Captain Turner

Tomales Bay Morning

Reading Properly: All In Play and At Play

Ideally, reading properly
is much like living properly:

moment by moment,
responsively;
attuned to everything
but also with due consideration for weight and strength and flow patterns;
aware of the past without being chained by it;
aware of the future without being dismayed by it;
and with heart and mind and soul
all in play and at play.

Trolling the Blues -- Two Views

Gunthor the Troll
sings to the spirit of Fall.

Clay: soldate;
glaze: abalone.
Nov. 2015.

Body English in Green

Clay: soldate;
glaze: oribe.

Dream: Office Exile?

The other night, I had one of my recurring dreams that I have a secret office at Berkeley, usually a closet of a space that locks, which somehow is always overlooked, and I just work there or ruminate there or drink there. I only have the dream once or twice a year, but I've visited that office off and on for, oh, 20 years now.

(Back in the early 1990's, for a few scattered semesters, I had solo-access to a quite nice office in Wheeler Hall due to the kindness of my dissertation director, but the dream-office is never quite that space, not usually quite that nice either.)

In this latest episode, the usual closet-office had morphed into a suite that I (a not-quite-me -- you know: dreams) . . . that I was squatting in, only to get busted out when a new hire showed up expecting to inhabit the place. She was not very happy about yours-truly, and as I was throwing books and clothes and gear into a rollie, I woke up.

I wonder if that's my last visit to campus.

Clay: Glazing and Trimming

Body parts, tails, nonfunctional whale-oracrina, faces of various sizes, potbellied merman, and bowls:

Wet Clay!

Mary Oliver: "To Love What Is Mortal"

IN BLACKWATER WOODS

Look, the trees

are turning

their own bodies

into pillars

of light,

are giving off the rich

fragrance of cinnamon

and fulfillment,

the long tapers

of cattails

are bursting and floating away over

the blue shoulders

of the ponds,

and every pond,

no matter what its

name is, is

nameless now.

Every year

everything

I have ever learned

in my lifetime

leads back to this: the fires

and the black river of loss

whose other side

is salvation,

whose meaning

none of us will ever know.

To live in this world

you must be able

to do three things:

to love what is mortal;

to hold it

against your bones knowing

your own life depends on it;

and, when the time comes to let it go,

to let it go.

--Mary Oliver

Note: I came to this fine poem from Jennifer Cutting's fine tribute to her beloved cat Mr. Sunshine, who passed away just recently.  Wednesday will be the seventh anniversary of the passing of my own sunshine-orange-boy Rudi.

Green Man, Weary

Clay: soldate;

glazes: oribe and sea foam.

I was lucky with the blending, I think.

Summer Profile Pics

Loving Kealakekua Bay!

Floating.  Hawaiian waters: no neoprene!

Total lack of self-consciousness.  

NorCal Neoprene: armored against the cold.

Mendocino.

Studio time:
Matt & Mateo.

Archery lessons in the Gold Country.

Face your inner fish?
Foggy free diving on the Sonoma Coast; I brought a friend.
Two pursuits converge with a smile.

Froggy & Company (More Clay Play)

A Moment of Communion

Tomales Bay:  June 25, 2015.

Photo courtesy of Jeffrey Peterson.

(I think I'm wading and looking for photo opportunities in the water below . . . crabs and limpets and the like.)

Playing with Clay

Looking Into Mortality

Because I can't help myself.

Poor Motley-girl feeling miserable: last day.
20 years old.

Recovery Cat

Motley, laid up with dehydration and injured legs.
She'll be 20 on April 1st.

Spread Your Wings

Clay Wizardry

Ornamentation for the yuletide tree: my efforts over the years.