We are in a heat wave now! But come on , really, it's August in Minnesota! It always gets hot in the summer. What's really hard is getting my rabbits through this stuff. At least I'll be home today to watch them.  We are having a home sale today.Yeh I'm sure the waether will affect our turnout, but hey. What can you do?  When we left Rockhard we knew it wouldn't be easy.  I want to finish that story.  The small company we ran was prosperous in the 90's. We ignored the criticism from other potters who thought we were cheating by working as a group.  I would like to mention now that Paul and I made our entire living making and selling our work.  One of the most vocal criticizers had a lawyer for a wife. Even our partner's wife had a full time job.  Paul and I both worked in clay and managed to survive that way before Rockhard, and RH just gave us the opportunity to have enough work to travel across the country and make a real living. I had a daughter in 1990 which took up a lot of my time, including the pregnancy during which I was restricted from any kind of lifting etc.  So for the next fourteen years I was the  slip trail person. Slip trailing is a decorating method that utilizes clay thinned with water and applied to the surface with a bottle or a syringe. it creates a raised line that remains after the firing. My drawing methods fit well with this technique and because I could decorate a weeks worth of production in a few days, I had plenty of time to devote to my baby girl. It wasn't always easy. Getting along with a bunch of people has it's challenges. We always compared it to playing in a band. Each person contributed their unique talents, and each person came with their own vision of what "art ' really was.  In my mind, it wasn't only about making money.  It was about artistic growth.  The constant pressure and the many miles of travel were wearing on all of us.  I had to stay home and run the homestead while the guys were gone a good part of the year selling the work.  I had artisic differences with our partner, and  Paul was exhausted, mentally physically and creatively.  This came to a head in 2003 when our marriage nearly broke up, but the company broke up instead.  This was the jump off the edge for paul and I .  A leap of faith that we could make it on our own making the things we wanted to  and still survive financially.  As far as the leap goes,  we are making progress.  One thing that bothered me about production work was that we were using natural recources. Clay comes from the earth, and somewhere there  are mines producing it. The fuel we used to fire was gas, a lot of it.  And after fourteen years the work , for me, was uninspiring. Today we have a wood fired kiln.  It is larger than our first Olson fast fire,  we are not using salt glaze anymore, in order to preserve the kiln itself.   We are not travelling at all any more in order to market our wares.

We are now creating the best work of our accumulated experiences, over a lifetime.  We are working in creative freedom, and making less of an impact on the environment while doing so.  Lessons given at the shop are connecting us to our community and enabling Paul to  pass on his knowlege to interested folks from all walks of life.  Financially it's still a struggle (car repo etc) but we're used to financial struggle.  I don't want money, or the lack of it, to rule my life!!!!!  I don't want the quest for money to dictate what I make, or define who I am.  I dont create my work because a certain group of buyers want a certain item.  I create my work because it is something I need to do.  And whether it is a clay sculpture , a painting , or even my garden, Art is an expression of my existence on the planet. So no matter what I do to make money, subbing waitressing and selling the work, I don't mind, because the pieces we create now are the best we have made in our lifetimes so far.

  Since I have made my blog public, there may be people reading that are not familiar with the work, so here is a link to my website.

www.paulmorrispottery.com