Animals

Posting about pets. So many somewhat tamed animals. Left is Theo, not to mention Gus who are two very playful creatures in Portland. Below is the four creatures that reside in Camden: Sniffers, Mabel, Ollie, and Safi. I enjoy their strange company immensely.

A moment of zen with Mabel.

Early Winter in Camdena

The Camden Snow Bowl is a gem of Maine with a rather pleasing retro appearance. Unfortunately we are still waiting on getting a major snow storm on the coast, which should arrive tomorrow. 

Possibly my favorite aspect of the Maine aesthetic is the handcrafted machinery abandoned in the woods, rotting barns, or in a field with flaking paint and deeply rusted engines. The splashes of small lakes are colored an enticingly deep blue, which is so interesting against the white snow and stripes of the tree trunks as they steadily rising upwards into a green and grey forest. This is what I observed today when peering out the window during a joy ride, the trees are still flicker by in my eyes. 

There was only one hat.

Tragic Chinese E-mail Spam

The following is a spam e-mail I received from somewhere in China, I could not figure out who and it was not signed. I find this interested because it's almost poetic, it's a tragic tale of a couple, and it's an insight to how they chinese use language as well as their culture and humor. 

What follows is the entire message:

Looks bad, she is as Lai bad character, character bad bad career, her friends bad, you now have a slouch, you rely so the rogue! Wife children accompanied her husband in the delivery room. When children are born, husband excited, shouting: "my wife, we had a boy!" The nurse said next: "look again, that is the umbilical cord!"

'If the two long' classmates: the two married. McDull said: not happy sleep, but let that pass. Sad Fortunately, Shangwei the bad. McDull said, to know how to cherish guardian, and everyone around him, Past and wring the neck Looking back only in exchange for life encounter. McDull thing is to speak out, not waiting for the other to comprehend, because the other side is not you, do not know what you want to wait until the last can only be sad and disappointed, especially feelings.

Wife children accompanied her husband in the delivery room. When children are born, husband excited, shouting: "my wife, we had a boy!" Nurse said next: "look again, that is the umbilical cord!" A male to a female for advice: Let's rent an apartment to live knot married to save the money to buy a house? Female A: I might as well rent husbands.

Do not expect the perfect man, not because you can not find, but there is no perfect man. New Year approached, and before that to save money when I have a penny not saved; really saved, not worth the money that traces of sadness in my heart, no matter how fill will leave pain Shuisi in bed my dream she was fat my thighs are twisted, but her arm. 

Rice and Clay Studio

I have just finished piecing together a side blog for my pottery called rice and clay studio. Check it out if you want to see a bunch of ceramics I have created in the last year.

Nature Photography

Since my roommate had gone home for the weekend I had a really quiet saturday full of meditation, yoga, and photography. The following two images are interesting because they're upside-down. Notice the ripples in the second photo.

 

I found a frozen, dead, or sleeping salamander. I balanced on this log that floated out onto the lake and took some shots of the lively salamanders under the water.

 

 

 

I've been experiment with depth of photos, the easiest way is to take pictures of paths.

The road around the lake.

Path to Cob House.

 

Slate Shingles

 

At the end of semester three...

I got back to school after a lovely break and seemed to immediately go on a field trip to Zen Mountain Monastery located an hour and a half from Hartwick. Originally the main building was built by Christian monks, later over taken by communist who tore out the jesus seen below, briefly became a summer camp for kids, then the godless buddhist came and restored Jesus to his place on the front. I loved this trip, the main abbot is a potter.

Below is much of the work I cranked out before break.

I eventually took the artist statement out of the middle as it was hard to look at. This is my sophomore review -minus a few pieces- it's a major review which I had two weeks to prepare for that is required of all art majors (which I decided to become two weeks before this review.) Currently I am double majoring in art and religious studies.

Meanwhile, in the foundry, students were pouring hot aluminum...

Thanksgiving Break 2012 pt. 2

Heading further North I continued to part two of break. My canine friend had patiently waited to see me along with my cat who is still the boss in his old age. The day after Thanksgiving we harvested a tree which is somehow still a cultural shock evening though I'm a raised Unitarian (now a Buddhist -not a huge jump.) 

It was nice to see that my mum and Paul had made some major progress on fixing up the old farmhouse. I look forward to when they get their studio running in the barn.

Camden

Docks out for the winter.

Thanksgiving Break 2012 pt. 1

It snowed at Pine Lake, suddenly it was time to return home for a few days.

