New

So what's new anyways?

I've been in the sauna.

Taking care of my health.

And making Art.

I have also been spending time in New York City, Houston at the NCECA conference, and San Francisco to see my brother at SFAI.

Houston

San Francisco

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...

Beginning of Fall, Sophomore Year

There is already talk of midterms. I feel I have yet to really enjoy living in a place with such natural beauty, cooped up inside doing work and throwing bowls, cups, and mugs. I took this photo in the rain while standing in front of the weather station at Pine Lake.

My first batch of bowls are on the second and top shelf, the pink bowls in the middle are hand built by another class. Ryan is in the red shirt spacing out. 

I'm running the sauna on Sundays now, it is lovely as always. Recently I met a local sadhu named Ken passing through on his way back from India. His family use to own Pine Lake before they sold it to Hartwick. Ken had a lot of interesting stories, he seems to be a practicing Buddhist of sorts. Religion seems to be a theme at the lake long before students ever dwelled here.

It has become cold and rainy already. The leaves have turned early. Time is passing too quickly. Clouds pull through the valley early in the morning. Ominous smoke rises from the charcoal pits of Brooks BBQ, I can see it from Davenport while I drive to school.

She is off to India...

Zoë visited me for a bit before she left for India today. During her stay we did the usual: cook awesome food, drink a lot of coffee, sauna, wander, and she even painted on some of my ceramics (coming soon.) Below is the night we made Japanese food, it was amazing, and the third setting was for our friend Anthony. 

 

We had to go to a few favorite places, including the Yellow Deli. You should see their awesome bus and ship!

 

And the Autumn Cafe...

Jenna dyed Zoë's hair, and a pakistani girl at school thought she was indian when she wore her salwar kameez.

We drank tea by the lake while we waited for the sauna to get hot.

 

And now she is off to India...

You can follow Zoë's adventures on her blog.

The Lack of Snow, Ice, and Winter.

These photos I took with Anthony's camera last weekend. I was attempting to capture a very bizarre February. Now I am not from this area but I could definitely tell it was strange. It is very warm hovering in the mid thirties or higher with random dips into the twenties. We get small powdering's of snow which barely stick. On colder days the lake doesn't freeze (even when it's snowing!) because the water is still warm from earlier in the week.

Random, but you won't believe how good this wood smells.

Sauna Night

I continue my cool job as Sauna Caretaker. Sometimes it's actually work. Splitting wood is a very popular volunteering job, but moving the split wood from the woodshed to the sauna is not. I like to stack it in the sauna so the smell of wood is present.

Last night I lite the fire for the sauna, walked outside and saw a silver animal gliding across the frozen lake. It was much larger than a cat, I'm guessing it to be a coyote, but I did not see legs, and I did not see eyes. Slightly intimidated by its mystery I went back in the sauna to make sure the fire caught in the stubborn wood stove. When I left the sauna to go sit in the office I saw there were three more of these silver animals out on the lake. It was very strage as they glided quickly and silently into the shadows to escape the reach of my flashlight.