Soda fire with Ellen

Both Ellen and I adore porcelain soda fired works. We are attracted by its subtle, quiet quality of depth and beauty. At the same time, the deposit of soda and directional flashing is kind of like kiss by angel; unpredictable and unrepeatable.
This is our first test firing. We had mixed 5 different kind of slips and half dozen glazes. Most recipes from Gail Nichol's book and Sam Chung's handout. Loaded very loosely.
Instead of spraying soda solution, Justin taught us how to mix 50/50 soda ash with baking soda into soda paste.
Ellen putting 10 lbs of soda paste in around 2300F. Then the kiln is reduced cooling (fire down) to about 1800F before shut down. And it will be opened in 3 days. Stay tune.

又是愁善鳳凰時

後面是一棵大榕樹, 是的, 是一棵鳥的天堂.
這棵就在街頭

Long weekend in Paducah, KY - Music Festival

Title of photo : "Album Cover of the Hasegawas" w/ out of town artists.
Name of the album : " Together, we ride"
One. Two. One two three...........

Auntie May May... comes a long way....

Together we ride... ride to the park... ride to the pond... ride to the market...

It's not enough time... to play all the toys... read all the books... sing all my songs...

Sharp

This year, instead of books, I indulged myself with a couple of very nice trimming tools from the conference. As the box describes; Sharp! The feeling is like handling sushi knife, instead of butter knife.
Bison (far right) is no question the best in the industry, costs 5 times as much as the Dolan (center). However, when your tool is sharper than you (or simply that I'm not very sharp), accident is waiting to happen. I paid a small extra price with my finger today. No biggie, just a small cut.

But, I hate cut on my finger. :-(

The guy who lives across the street

We have heard his voice for a while, but never have the chance to see him. I believe Handsome lives in the mini pine jungle.

Flying lesson

I believe this is the safest way to learn to fly; with the Flying master Jeff and a training cable. That way, he can take over and save the plane in an instant, which happened very often in the first try.
6 and a half feet wing span sailplane, only weight 30 oz - Radian
Right! Right!..... No, the other Right! Right. ;-P
Ned is the real brave one, who goes up again, again and again.... Today, he saved himself with his flying instinct during an equipment broke down.

What difference does clay make anyway?

We started NCECA (National Council on Education for the Ceramic Arts) annual conference, last week in Philadelphia in miserable weather, over half of the planes were delayed. A lot of students were driving through blizzards from the north. However, it didn't stop over 5,000 clay/ fire maniacs gather to share.
Wednesday turned to be a perfect day for continuous shuttle loops tour. I did the Museum and Center City route, 10 stops and visited over twenty galleries and exhibitions. Every time I would like to think I've seen just about everything you can do with clay, I got surprised again. I guess that's part of the clay magic.
Shared room with the Hasegawa family in the conference hotel. All the lectures, panel discussions, movies, demos, conference shows were just downstairs. We also fully utilized China Town across the street for breakfast, lunch and dinner. After a day and a half of indoor activities, we ventured out to the Old City route by subway to see the rest of the exhibitions. Feeling very lucky that I didn't miss the Clay Studio, The Works and Snyderman Gallery.
Normally the conference ended with refreshing presentation by a number of emerging artists and closing lecture by a veteran on Saturday morning. John Oles is my favorite young artists this year and Malcolm Davis's lecture just topped everything I've heard. He started clay late in his life after twenty years of being a social activist, struggle for social justice. At age 72, He still tries to answer the haunting question - "What difference does clay make anyway?" Since, it is one of the BIG question in the back of my mind, I feel totally related to every sentence. Also knowing no one can answer one's personal struggle, seeing his journey of transformation through clay gave me enough inspiration and courage to face the question again.
We wandered out to find Rodin Garden along Benjamin Franklin Pky under clear blue sky but end up with the Philadelphia Museum of Art. It turns out to be the biggest treasure in town. After 3 hrs of totally immerse in thousands of year of human cultures from the east and west, I stepped out the west exit and ready to get on bus 38. I looked down and saw Fairmount Park along Schuylkill river, thinking what a way to end the trip. Not until Sunday morning while waiting for the shuttle to the airport, I noticed the peak of cherry blossom right in front of the hotel main entrance, which I only used once during the miserable rain the first day, and missed them all. More photos of the trip click here.