After a weekend of wheel throwing (the deadline for wet clay work was right before break,) I loaded up the electric kilns for a bisque firing and left with dry, cracked, occasionally bleeding hands -luckily they quickly recovered.

At home I got to admire Oliver's basement museum of high school art and got really excited to see what was going to come home from San Francisco 

I had patiently waited three months to see the ocean, this is at Wolfe's Neck State Park, I'm always amazed by how incredibly clean the ocean is on the Maine coast. For some reason, this broken coastline has a different feeling unlike any other.

I made this piece I call Pagoda, it's constructed of discarded railroad bits left behind when the track near my house was repaired for passenger trains to run on.

5 days with Zoë

Day 0.5: Thursday

At 10:30pm I picked Zoë up at bus station in Oneonta. I also finished my first reasonable teapot in the studio.

Day 1: Friday


In the morning we woke up late, I managed to get into school just in time for a round table. We discussed whether the future of technology and the environment. I advised against putting any hope into developing technology that will "save us" from the current energy and environmental issues.


I gifted Zoë this mug as an early birthday present.




We left school and stopped by the grocery store to grab a few things, we had dinner with Erin, Monica, Barely, and Emily. Barely (below) was adorable as usual.

Day 2: Saturday

Drank abnormal amounts of coffee. Shannon, Zoë, and I left at 8am drove two hours to Corning Glass Museum. We watched several live glass blowing demonstrations and observed both the history and art of glass.

From there, I went to wood-fired kiln at the community college and Zoë and Shannon split off to check out what was in town. At the community college we fired the smaller of the two kilns. Below is a view into a porthole on one side of the kiln.

There was also cracks between many of the bricks that allowed us to peek into the kiln to see what was happening. I am particularly excited because I had pieces all over the kiln, meaning I will have a huge variety of results.

Later when I met up with Zoë and Shannon again I found out they went to historic downtown and the airport to check out gliders (Shannon's obsession.) At the airport it had seemed the military had taken over the museum and gliders, Shannon said the hangers were full of military helicopters. Eventually, we went out to dinner with the ceramics crowd, then took the long drive home. 

Once home Zoë and I watched a chinese film called "King of Beggars" which offered a fantastic perception of Chinese humor, exhausted we fell asleep before it ended.

Day 3: Sunday

We woke up and headed to campus...

I unloaded the kiln and Zoë threw her first bowl!

We went back, did work, made indian food, and enjoyed the sauna.

Day 4: Monday

Early in the morning (10:45am) we headed out to class at school. Zoë joined my Buddhism class, which turned out Sandy was teaching the basics of meditation, a nice refresher for all of us. We went into town and got some questionable pizza for lunch then I had to go to my raw materials course and learning about the interaction of water and clay particles.

That night Alyssa and Elliot came over. We made/ate an absurd amount of Indian food and drank wine out of some funky cups I made.









Day 5: Tuesday

Tuesday had a gloom. Zoë managed to pack up and we headed to South Asian studies where my professer revealed thirty years of his work in Sri Lanka in a handfull of photos, it was really amazing. I think Zoë enjoyed it too. After I we had lunch and I put Zoë on the bus, it was an extra sad goodbye this time for some reason...

October Break Sophomore Year

I took the train form Albany to Penn Station. It had rained heavily the night before and it continued to rain while the train chugged down to the city. The rails run along the Hudson the entire two and a half hours all the way to Penn Station, only the last 10 minutes of the ride was underground. Due to the rain, the water seemed incredibly close to the tracks just a meer foot away, in fact a lot of the ride ran along tracks that had water on either side, the rails rested on earth that was dredged up in the middle of the river, it was as if the train was rumbling along the top of the water.

The train stops every half hour, first slowly passing a beautiful run down station with the forest growing out of the roof of the building, then stoping at an ultra modern platform with impatient passengers waiting. And then, it arrives at the metropolitan center of the east coast.

Crammed buildings.

The glow on the street below is the Late Night Show. 

I met up with Dad and Tracy who were having a mini-vacation while getting some stuff done in the city. We had lots of great vegan dinners together and checked out some interesting vegan bakeries. 

Zoë worked hard while I visited and got lots of work done while managing to still spend lots of time with me!

  

I managed to find my train in Penn station and had a pleasant slow ride to Albany. It was just as beautiful on the way back as the way down to the city.

I drove the hour and a half from Albany back to my usual Hartwick chaos.