"Clay-mates"

Tuesday Marian, my clay friend, took me to meet some of her clay friends.

Helen lives in the old Bruno high school.  Its a rustic stone building... one of several.  She has her kiln and pottery area as a walk through into the rest of her house.

Helen was collaborating with Michelle on these pottery sculptures.  Helen does Riku.  As best I understand it, you take two incompatible elements-- clay that needs high temperature firing, and glaze that does low temp firing.  Then just after the temperature is reached, you open the kiln, take out the moulten glazed pottery, and stick it in some dry grass (on the driveway).  The too-quick cooling creates cracks in the glaze and the smoke from the brushfire (the grasses burst into flames) puts soot into the cracks.  It's all very unpredictable-- the cracks and all.

 Note the glaze pattern on this fish head.   The cracks look just like scales.   This fish has not yet found it's fabric body.... but it will.

 This is a dove wall hanging.

 Here you have a crane.  It reminded me of the crowned cranes we saw in Kenya.

 A dancing dove? I was told she was in 2nd position.

 Notice the book the hawk statue is resting on?  They have a sense of humor.

 Here is another dove.  I'm sorry i didn't get the face in profile so you can see the quiet eyes.

 While you can't see it well, the barbed wire "arms"-- wings? end in a yoga meditative position-- fingers curved into an "O".

 This bird was still a work in progress.

 You really can't see the crow's face on this dancing bird, but below are Michelle (l) and Helen (r).

Helen makes the bird heads, and Michelle does the feather and fabric additions.  There were several women there and we had a lovely time chatting, admiring the sculptures and munching.  Helen had lived in Okinawa in the mid 70's and then again in the late 80's.  She'd done pottery over there, too.

They were creating the sculptures for two shows coming up-- one in a gallery.

Before I left Marian's, I had to take a picture of her resident peacock.  When we drove into the carport-- or wanted to.  He was arrayed in all his glory-- strutting in front of the car and not anxious to move out of the way.