More art than craft

The kids and I went to a local pottery shop today, where customers buy bisqueware, glaze it, pay for it, and leave it. The owners fire it within a week and it is ready for pick up.

Just before Thanksgiving, the kids went with their class to make something in secret, if they chose. Ganoush made a red white and purple mug for me. Gonzo made a Pikachu mug for himself.

Today, the kids made mugs for their grandparents. Ganoush made a money for herself and a kitten for CHG and me. Gonzo made a kitty for himself and a penguin for CHG and me.

I made a jewelry tray for my dresser. The cats started as foam stamps. I stamped them with water and traced the images in pencil. The pencil markings will vanish during the final firing.

The bottom right cat kind of looks like my former cat, DogFood. The upper right cat isn't calico enough to look like my other former cat, Vicki.

After taking the photo, I glazed the bottom in wild strokes to use up extra glaze. While I was waiting for the bottom layer to dry, I went to the front desk to make my payment. When I returned to my table, Helpful Clerk had removed the rest of my glaze. I snuck over to my friend Elephant's table. She was finishing up a butterfly box. She let me use some of her green glaze to color the edges in green, since some of my under color slopped over to the top edge. Mistakes are just new opportunities.

The finished products will be ready on Dec 7th.

Arts and Crafts Day

Kimzyn and Anoif have declared November 30th to be Arts and Crafts Day.

I will use the day to make ATCs for Dy.

And possibly make reindeer antlers for Ganoush's Brownie troop to wear in the parade on Friday night.


November 30th is also St. Andrew's Day, the patron saint of Scotland. CHG has a theory (and it's his and it is not big in the middle) and this is his theory:

St. Andrew's Day is not nearly as popular as St. Patrick's Day or St. Joseph's Day because bartenders and brewers haven't yet figured out how to make plaid beer.

ATC 40 - Page 17

Cards 1..6 are from ChristineMM, who has a blog about her ATCs.

Cards 1..3 are completed cards. Cards 1 was from an alphabet swap that she was part of.

Cards 4..6 are backgrounds for me to add to, then to keep or pass on to someone else.

Card 7 is from my first junior high choir teacher. She changed jobs and moved to my former elementary school as I started 9th grade, just as my brother left elementary for junior high, so he never had her as a teacher.

She taught general music and choir and I had her for both. I remember studying musicals in her class. My Fair Lady, Paint Your Wagon, and one other. Paint Your Wagon is pretty obscure.

She also showed us a British short film, I think without talking, but certainly with sound. The Protagonist discovers that everyday items start making sounds. Piano-key-looking items make piano sounds. Like the British crosswalk markings, like the stripes on a bobby's cuff, like a pepperpot's teeth. He was delighted, and then the magic stopped. He hopped around the crosswalk in hope of it returning, then gave up and walked along as the ordinariness returned.

Dudley Diaphragm helped up learn how to breathe better.

Card 8 is from my high school English teacher. We had a great time in his class. One fellow student arranged "Welcome Back" parties whenever he was gone and we had a substitute. So on April 22, our assignment was to go to the library and plan a birthday party in Shakespeare's honor for the next day.

We had our finals the day before the last day of classes, so we spent the last day playing Trivial Pursuit.

Card 9 is from one of my high school Sunday School teachers. That's a hard age to work with and she did a great job, sharing her own faith and listening to our questions and complaints.

ATC 40 - Page 16

Cards 1..4 were sent from recently discovered family members.

Cards 5 and 6 were sent from my childhood minister and his wife.

They were from Canada and he took many youth group trips to go canoing in the Boundary waters between Minnesota and Ontario. I was part of his last tour, with my friend Camel. Two other youth group members fell in love on the trip, married, and have a couple of kids now.

We camped for a few days. The day we returned was raining and I was paired with a canoe partner who was just miserable and depressed and crying. I felt for her not liking the miserable conditions but she wasn't doing anything useful (like paddling) to get us out of the situation. My friend Camel had a much better trip back, as she had fallen in love with M. Shades. That relationship didn't last, but it did give us giggles for quite a while because he called he Bunny Toes. I had a crush on both Rosy Cheeks and Max, but they both liked someone else.

