Hallowe'en chickens

I am a flock; I am an island.

I was trying to come up with an appropriate title for this post, and went from "Hallowe'en chickens" (mundane) to "Zombie chickens" (nah--their expressions are vacant enough, but there's no blood) to "Undead chickens" (which they kind of are) to "Chickocalypse" (which not only I couldn't pronounce, but also chickens don't have lips, so there'd be a missed pun opportunity, plus this doesn't look like an End of Days flock). So I went back to "Hallowe'en chickens."

These be the fanciest chickens e'er I made. The brown clay will fire to a stony black. The beaks, eyes, and thingamabobs on the heads (what are those called? Uh, combs?) are made from a different clay body and consequently might all fall off during firing, which seems relevant to Hallowe'en. The feathers are slip inlay. They might fall off too--in which case I would say the birds are molting--but they probably won't. Each bird contains exactly one egg, for emergency use only (although no emergency could be so great that you'd be better off with a rock-hard clay egg than with a perky undead chicken).

Graduated background, four years late

One of my New Year's Resolutions a few years back was figuring out how to take decent photos of my pots. I move at a glacial pace on these sorts of things--isn't acknowledging that the point of resolutions?--but today, almost four years later, I finally took the first obvious baby step of buying a graduated background. While I was at Southeastern Camera, I also acquired some affordable lighting and a stand, thanks to the patient help of the staff there. Initial experiments suggest the white-to-black background is going to be way better than the white posterboard I've been using (which is now covered with kitty pawprints, feline herpes sneezes, and other lovely details that come with loving one's cats trotz allem).

While in the store, I was asked what kind of camera I have. I've been using an old Canon PowerShot A620, which I called "um, an old point-and-shoot, but I inherited a good digital Nikon camera from my dad. He was an avid photographer. I wish I could use his expertise on this--" at which point I had to stop talking to focus on not bursting into tears. I wish I could use his expertise on this.

For the record, here's what you can do with poster board:

Links

It's been a busy month for Claymakers. First, there was this fabulous show in the gallery--"Steinzeugkrug: Present Day Interpretations" (a.k.a. Steinfest), a major step forward for Claymakers. And two short weeks before the federal gummint shut down, a [presumably subsequently furloughed] employee at the IRS popped Claymakers' 501(c)(3) designation letter into the mail. Woot woot!

There was also this music-related article in the local paper. I think the title is rather excellent, since it makes us sound either like a trio of superheros (can you imagine us with our capes fluttering behind us as we sit on the organ bench?) or a mafia family (THE SOPRANOS ORGANISTS).

There were also two firings of black'n'white zigzag pots, including some really excellent ones. Photos to follow soon...