Happy New Year!

We finally got some snow, it made the woods very beautiful! Lily calls it  Fairy land when it gets like that. A statistic I saw on the news last night said we in Minnesota generally have 90 days of snow cover in an average winter. That was up until five years ago.  For the last five years the average has gone down to 68. That has knocked a month off of winter as we know it here.  Some people don't mind saving a little on heat bills, but it is very strange to look out on the lake and see NO ice fishing village. Even the ice isn't cooperating this year.  No ice on the lake in January is a very strange thing to see for a native minnesotan.  

  Paul is in M adison Wisconsin right now making pots for our friend Ole.  Ole was injured a couple of years ago and has undergone a second surgery on his collar bone, making it impossible to throw pots.   I am starting another round of sculptures.  I have decided to enter a show on my own with just sculptures.  Will probably enter the functional ware also , would be great to have each our own booth at a really hot art show.   Since this one is held in a sculpture garden, it would really enhace my own work.  I am coming up on several deadlines next week to enter shows, and one exhibition. The strictly functional Pottery National.  A competition that sounds right up our alley .  We were rejected from it last time.   Unlike any other competition that I have entered in my life, these juried art things are the most baffling!!! If I was competing with my(live) rabbits, I would have been working all year finding the best prospects in the babies,  grooming feeding practicing with them taking them to smaller shows.  I would be judged by a criteria set up by the organisation and the judges would be held to that.  In ARTLAND it is all mushy.   You can't condition your pots with special feed treats, and even if it's the work they are judging  it will feel like Iv'e been judged in the end. Sometimes it's about who you studied under and your own educational "Pedigree"   It isn't for people that are thin skinned.  I am excited about the number of e-entries I can make this year, and the possibilities of making my own entry pictures is exciting, and  another money saving step. The big IF is will they get us in shows. 

   Although I did not have any input into the financial dealings of Rockhard Stoneware, I was aware of the huge operating costs involved and felt alot of it was unnecessary .   It was easier back then to let someone else do it.  All we had to do was work like crazy people producing  as many pots as humanly possible, and transport them all over the United States year round.  It was like  trying to be something (In MY mind) that I was not.  Just because we were able to make money didn't mean we were being the most reponsible beings on this planet, or that we could Sustain our operation,   We were spending huge amounts of money on non renewable resources.  We went through thousands of gallons of LP gas to fire the pottery.  Our dependence on buying oil is now down 100%!

    CLAY itself is a non renewable resource! somewhere in Georgia and Tennessee there are big mines taking clay from the earth , I feel I owe it to the EARTH to treat her gift like the precious thing that it is.  To slow down and honor the clay by not whipping it out in industrial numbers. 

  I don't want to ramble about the past, my point is We have to Operate on a smaller budget than our old company . That means we do more of the things we used to pay people to do. Including slides.   So if I can produce competetive slides it is another big expense out of the way.  

Well my day off ! I know I might have mentioned my dissappearance from the internet for awhile, so I can work in the studio. Right now I am trying to be more efficient in my internet use, so I can still do it all.  For some one with ADD The intenet poses a  lot of distractions!!!!LOL

Later then, Denise