I rebuilt the firebox and made a few other adjustments on my raku dragon kiln. It has been firing beautifully but the grate burned out at the end of the last firing so I put in some 1/2 inch black pipe and the grate from my grill on top of that. I finished making the changes to it at around 10PM when my friend Peter showed up willing to help fire it. I didn't have the wood all ready yet and some of the pots weren't even glazed and neither of us had eaten anything yet so we had a lot to do before we could get the firing underway. Anyway I wanted to heat up the brick slow because the castable I had used wasn't dry yet and there was a good amount of moisture in the bricks, and... I put a freshly glazed wet platter on the top shelf...soppin wet. Peter made a little fire in the new firebox and we burned with the lid open for an hour or so. At about 850F we heard something break and I was afraid it was the soggy platter, later we found it was a thick planter in the bottom of the chamber. We reached about 1925F and everything matured beautifully except for a couple of refire cups, the platter was brilliant!...a nice coppery oil luster. We finished up between 3 and 4 AM, covered with black soot, tired and happy.

Unknown Values

I went to see a documentary film about an autistic boy who finds healing with horses for the symptoms that cause him suffering. His parents take him on a journey to Mongolia where humans first domesticated horses in search of something, anything that could help their son. Many times 'abnormalities' are an extreme or an accentuation of something that exists in each of us humans and maybe a move towards evolution complete with uncomfortable symptoms. Each of us is like the autistic person in a way, on a day to day basis searching for what it is that clicks with us, makes us feel normal and a part of the world.

Last night someone I met just recently invited me to a bar to listen to music and except for the appreciation of music I felt a little bit alien; this was not a natural habitat for me. My friend would introduce me and say 'this is Marvel, shes an artist' and she would say about herself 'I've never been artistic or creative in any way'. I think she is mistaken in saying that; many times people limit the idea of creative to paint on a canvas or pencil on a drawing board or the sculpting of clay in the studio. People are truly her medium; she interacts easily. Before she even approaches a crowd she creates an image of herself in the mirror. She is all soft curves, light skin and hair, brown eyes with beautiful long eyelashes, a Venus, the Empress in the Tarot deck. She puts on a top that looks like an impressionistic painting, low cut to accent her full, round breasts. She moves through a crowd with fluid movements, brush strokes on a canvas of self expression. Like any creator she has an idea of what she wants to experience, but who can know how things will unfold. She works the room, talking, laughing, brushing by people and taking photos of people she just that moment met, this is her natural habitat.


She loves art, she says. She also loves the artist. We artists are the high priestesses of the Tarot deck, the spiritual expression of our more earthy, feminine counterparts (the Empress). We hold the mysteries of the universe; its our jobs to see truth and beauty with depth and clarity. If the people in her bar scene are colorful, fluid brush strokes, the artist is a black circle, both empty and full, a mystery that can't easily be known, and my friend, she is the focal point of her own creation, a beauty and truth desiring to be seen.