beauty or broken

I got a few pieces out of the pottery kiln this week.Some were good. Most were not. Atleast in my eyes. I see them as broken. They have crazing - where the glaze fractures and is no longer safe to eat of off but is ok as a decorative piece - but I find most crazing ugly. A failure. A broken piece. This first piece I had put in the trash can at the studio and a lady stopped me and said the piece was beautiful and why would I throw it away. I explained all the flaws. She still said it was beautiful. I still see it as ugly. (it's uglier than the picture) It was suppose to be purple. it is not. the glaze cracked all crazy and then in the thicker parts bubbled. I do not like. I will trash it later tonight.

This piece is purple which is what I wanted but is the glaze is all cracked and has a naked spot under the rim. I find it unusable.

But I did have a beautiful piece come out. Its the same glaze as the purple but fired in a different part of the kiln. It did what I wanted. Loving all the shades of color in it.

A close-up.

And then this tray turned out well. It's in my signature pottery colors. :0)

I also had about 4 pieces that were suppose to be red but instead they are an icky yellow. I didn't take pictures and am hoping to re-fire in a different part of the kiln and maybe get some red. or really anything except the icky yellow. So, there are my pottery adventures for the moment.

Seasons

Read this recently about singleness: http://blog.inthenameoflove.org/archives/3729

"I wanted to save her from the pain of solitude, but something hit me. This season of solitude will be exchanged for a season of joy, but with joy comes change and with change comes pain and with pain comes endurance and with endurance comes a new season."

I think I am pretty content in my singleness b/c I hate change. Like really really hate it, resist it, avoid it, loathe it even. But I do get quite lonely sometimes. But it's good. It's all good. I know alone and we are becoming pretty good friends. I do think there is a chunk of me that stays single out of selfishness though. And fear. 

Weekend Projects

Decided to tackle a couple projects this weekend since I had today off. The first was just a couple shelves for my front window so I could put more of my succulents there while it's winter. The bottom "shelf" to pretty much just to add a few inches of depth to the window sill.   

The bigger project was to frame my bathroom mirror and add a little built in shelf thing. Yes, I've probably been on pinterest a little too much. :0) But I have no drawers in my bathroom and the mirror was looking quite funky after 30 years. (notice the black crackly stuff at the bottom, its between the glass and the backing) So, here's the before picture.

And voila... a new bathroom! :0)~

Many thanks to David Brown for letting me use his garage and power tools. AND letting me borrow his muscles on the router and getting the shelf thing together. Learned a few things:

• how to use the miter saw properly. ofcourse I only learned this after cutting the molding for the frame a little wonky. (that's what caulk is for right!)
• using the router is hard. David said it would be hard. Although I think my angle was part of my problem. I was trying to push from right to left, and I think pushing or pulling from straight on would have been better. You should see my test piece of wood. Not one straight line on it!
• my 1"x6"'s were quite warped so wrestling the little shelves into the routed notches wasn't easy. David used brute force to make it work and glue/nail gun them into place. Next time I'll use better boards or get MDF.
• Used a carving tool on my dremel tool to make the notches to go over the mirror clips. That worked quite nicely.
• Spray paint that says it's primer and paint all in one. ugh. I should have primed the boards anyway. Used a ton of paint and ran out 1/2 way through the project and had to make a trip to Home Depot THEN Lowes because I forgot where I got the paint in the first place and Home Depot doesn't carry Valspar. Duh, that's a Lowes brand.
• Spray paint can says "easy clean up with soap and water" - LIARS - I still have paint on my hands 24 hours and 2 showers later. I got most of it off with sandpaper but it took a layer of skin off too. GooGone just smeared the paint everywhere. 
• Used NEW Fancy Liquid Nails to attach the molding to the mirror. One kind of Liquid Nails didn't mention adhering to glass but the "New" one did. Yay. Seemed to work.
• I see why people say to paint the back of the molding black before attaching it to the mirror. You can see the back of the molding reflect a little. But it doesn't really bother me. 

So, there you have it. Turned out pretty good. Now onto a million more projects waiting for me. :0)~