My daughter Lauren and I are doing an exploration of "story" in our homeschool.

We are studying 
Story, by Robert McKee,
Stealing Fire from the Gods, by James Bonnet,
Hero with 1000 Faces, by Joseph Campbell and
Understanding Comics, by Scott McCloud.

Scott McCloud's book that has been most mind-blowing. Ever since coming across this image which I feel illustrates my relationship with words, I have wanted to post it.

Would love to hear any other good resources for a study of "story."

Carla asked me if I had gotten my bowls fired yet. The answer is yes and I said I'd post some pictures. Below: blowls lined up before first firing.



I ended up with 42 bowls to fire. I threw at least twice as many, cutting every other bowl in half to look at the evenous of the walls. I feel that I am just beginning to be familiar with making bowls. In martial arts it is said that you don't master a form until you've done it at least a thousand times. It's probably true with making bowls as well.

Pictured below: Bowls after bisque firing all glazed and ready for the glaze firing. I am very much a beginner at this. I have never mixed glazes before and thought I'd be doing it at the studio where someone would be giving me a bit of guidance. I followed the instructions but was not sure how thick the glaze should be. I had everything done when I talked with a friend who used to teach ceramics. She told me that my application was too thick and things would bubble and crack. So I spent an afternoon washing glaze off. It took me another whole day to reapply it.



When I packed up all my bowls and delivered them to the studio where they would be fired and started asking questions about the thickness of the glaze, I was told that my application of glaze was still probably a bit thick. I decided to just go for it anyway. I only lost two bowls from glaze running and sticking to the kiln shelf. Lucky me.




These bowls look like I could have bought them in a department store. This surprised me. Glaze came out okay. The colors are a bit more pastel that I was expecting. I learned that the clay body affects the final color of the glaze. It only makes sense that if your canvas is a certain color, the paint you put on top will be affected by that color. The pink is a glaze called hazelnut brown? I think that it came out the way it did because the glaze was so thick. At thinner places it looks more like brown.




Below: my goofy three footed teapot. I am working on making more in the same mode.




My wheel takes a tractor trip on a forklift to be stored away for winter. Maybe next year I'll have a place to play with clay in the winter.