Back to school and work

We finally have everyone settled into their new school routines, and my Boat articles are finished, so I am back in the studio. Woo hoo!

Back to school is always chaotic, so it usually means that my work time is very limited. This time around, what time I had was spent writing the color column. That meant I was working at the computer, which lives in the kitchen. (I've learned the hard way that computers and dusty ceramic studios don't mix.) So I literally had not been inside my studio in weeks. Now I am busy making up for lost time!

What's always striking to me about a ceramic work area is the smell. During an open house at my oldest son's new school, he remarked that the art room "smelled like home". Sure enough, off to the side was a pottery room. I remember thinking something like that when I switched my studio over to ceramics. For the longest time I thought my work area smelled like my friend Joan's house! I took me a long time to identify just what the smell was, but now I realize that much of it is the talc. The slip formula we use - first developed by the Hagen-Renaker family - has an unusually high talc ratio. So the scent is something like an earthy version of baby powder. It's distinctive, and whenever I return to it after an absence it renews my creative energy.

Hopefully that will mean that I have some lottery sneak peeks here in the next few days!