Waiter Waiter Percolator

My sweet hubby bought me a little digital camera for my birthday last fall. I haven’t played with it as much as I would like, and I am not into all the technical aspects of photography, but I like to play. Here are a few images.

the dock at taughannock park

cherry trees in bloom

a cleat on the dock

truck lights in the junkyard

The first time I saw Michael’s tools was at the National Ceramic Educators’ Conference (NCECA), probably 5-6 years ago.  Michael is a potter who kept finding that he had to make his own tools to get exactly what he wanted. That isn’t uncommon at all for potters; as a matter of fact, I don’t know if I know ANY potters who haven’t tried to make a custom tool for some part of their process.

Michael has managed to make a great collection of tools that fulfill a LOT of our previously unmet needs, and he’s made them beautiful to look at, to boot.  (Of course, I’m biased, because they’re in bright colors!)  Mudtools are totally worth whatever price may be on them.  If you want to thank Michael for a job well done, go ahead and order them directly from him and send him comments and accolades!

Here’s an image from the Mudtools website:

CraftBoston gave me the chance to meet a lot of artists who are doing really cool things. Take, for example, Kathleen at e ko logic: she and her partners in crime are recycling post-consumer clothing and turning them into very fun and funky clothing. No two pieces are ever exactly alike because they’re made with salvaged pieces of clothing, of cotton t-shirts, or wool or cashmere sweaters. Talk about fashion statements! I love it, because they’re putting their money where their mouth is when it comes to recycling/reuse, AND they’re making some very stylish togs.

I wanted to try stuff on, but couldn’t spare that much time away from the booth (after all I had already spent a million seconds in Lisa Ventre’s booth…). Ok, I also felt like maybe I’m a little too old and thick in the middle for some of the cooler stuff…maybe that will change with this year’s resolution to eat better and start exercising again…

Here’s a pic from their website of the “Bubble Mini,” made of recycled cotton t-shirts:

I saw Lisa Ventre’s hats for the first time when I was checking the CraftBoston website to find the sites of other artists who were going to be there. I thought they were so funky, so COOL… I never expected to actually OWN one! While gallavanting around the show, leaving Alex to man the booth, I visited Lisa’s booth and started chatting with her. She is a very fun, engaging person, as you might imagine from looking at her work:

photo from Lisa’s website

Lucky me, she loved our pots and was willing to do a trade. I feel so fortunate! I really do love trading with other artists. I’m building up quite a collection of lovely things as a result.

I didn’t get the hat pictured above - mine is the more sedate style #95, which I can arrange in any shape and it will KEEP it until I re-crease it. I like wearing it as a “cloche,” a style popular in the 20’s and 30’s. I was going to wear it to work today, but the weather turned cold and I ended up wearing pants; this hat definitely calls for a sweet little dress. I’m looking forward to wearing it all spring and summer!

I’ll have Alex take some “fashion shots” and post them here… maybe…

I love the movement towards leaving a smaller footprint on the planet. I have to confess that I am nowhere NEAR ready to live in anything smaller than 1200 square feet, but if I were going to, I’d be looking at the designs by Jay Schafer known as Tumbleweed Tiny Houses.

Another place doing similar things is Tiny Texas Houses. These guys are building houses out of salvaged wood, windows, and hardware. VERY cool. Maybe we’ll have to do something along these lines for our guest cottage.
Here’s a Tiny Texas House pic from their website:

In the flurry of activity leading up to the show in Boston, certain things fell by the wayside…. unfortunately this blog fell victim to that rush. I saw a lot of great work at the show; Maryszka was there, so I got to drool some more on her shearling jackets. Sigh.

Also there was Patricia Palson, a handweaver and clothing designer whose clothing was just gorgeous. The pics on her website don’t do them justice; if you’re in the DC area the weekend of April 10-13, get yourself to the Smithsonian Craft Show and you can see them in person.

Here’s an image from her website:

Man, I love her work!