The other interesting aspect of the trip was that one of the two vans broke down when we were just 100 miles out from home on our way to Minnesota. The timing gear fell out. Rather than turn back, we voted to carry on in the one good van. Black. Its only windows were the windshield and the front doors. Absolutely hollow inside. A delivery truck, really. We pushed all of our gear to the walls and sat on it or in front of it, an a large circle with our feet to the middle. We slept and rode that way, all the way to Minnesota and then back again. We took several stretch breaks.

Card 7 is from Hello Nurse. She was a nursing student at a nearby college, in the obstetrics class. Just as student teachers work with a class, student OB nurses work with pregnant families. We signed up for the program through our OB doc and were assigned Hello Nurse. She and her teacher gave us extra visits, HN can to a Lamaze class with us, can to an OB appointment with us, and attended the birth of Gonzo, even though he was twelve days late and made some of HN's coursework late as well.

Cards 8 and 9 are mine, sent to the minister and his wife. They returned them. I guess I wasn't clear that they should keep them. Oh, well.

ATC 40 - Page 15

Card 3 and Card 9 were made on site by the daughters of the artist of Cards {1,2,4,5,6}. The photos were taken by a friend I met through homeschooling. They have kids that match Gonzo and Ganoush for age and gender, plus an older daughter. She is a graduate of Ohio State and darn proud of her alma mater. The photo cards are from her trip to the Rocky Mountains.

Card 7 is from my sister-in-law and Card 8 is from my brother. SIL colored the back of her cards with over 50 little dots because she used her new package of 50 markers.


Card 8 is a fair representation of our childhood together. My bedroom was painted with two white walls, one red wall, and one wall with 10" wide red white and blue stripes. It was painted that way from the previous sunny baby yellow in 1975, when Bicentennial Fever was all the rage. My curtains spelled out USA over and over.


My brother wanted a bedroom of black and silver but instead it was painted yellow with orange trim.

Around this time, we owned a yellow van. Then we bought a cream-colored pop-up camper that had an orange stripe. When it was time to repaint the van, my parents chose to have an orange stripe painted around the van as well. It was quite noticeable around town.

On the back of the card, my brother wrote a memorable quote from each set of grandparents

• Wash your hand before you play the organ.
• Mom and Dad have left; now we can really get spoiled.
• With Heidi around, there will always be mulberries to take home for later.
  

ATC 40 - Page 14

Cards 1..5 are all from the middle child in the Scouting family. Card 2 was made at home. He took various elements from the Scouting magazine to make a new person. This person is named Bob. It is a variation of the Bob who had recently appeared on his poster for his Citizenship badge.

Monty Python fans, join with me in saying: There is no Card 6.

Cards 7..9 are by the mother of the artist on Page 9 and the daughter of the artist on Pages 10 and 11. This family has really embraced ATCs.

Card 7 was made when she made an 8.5" x 11" dimensional collage and then scanned the image and cut them into cards. Card 9 was made the same way, except for using only rubber stamps rather than the added dimension of ribbons. Card 8 is a drawing with colored pencil, representing Ganesh, the elephant headed Hindu god.

ATC 40 - Page 13

Cards 1..3 are from the Brownie lass in the Scouting family. Card 1 was made at my party. Cards 2 and 3 were brought from home. Card 3 features three orange pompons, which gives it dimension.

Cards 4..6 are from the Scouting mother in the family. She is the other Webelos den leader. I lead the den with my son and her older boy, she leads the den with her younger son. Then I assist with my daughter's Brownie Troop and she leader her daughter's Brownie Troop. This lady made Cards 4 and 5 at the party. It was so fun to see what other people did with my materials. It was a good shake-up for my own ideas. Card 6 she brought from home, featuring elements of the Scouting world that we share.

Cards 7..9 are from the Artist on Page 12. Cards 7 and 8 are ones he brought from home, Card 9 is the last card he made on site. I really like Card 7. As always, click on the photo to see it larger, but the words around the Mona Lisa say: Who in their right mind would let you play with a masterpiece?

ATC 40 - Page 12

Cards 1..9 are all from one artist. He is a boy in my Webelos den. He brought two cards from home, found on page 13. All nine of these were made at the party. While his mom talked with me and worked with her other two kids, this lad just let his creativity flow and came up with a bunch of different ideas.

He used rubber stamps, shaped punches, sticky-backed foam die cuts, stickers, markers, and colored paper.