Secret Gardens

Spent sunday on a local secret gardens tour. My ideal one would be a smaller one, with hidden dark corners, unplanned overgrowth, forgotten broken sculpture laying on it's side, wild animals roaming ....... and a gate so secret, that you don't even know it's a gate.

茶杯裡的山雲雨霧

Mountain Cloud Rain Mist in a Tea Cup.

Compensation

I got 2 hours of sleep after the firing night shift, before headed out to the Red Cross Ocean to Lake ride on Sunday morning. It was not the longest, but surely is the toughest ride. Gusty head wind no matter what direction I was headed. Then in the middle of the ride, in the middle of no where, came two dogs want to eat me, chase me, or just play with me, I don't really know. But I felt like if I don't pedal with all my mighty power, they would let me know. It might be only 15 secs, but it felt like 5 mins of Alpine down hill. I remember started thinking ... only if I can out run my predators, and not crash into a tree, or fall into a ditch, or get run over by a car (since I'm on the wrong side of the road now), I will ... HOLD ON, am I dreaming here?? ... now ... this seems too ridiculous. Here comes the yellow one again ... .... ......... ............

OK, I survived that and a few more unreal scenery, like crossing under I-95, and US-1 6 lanes traffic all alone. I decided to take a short cut back home, went to bed, slept the rest of the day and night, had loads of weird dreams.

Firing nights Act 2

Remember back in Dec., the first time we participated in the Anagama Firing? Apparently, we were bit by the wood fire bug, so here we go again. Same night shifts with Karen.
Justin showed us how to stoke with ease.
The dragon right after being fed.
Of course, we feed ourselves too, with marshmallow.

Windsurfing will never die

After a few days watching hundred of wind-surfers riding the smooth north wind up and down the Banana River, I begin to believe, or at least stop to worry about the survival of windsurfing as a competitive sport in the states. However, US Sailing does have some catch up work to do. In the Techno 293 North American Championships, also the Youth Olympic Game Qualification event, our boys were not able to qualify the nation for the first Youth Olympic in Singapore this summer.

A crisp day on the beach

On the way up to Calema Windsurfing's Midwinters, Merritt Island, we stopped by Sebastain Inlet to do an odd job - fixing a beach web cam. The county pay for the camera, so the community can see online how is the weather/ wind/ beach look like, before they pack their fishing gears or surf boards.

Be

It took a while to customize my new trike "Be". Schwalbe - Kojak "20" front, and 26" rear.

Why they call pedals with clip - clipless? It's my first clipless - Shiman0 PD -M540. I also try them on my up right. It's not as scary as some people want to believe. As long as you're aware that you are committed.
Re-do all the electric tape which was not BLACK.
See the full suspension behind the seat. It's fun to adjust by trial and error.
Of course, got to have cleat shoes - Shimano SH-WM40. They run a bit smaller than normal sizing. I luck out to get the right size online after reading dozens of comments.

So Many Empty Bowls are gone

Finally, it's over, at least for this year. 400 bowls and 15 gals of soup were gone before noon. Doubled last year's income. It's very hard for me to see all the slow works by so many kind hearts and soft hands, flew out the door in one morning. I couldn't even bear to see how they were picked and handled by so many different hands ... ... I had to turn around from the crowd and just help wrapping. Lucky we got a wonderful photographer friend, Tom. He caught some nice moments of the events. Here's his blog. Our Empty Bowls Project also has a blog, in case I have not advertised in here yet. I hope the efforts can help some empty bowls out there.