Splintered Arts

Summer went by so fast

2010-09-28T20:43:00.005+02:00

A few more harvest pictures:

This large dish is one of the things I made during summer.

I'm tired

2010-08-29T00:14:00.002+02:00

Potatoes

2010-08-28T20:50:00.001+02:00

Grown in a flowerpot. I haven't tasted them yet.

Harvest Time

2010-08-23T22:23:00.003+02:00

The First Peppers

2010-08-15T21:19:00.007+02:00

Here there are finally - the first peppers of this year's balcony season.

There are more to come! One of my plants didn't make it through the heatwave and the others suffered some damages during the big thunderstorm but there are some fine fruits growing! You can't eat them fresher than homegrown and they taste so good!

The tomatoes are ripening too finally. I've got only two plants this time, so I didn't expect them to be as numerous as in the last years but it seems like there will be a lot less to harvest this year. Many blossoms fell off unfertilised as there are so few bees this summer. Mostly bumblebees and hoverflies do the job now. The thunderstorm tore off a lot of the green tomatoes and damaged the plants and there aren't many fruits growing at the moment.

This is mint doing just fine, sporting some lovely blossoms that are very popular among insects.

These are tansy blossoms. There's something about them that I just love and it makes me happy to have them on the balcony.

Balcony News

2010-08-01T20:06:00.009+02:00

The exhausting heat was followed by a massive thunderstorm that played havoc with my plants and got me wet feet inside.

My tallest pepper plant was only half its size afterwards and actually there was no plant undamaged. Most of them recovered amazingly well though, but my tomato and bell pepper harvest will start a little later than expected. I overstrained my wrists cleaning up the mess and had to take a blogging and crafting break.

Pea time is over now. This is the rest of the lot.

I'm just tormenting myself with these pictures. The peas were so good! And they had no maggots and no aphids at all. I read that garlic helps to scare aphids away and so I placed some pots with garlic plants around the pots with the pea plants this year and it worked! (Garlic and peas don't like to be too close to each other, hence the seperate pots.)

Here's my morning glory in full bloom and a picture of how the blossoms look on the evening before. Every morning I'm greeted by so many flowers! The tomato plants are a lot taller by now. Here are some tomato blossoms.

Fruits are forming by now but none of them are ripe yet.

Small Blossoms

2010-07-08T22:20:00.006+02:00

Today again some pictures of a few plants that are flowering at the moment on my balcony.

Lavender

This is silene vulgaris. I think they are very pretty. Maybe I'm the only person who deliberately grows these. I collected seeds and sowed them.

This is a linum blossom. There are also some vicia leaves in this picture.

On this and the next picture there are galinsoga plants, that grew without any effort on my part. I let everything grow and try to get to know all the wild plants better by having them so close to me. I have galinsoga plants with slender leaves and some with bigger leaves, so maybe these are different sorts.

Still catching up on last year's pottery

2010-07-04T17:50:00.008+02:00

I'm getting there!

I found these vases quite complicated to make, but I love their look!

This pot was part of a misfired kiln load. It has some flaws and even a little crack, but considering the circumstances it turned out quite nice. For some reason it's one of my favourites.

I used glass in these dishes and obviously I should have been a bit more generous with it in the flower dish. Maybe I try to fire it again at some point.

Peas and Ceramics

2010-07-03T15:57:00.008+02:00

This is my 200th post in the three years of this blog's existence. I celebrate it with pictures of my pea harvests.

The early sorts begin to wither now but I have another pot full of later peas and these are soon ready to pick.

It's blooming

2010-06-23T14:56:00.005+02:00

The first poppy blossoms today, making me feel quite elated! I thought it wouldn't work so well to grow them in a pot.

Here's the view to the other side. There are peas, lots of peas, the blooming potato, nasturtiums, dill, lavender, mint and some wild plants and my bell peppers are out now too but some of them are a bit sorry-looking. I hope they recover!

Balcony Blossoms

2010-06-22T00:25:00.004+02:00

Calendula

Potato blossoms

Some sort of bell-flower I never sowed but that's growing nevertheless and is quite pretty.

This is one of the poppies I sowed. It's not flowering yet, but I'm really happy that I managed to grow them in a pot. I can't wait to see it in bloom!

Elderflower Syrup

2010-06-21T13:39:00.000+02:00

About a year ago I stumbled upon a picture similar to this along with an elderflower recipe and was reminded of it when I came along some blooming elderflower trees some days ago. So I searched the web for recipies and finally gave it a try and I even prepared my second batch of syrup a few days ago.