After my years selling high-end leather goods - cowboy boots, jackets, briefcases, wallets, bags, luggage - I have a deep appreciation for anyone who knows their way around a hide. When we make our first million, I’m going to call up Toshiki and Maryczka and ask them to make a custom couture shearling coat for me.

We met Maryczka at the Fine Craft Show at the Memorial Art Gallery in Rochester in 2005 or 2006 (ah, the memory is the first thing to go as you get older). Each of their pieces is made by hand in their studio, and they are the most well-crafted, beautiful shearling and lambskin coats you’re ever likely to see.

Their website doesn’t have a lot of pictures, unfortunately; I imagine that since they don’t do a lot of ready-to-wear, they don’t have a lot of stock sitting around to photograph. That would mean that they have to ask their customers permission to take their picture in their new coat, I’m guessing. I haven’t looked through their blog yet, because I just now found out that they have one, but on the first page I saw a picture of a customer in their new Toshiki and Maryczka original.

This is the image from the top of their blog:

That stitching is amazing. Imagine sewing an intricate quilting pattern, but not being able to backtrack and tear out anything you didn’t like, because it would leave perforation marks in your fabric…. that’s what any leather artist is up against. You can’t make any mistakes, or you’ve wasted some very expensive leather. T & M pull it off, beautifully, every time.  And to top it all off, they are amazing drapers. Their tailoring is really, really good. That too is really different in leather than it is in fabric. It takes serious skill, and they have it.

Now, I’m off to make pots so I can start saving for that coat…. good thing it will take me a while, since I’m having a hard time deciding what color I want. Orange? Lime? Purple? Black? and what color piping and trim? Decisions, decisions….

I have always wanted vintage appliances in the kitchen, but only if their insides were updated to make them more energy efficient. That definitely is out of my price range right now, but then so is the kitchen remodelling…  I was very excited to find that someone is making new appliances that look like 1950’s vintage kitchen appliances.  Big Chill sells retro fridges, stoves and now dishwashers (!) by Elmira Stoveworks in nifty vintage colors.  Who says you can’t have it all?

C’mon, you know you want a pink stove and a poodle skirt…

photo from the Big Chill website

It’s not quite the same as the matching vintage apricot “granite” enamel Norge stove and fridge I found online…  but it’ll fit better in the spot I’ve got for a stove.  Sigh.

I love the graphic quality of prints in general, and of prints in the Arts and Crafts style especially. We had the good fortune to come across the work of Laura Wilder, an artist who lives in Rochester, and who just happens to like our pots. Lucky us, we got to do a trade with her. I can’t remember how many pots she got, but we got a copy of her print, “The Potter,” from her occupational portrait series. It hangs in our gallery/showroom.

I also fell in love with her “Yellow Tabby” print, but it was a limited edition and she’s not doing larger prints of it anymore, so I had to settle for notecards with that print. I’m saving one to frame. This beautiful kitty looks a lot like our yellow beastie.

Laura has also designed some lace panels for Cooper’s Cottage Lace Curtains, which specializes in Arts and Crafts reproduction lace curtains. They’re gorgeous; almost enough to make me wish we didn’t have kitties who would claw them to pieces…

Here’s a photo from Laura’s website of a print called “The Gloaming.” I love the use of color.

There’s been a growing movement towards building small, high-quality houses over the last decade, partially as a reaction to the ubiquitous “McMansions,” partially to satisfy the desire on the part of some homeowners to reduce their carbon footprint…I’m sure there are other factors as well, depending on the individual.
One of the architects who is designing beautiful small homes is Ross Chapin, out in the Pacific NW. I love his houses. He takes a lot of the features found in bungalows - built-ins, niches and nooks - and gives them a slightly contemporary twist. He also compacts them into a smaller house than most 20’s and 30’s bungalows, although he does also do houses over 1500 sq. ft.

The ONE thing I wish he included is a mudroom. I’m all for having a small house and eliminating unnecessary rooms, but our family cannot survive without a mudroom. We’ve been struggling along without one in our current house, and it just doesn’t work for us.

Below is a photo of the front facade of a house by Ross called “Coho.” I love it. When can I move in?

photo from Ross Chapin’s website