Love those tuxedo guys!

 Happy  June First! Rabbit Rabbit!

Yeah, we've all heard the "brother from another mother" line before!

Ditto last comment.

OOps, another species trying to get into the action!

Hey Mr Panda, do you think you qualify for the tuxedo group?

My Tuxedo fellow was named Purrfect. Here he explores along with the other cats/kittens when we lived in Knoxville TN

Yarn to chase, or maybe pipe cleaners...Patches on l, Purrfect on r.

Purrfect loved to lie on my son's homework!

Sharing with Saturday's Critters (a day late).

It's  National Adopt a Cat Day!

Saturday's Critters in clay

I've been searching for some animals (and there once were quite a few) which I made either in the shape of animals (think cats or dragons) or as glazing detail on a functional piece.

Hummingbird plate (about 7 inches if I remember correctly.)

Simple trivets, or decorations (flat ceramic pieces that could protect a wood table from a hot dish.

Free standing cat mask

There were two times in my life that I created art forms (or humorous forms, as some may say) of clay. First was in the 1980s when I returned to college to work on a BFA degree at the U of Florida in Ceramics. I just have a few of those pieces left, and maybe a dozen photos. As I've moved about through the years, I've tossed many "artsy pieces" out.

Bee tea-set in celadon and dark green glazes, 2014

Then I again got a chance to work in clay after I retired from being an Activity Director for senior apartment residents.

Hummingbird vase

I made things in clay for 12 years after retirement, in my mid 60s till my 70s, My last efforts were a few months of work in my 81st year on dragons. My health now precludes me working in clay where dust and mold would interfere with my lungs.

Dragon girl one as a bisque level, waiting for glaze which didn't come out well, so I tossed this.

Monarch mug which I still have for morning coffee.

Blue bird of happiness

A silly little calico, these are altered forms after throwing "on the hump" of a bigger piece of clay on the wheel. 

Dragon tower - all slab built.

Cat and mouse teapot

OK, there are more, and now I want to make an album of them. So am off to see where photos have been stored for years of the giraffes, the hummingbird mask, the other bee teapot, the blue bird bowl, and others that I will be pleasantly surprised to find. I've got an entire external hard drive to plug in and search.

Yes, all of these are my work, from start to finish. I have a couple of them still.

Many pots were tossed away. My approach to clay creations is that "Everything is sacred. Nothing is sacred."

Sharing with Eileen's Saturday's Critters

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Current events from H.C. Richardson: At 101 days, the “Department of Government Efficiency” and its leader, billionaire Elon Musk, are also running into trouble. Musk vowed to slash $2 trillion from government spending, but that number kept dropping until he said DOGE will save about $150 billion. As David A. Fahrenthold and Jeremy Singer-Vine noted in the New York Times, that number is largely unsubstantiated. The DOGE team’s list of cuts is riddled with errors. In addition, the nonpartisan nonprofit Partnership for Public Service estimates that DOGE cuts have actually cost taxpayers $135 billion this fiscal year, not including lawsuits.

AND - from pagan leader, permaculture teacher, and Jew, Starhawk:

The Freedom Flotilla boat is attempting to bring humanitarian aid to Gaza, where the Israeli government has stopped all shipments of food and medical supplies since late March. Food programs have run out of supplies, and mass famine is threatening. Depriving a civilian population of food and medical aid violates international law and all basic human morality. In the face of this emergency, brave human rights have set sail to attempt to bring in needed aid. But tonight their ship was bombed in international waters outside Malta, and is now in danger of sinking. Please contact the Maltese government and demand that they send help. 30 people are on board!

Here's an easy way to send a message:
https://support.adc.org/a/malta

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Today's quote:

Be joyful, though you have considered all the facts.

Wendell Berry

 

Earth element

We've gone around the circle now, air, fire, water and now earth.
It's very much part of my life as a potter.  How do you use earth in your life?

Clay in my studio arrives in these boxes from Highwater Clay, then I play with it and either it becomes a form that is fired a couple of times, or it goes back to being clay like the slip drying on a plaster slab on the right.  Then I use the clay reconstituted from that slip to make another mug or bowl or figure of something.

Other forms of earth are definitely part of our lives.  Gravity.

No kidding.  The universe of everything might be considered earth.  The wonders of the way stars travel through space and interact in galaxies.  That all atoms are reused over and over in different things...I always love hearing that we are made of star stuff.  The miracles of natural laws.

Earth the planet we live upon is in trouble.  You already knew I'd mention that, didn't you?

So what are you doing about it?

I won't go any further, just remind you who is in charge of your life.  mmm, not me.


OK, the other thing about earth to mention of course is that non-renewable resources are going to be gone someday soon.  These are minerals, fossil fuels, and the things that our culture is standing upon.  No doomsday naysayer me...no way.  I just say, start living in a renewable way.

This week, in my life, I'm cutting down my paper products use, which aren't non-renewable, but they do cost non-renewable resources to process.  I just went through the clothes about to be recycled to GoodWill, and took all the old 100% cotton tee shirts out and cut them up to have washable rags. When I was growing up, my depression-survival parents had a rag bag.  Now paper towels will be used even less around the house.  ( I cut up the tee-shirts so I'd know which things were rags when I washed them with my tee-shirts I still am wearing...not much difference for some that I love to wear to sleep in.)

I admit I've failed with my compost heap.  Gardening for me hasn't worked too well this year.  But I started growing things, and I keep looking at those green tomatoes and smiling.  Maybe they will turn red next week?  The earth has blessed me with her bounty with a zillion green tomatoes.

Do you know of at least three activist movements against earth destruction?  Why not?

Here's the link to Wendell Berry's Manifesto: The Wild Farmer Liberation Front.

I don't have those links to activist movements since my computer died last week, taking my new Environment "favorites" folder with it.  But I've found more and more since I started considering everything that's happening.  So the new Environment folder is already growing.