Catching Up

 Oh, dear readers, I have neglected you. My deepest apologies. It seems to be faster for me to upload images to Facebook and keep a running commentary there than it is to blog. I will try to right this. Where have I been you might ask? I will tell you of my ventures in photographs.

Anniversary Firing loaded up

The anniversary firing was not a fantastic firing. I'm not entirely sure what happened, but essentially five of my shelves melted, slumped, and broke. The result looked like this:

After the firing

Wonky shelves

I started a blog after this happened, but could not bring myself to put words to my thoughts on what happened. Here are a few detail shots on the breakage:

Breakage

Foaming and breakage

For the most part, many of the pots were salvageable other than the wine cups which held up the entire stack and some dishes which got mushed.

Dinner at the Reynolda House- Old Salem Landscape Conference

Liberty Stoneware vases as centerpieces!

My biggest worry in the firing was a group of vases I made specifically for Old Salem to put on the tables at the Landscape Conference at the end of September. The vases were for sale, with a small card on the table, and it was funny to be sitting at a table and have someone realize I was the person who made the vase!

Pickling crocks with weights

I presented at the Landscape Conference on historical methods of pickling and preserving and the ceramics used. There were such great presentations and a great crowd of people.

Wild horses on Corolla Beach

View from the top of the lighthouse

 The Farmer and I escaped for a few days to Corolla Beach. It was our first vacation in about three years!

Stuffing the deboned chicken

Cooked chickens!

 I learned how to de-bone a whole chicken, which was quite a fascinating experience. What made the experience even more exciting was watching this video with the speaker's fantastic French accent.

View from conference lunch in Edenton

Many of you may know I work part-time with an historic preservation organization which leaves me with a somewhat erratic schedule for pottery (and this blog, consequently!). I had the opportunity to attend Preservation North Carolina's conference in Edenton, NC.

Inside NC's oldest house

It thrilled me to no end to get to go in North Carolina's "newest oldest house"- a 1718/1719 house recently discovered in Edenton.

  I also had the chance to see archaeological material from several houses. The image above is German stoneware excavated from the original courthouse in Edenton.

The oldest section of Blandwood Mansion in Greensboro

 I thoroughly enjoy working with the interns I have recruited for this semester. I am constantly reminded how much I enjoy teaching, counseling, and working with students or just those who love to learn. I recently had the chance to take the interns on a field trip to Greensboro in order to see the Greensboro Historical Museum,

Among all of the chaos and travel there have been brief pauses, like watching the orb spiders at the farm.