Well this is my last day off, so to speak. Off from the waitress job that ends tomorrow.   Two years went by so fast....And it is with some regret that I leave, as stated earlier.   I will so miss some of the people I waited on.   I feel I got closer to my community.    Often over the years, I have thought of blogging about the restaurant, but there are some things you just don't do in a small town.   Oh yeah I could change names, but people would figure it out.   News will come out, I'm sure that  will become public knowledge....I may feel comfortable  commenting on those things, but in a way being a waitress at the cafe holds priviledged information status like a lawyer or a Priest or a bartender.   Of course there are whole families and their histories that I could write a book about that would make a great novel.   And they wouldn't find out until it was a movie, cos none of them read...

But seriously,  I  took the years as a servant of the community as a growth opportunity, and embraced the chance to make new friends.   And I did, and those people will not be lost to me. 

I have resolved to keep hours in the studio similar to what I worked. I will never be the kind of person that sleeps in every day.    Besisdes the pottery, there will still be fiddle lessons, and listing and shipping at Etsy.  And then the garden.   I have loaned out a space to one of the cooks at work.   He lives in the trailer court and doesn't have the space to put in the veggies he likes.   The other waitress wants to help in exchange for tomatoes.  Garden exchange can go on!   My rabbitry has long been neglected.   It is not a booming show herd like 10 years ago. What it is  is a retired rabbit home and sometime pet rescue.  What it is is solidly my lines now, and I do entertain a dream of having enough time and money to go to ARBA nationals this fall.   But my priority now is to get the rabbits situated in the pine grove, and re purpose the barn, for the chickens and goats.   I feel re-connected to my place and I haven't felt that for a long , long time.   It's  probably been since I started subbing nine years ago.    I'm giving myself a chance right now to work my land again, and  it really gives me a sense of PEACE!  With a vision of a lot of work ahead.  I've never been afraid of work.  

  The claywork is all part of it, of course, and when I sit down to work on one of my sculptures I enter a very meditative state.   Oh sometimes I can sit and chat with folks, and rough in the form of whatever animal I am making, but the solitary work times when you get caught on a detail, and time just goes away......I just LOVE that.   I put my energy into the wet pliable clay, and as the days go by the clay changes in solidity , and I use different techniques to enhance my project.   Each  one that I start, I challenge myself with a new idea that was hatched  while making the previous one.    That is why I am not embracing molds in my studio at this point in time.   A mold freezes the process for me.   I do not want to be stuck making the same rabbit , squirrel , horse, I want to go on.   And, fortunately, I am now able to lavish all the time and love on my sculptures, and slip trail the pottery in between.  It is the perfect balance to go from something as instant as slip trailing freehand 40 or 50 pots, and spending 3 weeks or a month building and carving a sculpture.   Both techniques enhance the other.  Both create a state of bliss!!!

Well the family is fighting the dreaded cold/flu.  I got it first, and Lily is fighting it off.  Wouldn't you know  my last week of work ....OH WELL It's time for me to go down for the kiln opening!!!!!!I can't wait I have Three sculptures of rabbits in there.     I am listing all NEW WORK on Etsy. Later then, Denise