Falling down the Pho hole........

In the last few days I've had a few phone calls and emails asking the proverbial question:  Are you OK?  No posts on the blog, phone calls or sightings.  So here is the run down for anyone who follows the spastic ebb and flow of this blog.

  

Sometime around December I got a phone from someone requesting stacked Pho bowls.  My inside voice was screaming NO!  No special orders, it's like a weight over my head and an anchor around my feet but I listened intently and thought;  What the hell is PHO?  I love Google!  Promptly ran out to the studio and started making bowls.  Then, I looked up a local restaurant and took myself out for a bowl of PHO.  Where has this stuff been all my life?  I am a confessed soup-a-holic especially in the cold of winter! 

The bowls were HUGE!  

Back to the studio, the original bowls were much too small so let me try again.  They had to stack and they had to fit on 11" shelf.  Two bowls stacked, no problem but there were other things you could serve with PHO so another dish was needed and maybe a small bowl for chopped scallions or whatever.

First attempt:

Liked it, sent it off to my trusted potter friend for a critique.  She wrote back... 

Looks like a bird feeder.  I wrote back....  No, a lantern!  Couldn't get the birdfeeder out of my head and now realized it wasn't working for me.

Attempt 2:  (design does not happen over night!) 

This was a bit too hard to tie down...... back to the wheel.

and back to carving out half moons on the rim of the plate....

Then over the course of a week of fiddling around I remembered playing with Matryoshka dolls as kid.  I couldn't put them down...... they were awesome!  

As I stacked and un-stacked PHO bowls;  I thought, look at all that space, shouldn't there be something else in these stacked bowls?  I started down the PHO hole....... 

First set, even after careful measuring it did not work.... try again.

and again........

and again......

and again....... 

and the shelves kept filling........ 

and then ....... TA-DA!! 

Not a bird feeder, easy tie down which I promise will get easier as soon as I fire these. 

Inside....... 

Dinner for two! 

Two plates, two Pho bowls, two tea bowls, two saki bowls, a pair of chop sticks, two napkins and a condiment bowl.  AND ...... it fits on an 9" shelf!!!  

In this age of mobility and small apartments and trendy tiny houses service for two on handmade ceramic dishes takes up 9 square inches!  

Happy Valentine's Day!!! 

 And not too worry I am glazing this load by the weekend for all those waiting for mugs and decorative pieces.  I once again apologize for the wait...... I've been on another journey and never left the porch. 

Again......

Oh and to be continued on another post:

After 15+ years I took myself to the Dr. and had a gazillion tests run because I felt like the stuff you scraped off the bottom of my shoe.  Good news I wasn't dying and mostly my body was just in default; it was January, my dog died, I was fat (I prefer Phat!) from Christmas cheer, and for the first time in my life my blood pressure was creeping up.  Feeling the gut punch of growing long in the tooth I bucked up, bought a new pair of running shoes, cleaned out the fridge, threw out the coffee pot, no dairy, no bread, started eating handfuls of herbs and supplements, drinking enough hibiscus tea and chlorophyll to float the Queen Mary and trying to figure out time management skills while walking and jogging my 10,000 steps (4.5 miles)!   After 6 weeks of this parade I'm feeling pretty good and the BP is back to normal but I have yet to achieve the willowy lithe look ....... leave me my illusions!