I like card 4. It rather captures the attitudes of CHG and me. I've had the Hawaiian shirted penguin stamp for quite some time, since high school. My dad has always worn loud shirts, no matter what style dictates. They were quite the staple among my friends in the high school band. But the cool demeanor better suits CHG. I'm more exuberant, effervescent, perky, like the Snoopy stamp. I bought it when a friend on another e-mail list used the phrase "Snoopy dance" in place of "Hooray."

ATC 40 - Page 11

Cards 1..6 were all made by Ganoush, during my party. I have a set of story telling rubber stamps, which she used for most of the cards.

Cards 7 and 8 are also from the artist on Page 10.

There is no Card 9.

ATC 40 - Page 10

Cards 1..6 are from a dear homeschooling family. Card 3 is from the father, Card 5 is from the mother, and the remaining cards are from four of their eight children. Many of their kids have been on the math team that I coach. The father was an officemate to CHG before CHG and I wed, so we have always known that homeschooling was a viable option for our kiddos.

Card 1 lists digits of pi. Card 2 is a rainbow. Card three shows Scottish items. Card 4 has mathematical puns. Card 5 features a poem from Emily Dickinson.

Card 6 is a landscape. When we visit the family, we tend to have open munchies rather than a sit-down meal. One visit, the kids started making scenes with the foods. Banana slices, green pepper rings, and the like.

Cards 7..9 are from the grandmother of the artist Page 9/Cards 1..7. I had heard some storied about this lady, but I had never met her until she came to the party. On the morning of the party, all three generations of ladies (40yo Page 9 artist, her Page 10 artist grandmother, and Page 14 artist in between) made a whole batch for me.

Bass clarinet photos and comments

Here are some artsy photos of my newly refurbished bass clarinet. It had all of the hardware removed, polished, fixed up. It's so smooooth.
The wood was soaked in oil for three days (sounds like a spa). It was fitted with all-new white leather pads (which were back-ordered, giving my technician fits).

This is my favorite photo, and much like my favorite photo from back in my college days. It has a redder cast to the shot. When I took it, I expected my other bell shot (not seen here) to be the better shot. Sometimes you just can't tell until you see it big.

We had a band concert last night at Local College. It went well. Our only big excitement was that the conductor's uncle passed away mid-week. He and his family attended the funeral, then on the day of the concert, the conductor and family woke at 4:30am in Pennsylvania to make it back in time for the concert. Whew.

All five of our pieces were new to the band. We played:

• "Ride" by Samuel R. Hazo
• "Elegy and Affirmation" by Jack Stamp
• "Tempered Steel" by Charles Rochester Young
• "Thanksgiving" (Movement 3 of Symphony of Prayer) by J. Eric Schmidt
• "Burlesque" based on themes from Symphony No. 9, First Movement by Dimitri Shostakovich.

It was described as our sit-down marching band concert, because of all the sound and energy we put out. Tempered Steel has a prominent, recurring bass line with some tricky fingerings. The bass clarinets also have an ethereal section that used a handful of note in arpeggios, but there isn't much of a pattern; we had to read every measure. There was no repetitious groove. It sounded appropriate for Halloween, or like something from Michael Daugherty.

The conductor described the Burlesque to us during one of the first rehearsals and we laughed so much, we insisted that he share the story with the audience at the concert. Shostakovich was supposed to be the great Russian Symphony Composer, outshining Beethoven. His works vacillate between pleasing the Russian State and thumbing his nose at them. This ninth symphony was expected to be majestic, greater than Ode to Joy, but instead it opens with trills that sound like raspberries.

Thanksgiving was an easy piece for most. We called it the Cowboy Thanksgiving, because of its hoedown feel. We practically played it twice. After 107 measures, we go back to the beginning, replay 106 measures, then jump to the coda of only 5 more measures to wrap it up. I suppose that helps pad it out to 5' 30".

The Elegy and Affirmation was to honor both the recently retired band director who dies of a heart attack and also a recent Local College graduate and current high school band director who died in a car accident last spring.

Coming up next month are more familiar pieces - warhorses? We'll start "Chester" by William Schumann and "Russian Christmas Music" by Alfred Reed. I have played both of them before and will enjoy playing them again.