in college. It must be really hard for kids these days to imagine days with back and white screen, no photo, movie, internet or email, and or action games 8 MHz computer....... They must ask, then what it's for?
I got iLife '08 today, installed and have iPhoto running on a 4 years old G4, (iMovie wouldn't run on it though). Even before I try the rest, already thinking this sofeware worth every penny it cost. I have a lot of respect for all the designer, programmer, developer..... everyone who was involved in this great step forward again.

NAQOYQATSI

Na-qoy-qatsi: (nah koy’ kahtsee) N. From the Hopi Language.
1. A life of killing each other. 2. War as a way of life. 3. (Interpreted) Civilized violence.
Powerful images and moving music for hour and a half without a word. I think in this case, language no longer describes the crazy world we all live in.

New hanger

Somehow we managed to procrastinate this project for years. In fact, the real work only took 30 mins (of course assume you've all the right tool and gear.) It's the kind of thing, once it's done, you keep asking yourself, why it's not done earlier.

6 hours of life jounery

I like one of the critic says, "The Best of Youth" is no masterpiece, but it has enough truthful, moving moments to make it worthwhile. It also let me understand more about Italian family and their nation in the last 40 years. Everything is beautiful if you decided it's what you're going to believe.

Fundamental

Today I spent way more time to parpare my clay then actualy throwing or working on it. I found that the bigger the project, the more attention I have to pay to the clay itself. I learned it the hard way, by repeating the mistakes of using too tough/dry clay, thinking I can get away from it, and it will save me time. But small body with not much strength like me has no such luck.

What's the chance?

Every once in a while, I will run into a Chinese in this town, maybe one a year, if that. But so far, only one or two speak Cantonese. Last night, when I heard someone speak Cantonese in our local Japanese-sushi restaurant(Fugu Tei), I paid a lot of attention; so much so that the waiter came along and ask what do I want? I told him how happy I am to run into some Chinese. As the conversation went along, we found out that the Chef-Uncle had grown up in the same small fishing village we had lived in, but the he had left 20 years ago. And the waiter lived just a few blocks from where I grew up in the small town of Tai Po. We exchanged the name of our most favorite local restaurants back then and so forth ... ...
I know that for some people, it may be no big deal to run into someone who speaks your mother tongue, and who is from your own home town. To me, though, it means a lot.

Heard my pot sings

After using the Shimpo Whisper in/at MISSA for 2 weeks, I've decided I'm not going to put up with my old noisy pottery wheel anymore. Yes, I really should have returned it the day I got my Pacfica, 6 years ago. It's totally my own fault. We tried to fix it, with every possible way, even went as far as replacing the bearing, not to speak of oiling/ check the bell,etc...., but nothing seems to work. Don't get me wrong. Pacfica makes good wheels. We have a bunch in the Art Center, and they're all fine.
And it was the reason I got mine.
So, my Whisper just arrived. It's so quiet that I've to change some of my throwing habits, good or bad. I'm so used to higher speed means louder noise . You could say, I throw by ear. Now, without the noise, more sense has sense has to go to the touch and the eye.
I throw in front of an open window. Now, without the wheel noise, I can hear the resonance of a big tall pot when the wind blows. Interesting! It leads me to think what else you can hear if you can turn off some of the loud noise in our life.

The subtleties of composition

Read about the elements of drawing composition are rhythm, movement, and tension. I've no trouble understand those terms at all if we're talking about dancing or movie, but drawing...
Also, at the end of the chapter, it say the ideal composition is stable, but not too stable, comfortable, but not too comfortable. Again, if we're talking about a relationship, I can easily get the idea. But, composition, hummmm..........

Summer art camp

I'm teaching a teens clay class this week. Using some material I've never use before; kitchen oven bake clay and polymer clay. Strickly speaking polymer is not clay, it's PVC. Since we need to have their work dry , fire and ready to be colored in a day or two, so they can take their works home at the end of the week, we seems to choose the ideal material. For friends who are new to clay, traditional pottery class normal take months, once a week, so there's a lot of time to let works dry to trim and fire and glaze and fire again....... At the beginning, I was kind of looking down on the polymer clay, feeling like it's only for kids, because of it's bright color. I end up enjoy it a lot with the kids. Believe it or not, it's some maths involved which I enjoy teaching too. And you wouldn't believe how bad is the maths standard in the states.

Eyes opening jazz piano lesson.

Yesterday, I've my piano tuned and my first jazz lesson. Before yesterday, I had years of classical training in my teen and I thought I know something about music, and I was so wrong. The truth is I only know how to follow the script but have no idea why and how script was composed that way, not to speak of playing by ear...... The very depressing part is that I never even question about why and how, I thought playing piano means what I've been doing all along, just at different levels. I didn't know there's another world out there. Once you truly understand the fundamental, you can truly fly. So, I want to know what's the most fundamental for making pots, what's the fundamental for life............... I don't want to find out there's another world out there someday, but just a little too late.

More for the summer

Of course, I should not miss out the most favorite activity; train tracks. In case you're new to this Thomas business, they've one of the most successful marketing model in the toy world for 60 years.

Best ways to spend your summer

Playing in sand box.

Pushing boats

Eating apple with GM and watching Bob the builder

Making ginger bread cookie with M.

Youtubing Thomas and friends

Jocab, my nephew, who is 3 and a half, living in Vancouver. They have a very cool July this year.

Mystery solved

If you remember a mystery about 2 months ago, here's an answer. Mother nature will do whatever it take to keep it going, not a day longer, not a day short.

Stranger

That's what happens when you go away for a while. Grass and weed grows so tall, strange animal will come and maybe take over your house.