Playing With My Rooster and the FireFlies

I've been holding out more than usual this year on sharing what's happening.

It's been a busy year.

A very busy year.

 I've been learning to live a life outside the isolated world of my studio.

It's been a year of learning to cook, (I mean really getting into it.) Going out on dates. (Yep) Learning to laugh at funny things even if they aren't appropriate. Enjoying treasure hunting for nice cloths. Finding and listening to new music. Having great sex. (Very, very important.) And most importantly... Allowing myself to fall in love with the world around me.

 But I have to stand still and think about it to see how busy it's actually been. It's been a wonderful blurr. When the diary is kept up to date, the activity is up front and visible. When it's not kept up, so much disappears into the fog.

That's one of the reasons I was keeping this diary. There are times I need to see what's happened.

This post is starting mid-way to where it was meant to be going.

 The rooster project has been a "someday" project for a few years. The original intent was to explore using larger numbers of different paper stencils to build up a narrative. What I intended to illustrate was a "cock-fight", using it as a vehicle for a metaphor. (That one can be explained later.)

 Instead, a metaphor of a rooster chasing lightning bugs was what was developed. 

Admittedly, it's autobiographical.

Love is as elusive as a firefly. 

And to make it even more interesting... 

 

This fall, my firefly has been playing with me. 

It's a game. A collaboration game and we worked through two series together.

 Jess threw all the forms for this falls joint yunomi projects. Her hand cut foot rings just knock me out.

(Frigg'n gorgeous! Spoiled me absolutely rotten!). 

I drafted a new vocabulary of paper stencils and got busy learning how to make them work for the story I wanted to tell. 

 

Squeezed in a few canisters too once the layout of the design got worked out. 

 The first test went good. 

Pretty strait forward. An Aardvark cone 5 Texas White clay with a tile slip used with the stencils and a black 50/50 wash applied to the bisque. The new PB White Liner recipe was used for a glaze.

The result was "meh..."

  

The second test was to just let the slip and clay body do their thing unaided under the PB Liner glaze.. 

This I liked!

There was more testing done using different clay bodies and different slips. Some didn't work and some worked very well. 

(The results are separately posted.) 

But the reason that put this project in motion was getting work ready to head out to Scott Parady's new salt kiln in February.

Bare clay and salt... Mmmmmmmm!

So this thread ain't nearly done yet.