Tel Hai

 

A month into the first semester,and everyone is hard at work: the first year students are getting down to throwing cylinders with enthusiasm and some success,the second year are cranking out bowls for the Symposium [have you booked your ticket yet?],while the third year students agonize about their projects and generally run the show- loading kilns,mixing glazes &c.
Back in the studio,I have 160kg. of Meir's special anagama clay,fresh out of the extruder,not to mention a sizeable pile of stoneware,some bags of porcelain and even some earthenware for a plant-pot project- and,of course, a gleaming new kiln. I haven't worked seriously in the studio for a few months,but the time cannot be far off [I hope]- my fingers are beginning to itch to get into all that clay...

Symposium Guests[3]

Check him out [by clicking on title link] and book your tickets fast!

Symposium Guests[2]

Have a good click on this title to see Gareth Mason's site,then tell me if you can resist this year's Pottery Symposium at Tel Hai, Dec.24-26.It looks like a good one to me.

Symposium Guests [1]

Click on the title above to see some of Merete Rasmusson's work...

Finally

My new kiln has been in Israel since June,but various and sundry [mainly Customs-instigated] delays ensued,so it only arrived in Tsfat today. A major planning and manpower management project [sounds grand] meant that it is now proudly ensconced in my studio [now,a couple of hours after these photos,it's also hooked up to gas/burners/vent] with the old kiln on its way to the asbestos dump in Bareket. A fair amount of team shlepping was involved,also slicing off the railing outside the studio with my trusty angle-grinder [and welding it back on subsequently] to ease access,and dismantling the studio door.Now everything is back in place,including most of my vertebrae,and I am ready to collapse in a small heap.
You may have noticed a recent dearth of blogs: we're not out of the woods quite yet,but I suspect that the lure of the new kiln will pull me back to the studio in the near future.Whether this is a good thing remains to be seen.