In my recipe I measured my ingredients in average quantities as I found recipes that use a lot more sugar or lemons and acid and some that use less.
I used

10 umbels of elderflowers
1 lemon
20 g of lemon acid powder
1 kg sugar
1,5 l water

Collect the flowers, don't wash them but make sure that there are no insects on them and cut off the stems. Place the flowers in a large pot that can be covered and cut the lemon in slices. If it's unsprayed and organic you don't need to peel it. Put the lemon and the lemon acid in the pot along with the flowers. Take another big pot and boil the water in it, add sugar to the water and boil it until all the sugar is dissolved. When this is done, pour the sugar water over the elderflowers. When it's cooled down store it in a cool place and allow it to rest for 5 days, so the flavour of the elderflowers can diffuse into the syrup. The only cool place I have is the fridge and it worked very well. On the last day sieve it through a tea towel, fill the syrup in bottles and store them in a cool and dark place. (For me it's the fridge again.)
The syrup is very delicious and a sip of it mixed with sparkling water is a refreshing beverage on hot summer days. It's also very tasty with strawberries.

I used the remains to cook elderflower jelly. I boiled the flowers and the lemon together with 3/4 l of orange juice and 1 kg of jam sugar for 4 minutes and filled the mixture into glasses. I've never done anything like that before either, so I guess this could also be done with less sugar and I found recipes that used apple juice. My jelly is very sweet and yummy and I'm amazed how strong it tastes of elderflowers!

A Pot and Two Dishes

2010-06-18T19:44:00.005+02:00

More pictures of finished pieces I made last year.

This pot was made by impressing a doily into the clay. Like last summer it serves its purpose on my balcony at the moment. I like ceramic plant pots, decorated or plain, so much more than plastic ones.

Somehow I don't like this dish very much. I don't know if it is the shape or this glaze I rarely use, but it doesn't feel like me really. The centre of the dish is filled with clear glass.

In this textured dish I tried out how some glass colours I had not used before behave when fired. This lovely bright sky-blue and dark wine-red survived the firing but pink and light-green vanished.

Today's Pea Harvest

2010-06-17T21:11:00.002+02:00

The First Peas

2010-06-14T21:05:00.006+02:00

I picked the first peas of the year today!

It's like a feast to me. Nothing compares to the taste of fresh peas!

There are a lot more peapods growing so I'm hoping for a good harvest although a lot of seeds didn't come up this year.

This flower I don't know the name of grows in one of the boxes together with the peas. I don't pull out all the other plants that grow among the ones I sowed. I'm too curious to see what's growing there and I don't like to call wild plants weeds.

Here's the dill today, looking like fireworks.

More impressions from my balcony

2010-06-11T21:55:00.005+02:00

The hot and humid weather makes me feel sick for days now (and all the depressing politics too), I'm just not made for it. My plants are feeling well but need a lot of water.

The tomatos are out for about two weeks now. This year I've got only two plants because the space on the balcony is so limited and I've got all sorts of other stuff growing.

This year I've got a pretty pink morning glory.

The marigold starts blooming...

... and dill blossoms are on their way too.

A Pot and Two Bowls

2010-06-07T22:18:00.008+02:00

Here are some pieces I made last year. (Guess what! I finally took some pictures!)

This pot was very popular among my clay-mates. I made it a year ago and I can't believe that I didn't snap some photos earlier.

One of my pierced bowls, this time in green. I like to make them.

The design of this bowl was inspired by sea shells. I want to try something similar again but it probably takes as long until I make it as it took me to take some photographs.

Eurovision Song Contest

2010-05-30T20:51:00.004+02:00

Lena won and what should I say, it's absolutely deserved! It feels good to not feel embarrassed for a German participant (although the hype and its patriotic element is rather annoying). She enraptured not only Germany but (almost) all of Europe. She's cute and quirky and as it seems completely fearless and confident. (And it's nice to see all the male journalists having a crush on her trembling and sweating in excitement because usually the roles are reversed.)

Of my other big favourites only Serbia made it to the final. I can't resist a melody by Goran Bregović sung by someone with such an androgynous appearance like Milan Stanković. It's a shame that Finland got kicked out in the Semifinal. They had a perfect Eurovision-song. It's cheerful, a bit folk-like and sung in the language of the country. Estonia's entry was nothing like that but still I like it a lot. (If Matthew Bellamy of Muse and Crispian Mills of Kula Shaker had a son together he would look like Estonia's singer I guess.)

