Well, here is my very first post.  It's June 3, 2012, so that's my official start date.  This first post will include work I started over the last few days.  My goal for the summer is to re-establish my home studio and actually create work on a daily basis as a form of artistic discipline.  For me, that's an oxymoron...I have never done that "discipline" thingy very well.  I'm going to rationalize (which is something I DO do well!) that I've spent the last 16 years "data mining" for information and experimenting with a variety of techniques.  I've had a few galley and exhibition opps, but that avenue just did not seem very interesting to me.  Philosophically I've always held that the focus of making art should be more about process and not product.  I still believe that.  However, I feel the time has come to start producing a "product" of all of the "processes" I have been developing for well over a decade and a half.  Let's see what happens!

 ALL of these pieces in this first post are UNFIRED.  So, they will look far different when I follow up with glaze or additional surface decoration.  I suppose this goes along with my "it's process, not product" philosophy.  I think it's good to see things at different stages so I can better evaluate and improve the process for better products, no?  I made this pitcher last weekend...stretched from one cylinder.  I like it, impractical as it may be.  It's functional though.  This clay is 308...I think.  I reconstituted it from a couple of bags I bought in 2001.  Yes...11 year old clay!

 OK, I made this Sunday...threw the top on the wheel (much easier than stretching it from one tube) and added it to the cylinder bottom.  The surface treatment is ok, slip painted on in layers.  It's SO not perfect...a stretch for me to be satisfied with.  But surprisingly, I am satisfied.  Reminds me of influences  of Picasso or Miro ceramics...I'm getting to be pretty OK with imperfection.

 My little corner of my studio world.  Jay has not said a word about the fact that I have sprawled out in the sun room.  But really, what better spot!  I'm up in the trees overlooking my lovely yard.  I'm very lucky.

 Yeah, well...this is a small footed piece.  At Jay's suggestion, I started developing the foot as a better balance for visual and structural stability.  I'll glaze and fire it...but I'll just consider it as part of the development of this particular body of  work.

 These are a few pinch pots I made a couple of weeks ago as I was experimenting with a new clay.  B-mix is the bomb!  Easy, flexible...and strong!  I need to add surface decoration to these 4 pots.

 My little collection of the things I've made over the last couple of days and weeks...

These pieces seem to represent the direction of my current work.  I hope for them to be functional pieces, perhaps to hold interesting little succulents.  While my work is sculptural, I want them to be functional as well.  You can see the further development of the foot on the piece  to the far right as opposed to the earlier one to it's left.

 The more substantial foot....

 The foot that may not be substantial enough...  Also, again...these pieces will look incredibly different when glazed and fired.  I'll post the finished pics soon.

My first pot where I experimented with throwing the top and adding it to the bottom.. LOVE doing this.  The profile is a little unbalanced...that foot needs to be more dramatic and swing over more to the left side there.  I have not added the slip decoration yet, but I do have the shapes sketched out on the surface.