Daily Adventures

I've been having a mildly unusual time of getting taken care of by a lot of people. A good number of them are from our church, and the biggest flood of that was on Sunday, where everyone offered us a hug, condolences, and a few moments of thoughtful conversations. It was amazing how much support we got on that day.

And I'll never forget Strider's words, he said that his experience was nearly the opposite of what John's was when his father passed away; but that on hearing John's story he could find the world a gentler place because he now knew that such a passing was possible.

We've had two meals already delivered to our door, and a third offer that will be in a day or two. When I was first asked if we wanted a meal, my first inclination was that they didn't have to bother, or that I was okay with cooking, but really it was a way for them to let us know they cared. So I said, yes, and I've been comforted and I think it comforted them as well. Remembering the times we've brought meals to people, it was a good thing for us as well as them.

( And sometimes I have to remember that, yes, I am exhausted and a little fragile as well, and at others, I don't... )

Managed to get this into the mail before I left, and it arrived to a pleased recipient, so now I can show off picture!

( Remembered to get a pic before packing... )

So, just by chance, my husband and his parents were working at the OUR Center today, and Elaine Klotz, who does all the fundraising for the center for feeding folks was there. And she had all the bowls for the auction in her office.

I hadn't seen this since I painted it, and the glazes dry differently than they come out when they're fired. I'd blindly done the extra lines on all the petals because as soon as the glaze dried they disappeared into the background tone of purple. Also one coat looks just like two when it's being painted on, so I while I had some idea that I'd put two coats on most of the areas that I wanted darker, I couldn't actually keep track...

Kinda did it by guess and by golly and if you look at the previous picture where it's just dry... you'll notice it's very different now that it's actually fired.

Peers at it with bemusement. Even the leaves look cooler, because they show all the brush lines now. I really love how the butterflies turned out as well. You can click either picture and it'll take you to where the butterflies and flowers on the outside of the bowl show up.

I love my in-laws. This morning, they went with John to the OUR center in order to just wander about town, see the library and stuff in order to give me time alone with my computer. *laughs* They are so very cool.

And George took all these pictures for me, if you click on either picture you can see all seven he took. And the lady in charge of the fundraiser actually rushed out and grabbed John to say, "You wife is such an artist!" *rolls eyes*... okay, okay... maybe I'll get it someday...

So I got a bunch of pictures, and loaded them all up at my flickr site.

Empty Bowls started, as a concept in Michigan. The Longmont OUR center version has folks in the community donating bowls by buying them from Crackpots and giving them to the soup event. Then folks pay to go to the event, get a free bowl along with two bowls' worth of soup, and a chance at a silent auction for bowls held over for "artistic merit", whatever that is, or by being made by a local celebrity. A few weeks ago, our church had more than sixty people making bowls for the event, but since John was organizing it he didn't get to paint one.

So we went back and painted some. :-)

( Cut so that there aren't THAT many pictures on everyone's friends' list. )

Last night, John, Jet and I went to the local Crackpots pottery place and met up with a bunch of church folks, including an elementary school art teacher, her husband and two kids and their friends and their kids and our friends and their kids and we all painted bowls. In the midst of the happy chaos, Jet turned to me and said, "I *like* visiting while we do this."

He painted his own bowl. Black and yellow and orange and blue stripes and lots of dots and it was cool until he got bored and started playing with the water and the sponge. :-)

John put a big eyeball in the bottom of his bowl, because he and Jet had talked all Monday about doing an eyeball bowl and he wanted to do it eventhough Jet had other ideas. So he did. Then John decided that all eyeballs wasn't really what he wanted to do, so he thought a bit and peered into his bowl and added a nose and part of an ear where they would have been if the inside of the bowl was his face. *giggles* Then he put a big, red, speckled hand on the bottom of the bowl, where he'd been holding it. On Thursday he and I are going to do another pair of bowls, so he giggled a lot, last night, about doing the OTHER half of his face in the other bowl and wondering what the folks firing the bowls would think of THAT.

I once had a book on Chinese brush painting, and as one of the exercises, the artist talked about three or four-stroke sparrows. One for the head, upper body, and, perhaps tail. One for each wing. John and I hunted through the whole house for that book, but I couldn't find it. So I peered at the Internet and found this, which isn't a three-stroke bird no matter how you look at 'em, but they were very cool, and enough for me to at least get an idea of how to paint them. So I painted them onto the outside of the bowl, and then added a branch of the willow/bamboo? leaves on the side opposite the birds. Inside I squinted and then finally put in a stalk of green bamboo (light green loaded brush with a dark green loaded tip with just a bit of brown worked in with the dark green) with a little red-breasted bluejay perched on the side on the inside.

We'll get to see how they turn out in five days, and then, this year, I'll just say good-bye to the bowl as last year's experience taught me that it's unlikely I'll see it again. But John and I are painting another set of bowls tomorrow. I'm starting to think that it'd be fun to paint a snowflake into it, just painting the dark parts and leaving the white parts white. The Art teacher did this spectacular sunflower on the inside and outside of her bowl, with lots of circularly symmetrical elements that I thought were just gorgeous. I hope I get to get a picture of her fired bowl next week, too. But how she was methodically working around the bowl reminded me that I could probably do something as regular and overall complex, even when each stroke, in order and in place was simple when contemplated alone.

Nice thing is that Thursday is only in primary colors, so I'll be more limited in color choices, so I can do more with pattern and worry less about colors.

I also discovered that I can get a 20% discount, using my Entertainment card, so I may as well do that, sometime, as Jet really wanted to paint an egg or a critter for himself as well as the bowl for others.