More Plants on my Balcony

2010-05-17T18:42:00.005+02:00

This is a potato plant. I had a shrivelled old forgotten potato and thought instead of throwing it away I rather should put it in a pot and see what's happening and it sprouted! It's in a bigger pot now.

Here you can see the first tiny blossom of Pyrenean Saxifrage. It's so delicate and pretty!

The Meadow Pieces

2010-05-15T17:00:00.007+02:00

I made all of these last year and finally got around to post them. They take a lot of time and focus to make and it's so easy to mess them up in a moment of abstraction. I love to make them though! This technique has become some sort of signature for me.

Spring Green Birdie

2010-05-12T16:47:00.005+02:00

My newest creation, inspired by the pigeons that sometimes come and sit among the plants (and sometimes on the plants too and snapping the freshly sprouted peas) on my balcony and seem to thoroughly enjoy it.

Plants on my Balcony

2010-05-02T17:46:00.011+02:00

The sweet smell of spring is in the air and I'm gathering all kinds of plants on my balcony. Here are some of them.

My mother gave me horned pansies...

...and sedum. (There's some old lavender in the picture too.)

Last year she gave me this pot with funkias, that survived the winter outside. There also seems to grow mint or something and some garlic. Quite a lot for this little pot.

The lovely forget-me-nots are flowering right now and in the background you can see nasturtiums.

I also grow dill...

...linum...

...and poppies from seeds.

I sowed a lot of peas, but there aren't many of them out yet.

I found this little plant with its roots uncovered when I took a walk at a freshly ploughed field, planted it in a pot and only 2 days later it blossomed like this. It's a veronica, I think.

I accidently snapped this tansy in an attempt to dig it out. (I really do like tansies.) Luckily it grew some roots when I put it in water, now it grows in a pot.

These vicias are also "weeds" I potted.

My pot of wild plants looks like this at the moment.

First Harvest of the Year

2010-04-11T19:19:00.003+02:00

My bell pepper plants spent the winter in the kitchen. They lost all their leaves in autumn but slowly they grew back and some even blossomed and grew fruit.

They were very tasty and the biggest one was about 9 cm long.

Everything grows on a much smaller scale during winter than in summertime out on the balcony. They can't seem to await it. Some more blossoms and fruit are sprouting!

Easter Eggs

2010-04-06T18:16:00.009+02:00

I have a soft spot for folk art and find it incredibly inspiring. Over the Easter weekend I visited some small museums dedicated to Sorbian and rural culture in our area. Sorbian Easter eggs decorated with traditional patterns made by the use of hot beeswax, feathers and needles are very famous and you could watch them being made. It's fascinating!

Some eggs in their early stages

Finished eggs with traditional motifs

All the stages an egg goes through - layer by layer wax and dyes are applied

Many years ago in my childhood I painted eggs with this technique for the first time but never with such precision and skill. It takes a lot of practice and a very steady hand to get this good, but it's fun regardless of whether you are skilled or not.

Here are some of my feeble (and untraditonal) attempts of this year's Easter. Inspired by this tutorial at Lil Fish Studios blog I tried turmeric to dye some eggs. It works like a charm and gives the most gorgeous shades of yellow! The first tries with the darkest hues were already eaten when I took my pictures.

The egg to the left is an undecorated white one dyed with onion skins,
the eggs in the middle are dyed with turmeric and
the one on the right first had a bath in turmeric and then in commercial blue dye.

The yellow is turmeric. Red and blue are bought colours.

The blemishes are caused by melted wax when the dyes were used when still too hot. Stains can also be prevented when you blot dry the eggs. These will be eaten so it doesn't matter that much but when you make your eggs to stay longer it's better to be more careful.

Spring has arrived

2010-03-20T21:19:00.004+01:00

It's time to revive my hibernating blog. I worked very slowly and very scarcely on my pottery this winter. In January I made this vase and glazed it a few weeks ago.

I tried to scratch a pattern (inspired by the animation films of Hungarian Folk Tales) into the glaze but it didn't work so well as it did on my test piece I made last year. I'm not so happy about it but it just shows the unpredictability of glazes. It was applied a bit too thickly I guess. I'm so intrigued by this technique, I'll try it again!

