Sunday 24 January 2010

A New Shape

It's bitterly cold and my hands are aching very much but I couldn't resist working with clay again.

This is the first thing I made this year and it should become a vase. It's a shape I haven't made before and it has this special wonkiness from being entirely handbuilt and I quite like that.

Sunday 17 January 2010

The Rocky Pot

So far I haven't touched clay this year but I hope to change this soon. I'm also terribly behind with taking pictures of my stuff, so how about an older one, I haven't posted yet?

I made this pot in last March (a long time ago), inspired by rocks like these.

Sunday 10 January 2010

Crochet

It's snowing and snowing and snowing this weekend. It's glorious winter weather but I stayed inside and didn't want to go out of bed because it's so snug and cosy in there. I didn't feel like reading but it felt just right to try some handicraft. I have a book that explains how to crochet and it was badly needed as I had forgotten all about it. I crocheted quite a lot in my childhood but that was in the eighties of the last century and I haven't done it since.


First I wanted just to try if I still can do it and if my wrists can stand it and I simply worked some rows back and forth. I knew, in the past I had problems to make all the rows of the same length and it seems I got it now. Once I had worked this far I didn't want to unravel my work and so at the end of this comfortable weekend I have a new pot cloth (and cramped hands)! There are some flaws in it but I'm pretty satisfied with the first piece I made in decades!

Sunday 3 January 2010

Rusalka

I've got this beautiful music in my head for some days now.


The lovely snow and ice we have at the moment put me in a festive mood. Everything looks enchanted!

Friday 1 January 2010

Happy New Year!

How I like the quiet morning hours of New Year's Day! It's this time again of making resolutions and although I don't like this as I seem to lack a spirit of optimism, I can't avoid to think about some. In the past year I made some ceramics I'm very proud of and I received some positive feedback I'm very grateful for. (Some of these items did not show up here in their finished state yet, so my first resolution should be to take photographs of my finished stuff!)

My list of things to try has grown longer and I'd like to carry out some designs I have cooking in my mind for a long time. I'm keen to work more with glass (The fascination doesn't fade!) and I'd like to try throwing on the potter's wheel again.

It's also time for my annual booklist, this year a lot shorter than intended because there have been months that went by without me reading a single line. My favourites have been the hilarious stories by Max Goldt and for a serious and thought-provoking read I also recommend Victor Klemperer's LTI. I hope to read more good books in 2010!

Books 2009

Vivi Edström - Astrid Lindgren
Bernhard Schlink - Der Vorleser
Carl Amery - Hitler als Vorläufer
Max Goldt - Der Krapfen auf dem Sims
Max Goldt - Für Nächte am offenen Fenster
Alistair Moffat & Colin Baxter - Remembering Charles Rennie Mackintosh
Monika Krumbach - Schmuckideen für Keramik
Norah C. Gillow - William Morris. Designs and Patterns
Jill Duchess of Hamilton, Penny Hart & John Simmons - William Morris. Gartenkunst und Ornament
Michel Lorblanchet - Höhlenmalerei
Peter Kunze - Durch die Jahrhunderte. Kurze Darstellung der sorbischen Geschichte
Ulrich Krempel & Susanne Meyer-Büser (Hrsg.) - Garten der Frauen
Victor Klemperer - LTI
Julia Friedrichs - Gestatten: Elite
Winfried Glatzeder - Paul und ich
Max Goldt - Ä
David Sedaris - Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim
Stefan Koldehoff - Van Gogh. Mythos und Wirklichkeit
Michel Foucault - Über Hermaphrodismus
Ulrike von Stokar - Malen auf Keramik. Techniken und Dekore
Alasdair Gray - The Ends of our Tethers
Waslaw Nijinsky - Ich bin ein Philosoph, der fühlt. Die Tagebuchaufzeichnungen in der Originalfassung
Max Goldt - QQ
Michel Onfray - Der sinnliche Philosoph
Penelope Curtis - Barbara Hepworth
DLA Piper Series - The Twentieth Century. How it looked and how it felt
Claude Lévi-Strauss & Didier Eribon - Das Nahe und das Ferne
Judith Nesbitt - Peter Doig
Germaine Greer - The Boy
Lars Distelhorst - Judith Butler
Hannelore Bublitz - Judith Butler zur Einführung
Klaus Huhn - Wahrheiten über Gorbatschow
Michel Onfray - Wir brauchen keinen Gott
Ariel Levy - Female Chauvinist Pigs