**This is a quick photo of some of the new ideas I’ve been working on lately… decorated porcelain FIGURE MUGS! Some people love them, some just look at them like they might get up and attack. I came up witht he idea one late night at the studio, at around 2:00am… so yes, I was a little sleep deprived. The next day after making the soft-slab silhouettes, I put them together and attached pulled handles. The red paint is actually a vibrant blue underglaze, after being glazed and fired.

Ok, so things have been going at a fast pace… last week was great until the end of Friday night. We had a visiting artist arrive on Monday afternoon (ceramic artist and professor at Texas Tech: Von Venhuezen). I was in the process of making a three-part mold for mold making as well that day. We had some beers with Von at the bar. On Tuesday, he demonstrated for us all day long. It was great. During the demonstration day, I asked someone out for coffee for the next day. Later on Tuesday night, I priced and packaged up all of my 23 chili bowls for the sale that was scheduled to be all day Wednesday. After packing up the bowls, we went to pizza with the visiting artist, and then I took off with friends to the bar for a quick drink before heading to a jazz guitar recital/concert. It was great. Someone had told me earlier that it was supposed to be classical instead of Jazz, but I was only slightly disappointed. The next day at around 11:00am, I went to coffee with the new guy. It was nice. We stayed until my chili bowl sale shift that started at 1:00pm. When I got there, people told me that most of my bowls had already sold. All of the turquoise glazed bowls were gone (expectedly). I knew it would be a good-selling glaze. I contrasted it with a dark glaze on the interior of the bowls. I stayed until after we cleaned up at 4:00pm, went back to the studio for a few minutes, then went home and immediately crashed. I went to work all day Thursday, and on Friday I made a lot of slip-cast work and went to the closing reception for the grad show in the campus art gallery. After that, there was a party at one of the grad’s houses. It was fun– everybody got pretty drunk, but things didn’t get too crazy.

On Saturday, I was supposed to get up early to install the undergrad show– but I couldn’t drag myself out of bed. I went home for a day. My mom fed me a medium rare steak, and I actually enjoyed it (I haven’t had any red meat in about 4 years now, so it was a big deal). The latest news is that it turns out that the mattress that the realty company sent over when I moved into my new place is infested with bed bugs. I haven’t really noticed them until now– I cast it off as an allergy to the carpet cleaning solution because when the bumps first showed up they just looked like hives, and they corresponded to how I laid on the carpet to exercise in the morning. Lately it has just been getting worse, so last night I totally freaked out and decided to sleep on my covers (that didn’t solve anything), and today I plan on stripping the bed, spraying my whole room down, and letting it air out for a while. I swear my landlord hates me. Things keep popping up– first she told me that when I moved, the rate would be $50.00 higher than she initially told me, and my rent online account is still trying to charge me $100.00 more than the raised price, and now bed bugs. Go figure.

As a recap for my personal life since I last wrote, I had a short fling with a guy that lasted from about the time I moved out of the old place until two weeks ago. Now it’s over and things are awkward. And he wanted to come to pizza with us when we went with the visiting artist last week. That was weird. Anyway, now I am trying to get to know someone new, but my friends warned me that he could turn out to be a philandering jerk– but as far as my faith in men goes, that will work for now. He seems like a good enough guy to me, and he is attractive. I have dated worse…

In class, we have started slip-casting, and I am in love with the grolleg porcelain clay body I am using. I can’t throw very tall forms with it, but it’s great for hand-building and slip casting, and it’s so white that it seems to glow after being fired. I have been moving more toward small-scale sculpture lately… I will post pics eventually.