Muddy Hands

2010-03-16T20:10:00.005+01:00

Last weekend most potters in the area opened their studios for visitors and gave insight into their working process. I took the opportunity and tried wheel-throwing again as everything was prepared and everyone invited to give it a try. I watched numerous videos about throwing the days before but it makes such a difference to try it myself. I don't have as much control of the clay's actions as I wish I had. Or of my actions for that matter. It's so hard to coordinate the speed of the wheel with my feet and at the same time the shaping of the clay with my hands. It always looks so breathtakingly easy when you watch a skilled potter building a beautiful vessel out of a lump of mud. To come that far it takes a lot of practice.

That's me opening the well.

Half my tries ended up deformed or in two pieces. Here are the ones I kept. They are wonky too and far from being perfect, but look, I managed to raise the walls! A little kid came watching me and my attempts and said with such a definite honest and serious attitude "I find this beautiful." and "I find this even more beautiful." - it was very encouraging!

On the next day I went to the pottery again because I wanted to decorate my pieces with some impressions but I had so weak and shaky hands from the day before, that I think I messed them up. Maybe I can amend them when they are dried.
Despite all the pain I want to try to throw the wheel again. The sooner the better!

It's thawing

2010-02-20T19:59:00.006+01:00

I enjoyed wintertime, the glittering snow, the intriguing ice and the long cold and I feel very inspired creatively but not inspired at all to write about it.

I'm in lack of words and it feels wrong to tell about the difficulties the cold does to my hands and which kept me away from working with clay, and yet I love all the bright white crystalline wintriness. I'm fascinated by the colourlessness of the past weeks, the muffled sounds and the loud cracks caused by tension and pressure in the ice.

I made some drawings (Not the best idea when your hands hurt, but I couldn't help it.) of repeating but varying shapes. They might look simple but they are arduous exercises in drawing lines. To me they are more than sketches, they are this winter's creative representation.

A New Shape

2010-01-24T18:55:00.003+01:00

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.

The Rocky Pot

2010-01-17T20:18:00.004+01:00

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.

Crochet

2010-01-10T15:41:00.005+01:00

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!

Rusalka

2010-01-03T19:31:00.002+01:00

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!

Happy New Year!

2010-01-01T17:28:00.003+01:00

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

Stars

2009-12-22T13:57:00.005+01:00

I managed to finish the second batch of my ornaments in time for Christmas. I strung them on matching blue ribbons for hanging.

We even had some wonderful snow in the past days that put me in a wintry mood but it's melting away today.

A few days ago I made some simple paper snowflakes and hung them on my wall. These should stay a bit longer.

Einer von den Guten

2009-12-10T17:10:00.002+01:00

Kurt aka Roger Beathacker ist tot. Ich habe ihn nicht gekannt, aber ich bin traurig. "Nebenbei bemerkt...", sein Blog, gehörte zu meiner regelmäßigen und hochgeschätzten Lektüre und ist seit vielen Monaten hier verlinkt. Lest seine klugen Artikel!
Hier ein Nachruf von Roberto von "ad sinistram", der bessere Worte findet als ich es könnte.

Christmas is coming

2009-12-06T17:50:00.003+01:00

I'm still here and I'm still in a very autumnal mood. But as it is St. Nicholas' Day today it feels appropriate to show some of the Christmas ornaments I made in class. Some others are still in the making. Everyone was busy with cookie cutters making the pottery look like a bakery, so I gave them a try as well.

The glaze is a thin layer of white that makes them look almost edible.

Experimental Again

2009-11-15T15:24:00.006+01:00

I don't feel very much like writing at the moment but I'm still crafting! (The wet and grey and sometimes very chilly autumn weather of the past weeks gives me some additional pain that makes it quite hard sometimes.)

As I have the habit to try some experimental stuff every now and then, I made a little dish.

On the inside I tested new glass, that actually is rather old. My potter found it when she was tidying up some shelves. It's a big jar full of finely grained yellow glass, that someone gave her many years ago and that she never used. It was waiting for me, I like to think!

As yellows are prone to burn away during firing I expected a big mess but I was surprised by some unexpected effects. It must have some really good flux in it, it melted so well and with only a few cracks and no burning. This stuff is of high quality! The dish now looks like it's filled with honey.

On the outside I tried some glaze carving. I have seen amazing results of this technique at pottery fairs and had to try if it works with the white glaze we use. The pattern held its shape perfectly. I see many possibilities ahead!

