Time Marches on ...... and on and on.......

Time marches on........ and Spring is hiding.

Since last posting I've taken a seat on Mr Toad's Wild Ride and forgot to buckle up!

Sporadic gardening at best but so much to get done, it's daunting.  Our weather has been set on rinse and spin, rinse again, add snow, repeat.  A crack appears and life is left standing while you run to the garden, drop to your knees and weed like a person possessed before the sky opens up again.  Can't remember a Spring like this for a very long time and hoping the end is near!
After a day of panic gardening the neighborhood; Not My Cat, Rufus showed up.

And did I mention people are down right cranky?  I'm trying hard not leave the compound until I see a daffodil.

 Kirby rides shot gun on our way to Pittsburgh NCECA. 

Time to set up the show at Borelli Edwards Gallery curated by Stephanie Craig!

Our own Todd Leech and Lynne Lofton setting up! 

NCECA has come and gone.  Shows have been set up and broken down.  Great chance to have my pottery battery recharged and getting back to a little excitement in the studio.  I was taken with how little there was on glaze chemistry at this NCECA.  Decals are huge, as is wood firing.  Pots seem to be more decorated and embellished, unless it's wood fired and then drumroll please..... wood fired pots with decals....... and mug prices just keep going up.  I'm not sure I'm up to paying over $100 for mug.... yup, I have heard the argument on the side of the artist for the $100 mug but I'm a potter and the lights need to stay on.  I still make $25 utilitarian, knock around mugs you can take in the garden and put in the dishwasher.  Don't get me wrong I do have a few of those fancy mugs that get used on Sunday morning but my "go to", take to the studio, drive out of the driveway with it on the roof of my car mug, gets used almost everyday.

And I listen to NPR in the studio and heard the grand Mea Culpa of Mark Zuckerberg. Mr Facebook sound shocked at the fallout over Cambridge Analytica.  The more I read the more pissed off I became.  So I downloaded what Facebook had skimmed off my profile over the last 10 years and the final straw was seeing my entire address book in their "information".   WTF Mark?  Do you need honey from my honey lady or eggs from my egg guy up the road?  You have more money than God and you sold out 80 million facebook users information to a shady group in Britain?  I have one vote, and I have buying power and an opinion, that sometimes gets me in a bit of trouble...... BUT I am an advocate for transparency on all levels.  Soooooo I did the unthinkable, I deleted my Facebook account.  I am sure this is having more of an impact on me than Mr Facebook and I am now coming to terms with how this will affect my tiny little business.  I listened to the Congressional panel "grill" Mark and realized Mark was as shocked as I, at just how little Congress knows about cyberspace, advertising dollars etc. and have no hope of any regulation from an impotent government.  I find myself in a constant state of outrage these days....... well unless I'm in the studio and then it's just rainbow poop'n unicorns.  And NPR reported yesterday,  Facebook is making major changes in security and privacy next month........  I'm still on Instagram and Facebook owns Instagram and there is probably a chip in my van following me around and my not so smart, smart phone died yesterday.  Spent an hour on the phone with Raj in distant land far far away and still no phone and right now I am soooooo OK with that!  In a couple months I will be a full fledged hermit with hair growing out of my ears, dandelion puff hair and gnarly bare feet.

AND........ I stumbled back on Craigslist.  My 2006 computer died a while back and after much angst and research decided I could get by with a MacBook Air.  Then I ordered business cards, shooting up a red flag (the colors were way off) and then the show rejection hit list started rolling in and I scratched my head and loaded a bunch of images on my Smart TV (which took me an entire day due to several trips to the  geek store to get compatible pigtails to merge laptop and smart TV as the TV is much smarter than the potter and kept telling how not smart I really am) and I was stunned at how bad my images were!  I started looking around for desk tops and really just can't plunk down well over $1,000 on a desktop computer at the moment..... WAIT!  maybe if I made $100 mugs..........

I spent weeks looking for a computer and then a few days ago I found a fairly new Apple desktop for sale, good price and right up the road.  So in an Ohio, Spring blizzard I drove up the road, kicked the tires and bought it.  Then I downloaded new software to get a new website up and running.  Free fall down the rabbit hole of shopping cart software...... two days of research only to head back to Etsy.  After a day and half I have the "Welcome to S. Miller Pottery" complete.  It might be Christmas before I get this done! 

The learning curve.... new/old  desktop computer, laptop to watch tutorials.... iPad (used to take the picture) and cross watch even more tutorials.  

Then I ran out to the studio and set up the light cube, lights and tripod; taking 188 images of various pots I thought I might want on the website.  If you don't use your camera for a couple years you need to get out the manuals and once again watch a bunch of youtube's on what all those little buttons mean.  My house looks like Michael Cohen's apartment after it was flipped.  And if YouTube is tracking me, it's all about Labrador puppies, gardens, pottery, software, Sony camera functions and cats are jerks.

And I have red lettered on my calendar my first ever home studio sale set for Friday, June 15th and Saturday June 16th.  But as I am no longer on Facebook, not sure if anybody will show up so I will be here drinking iced tea and eating cookies with a dog and not my cat Rufus....... and the chickens will be here by then!

And I had a lovely art day at the Akron Museum of Art seeing the Jun Kaneko show!

 

Amazing!! 

Stay tuned.............