Some new old finished pieces

2009-10-21T17:22:00.006+02:00

You might have spotted them already in some of the harvesting pictures I took over summer.

This is a blue version of my lava dish and I just love it.

This piece was a test and the first one that was fired three times. And look how bright the glass colours turned out! Glass beads don't like when it's too hot in the kiln.

Kiln Accidents

2009-10-17T19:36:00.006+02:00

Back to blogging! All my energy had been absorbed by other things, so I neglected my little crafting journal. My pottery was ill-fated lately and involved in some kiln accidents.

The glaze turned out very good...

One of my pierced bowls had been glazed finally. I thought I give the mixed glaze a try. Due to its mixed nature it has a slightly different hue of colour all the time. It has been unusually dark for weeks and months, a bit too dark for my purpose, but I ran out of patience to wait for a new mix. (Two other bowls are still waiting.) The glaze looks really fabulous on the bowl I think, but the bowl was damaged in the kiln. One of the shelves plunged down on it during the firing, leaving parts of the rim chipped and the rest sticking to the underside of the shelf, so it had to be removed quite forcefully.

...but the rim of the bowl was damaged like this all around

Another batch of my stuff was in a kiln that was scheduled for a bisque firing, but was accidentally programmed for a glaze firing, which is almost 200°C hotter. After a bisque firing the pieces are porous enough that they can still absorb water, a quality that is important for the application of glazes. After a glaze firing the clay is water tight even without a glaze. This makes glazing after such a firing quite impossible. So my potter lost a complete kiln load of hard work.

The misfired pottery before the second firing

My pieces were mainly meant to be painted with oxides but this is no fun either when the stuff just won't adhere properly. They turned out quite okay under these circumstances but not as good as I wanted them to be. Also the insides of the pots have been left unglazed, although I wanted to try glazing nevertheless, but it was forgotten. So I'm very disappointed lately. I try to do my pieces in the best quality I'm capable of and I try to get better all the time. But big parts of the process are out of my control and sometimes this freaks me out. I even wish these have been my faults and not someone else's, so I knew what to make better the next time. I wish I had a kiln and could make my own mistakes!

Pierced

2009-09-21T21:26:00.004+02:00

I made these pieces months ago and I'm totally proud of them. (And I hate it when people ask me why I made a sieve.)

Autumn is coming

2009-09-19T21:39:00.004+02:00

I'm neglecting my blog a bit. Before I'm back with more crafting (Lately I forget to take pictures of it.) a few more proud harvesting shots.

I have so many sweet peppers, I can't eat them quick enough before they redden. I prefer them green but my parents are very happy with the red ones.

I had a special tomato and now a similar pepper.

One of them burst open.

Here are some autumnal findings of a short morning stroll. I love the beechnuts! They are so tasty and cracking them makes me feel like a squirrel.

Botanical

2009-09-06T17:20:00.004+02:00

I'm still so very fascinated by all the shapes and details of wild herbs and plants and tried to make a few more things with botanical imprints.

It's getting harder to find suitable leaves and grasses as summer fades and they dry and wither. Also in many places these beauties are mowed down. (It's such a sad sight.) Apart from the pot and buttons in the photo above I also made another wall panel I'll show at a later stage. I couldn't take a proper picture of it.

This sponge vessel is another thing I made. I nicked the idea from bptakoma on Flickr and just had to give it a try! It takes some time and patience (and for me some pain in the wrists) to cover a pinch pot with a surface like this.

More Harvesting

2009-09-04T22:59:00.005+02:00

Various sorts of sweet peppers.

Lots and lots of tomatoes.
Some are climbing high and out of reach.

Wheel-thrown

2009-09-01T19:41:00.005+02:00

I always forget to post pictures of my finished pieces, so today here's my first and so far only wheel-thrown little dish.

I would love to try this again and I watch videos like this of Whitney Smith and that of Kim Westad sharing their process of making pottery with a mix of envy and deep admiration because I know it's out of reach for me to ever get this good but it is such a wonderful craft!

Classes started again

2009-08-29T20:55:00.006+02:00

Summer break is over and I can hope to get my crafting done more regularly now. I saw some familiar faces again and even some new. One of my clay mates commented on my pieces that I already have a signature style like a professional potter, a remark that makes me blush. It's boosting my ego! I like to try new things and techniques all the time, so I'm glad it is visible in some way that all these things are made by me.

As you can see in the pictures I painted my meadow with oxides as well as the vetch in the photo above. It originally belonged to a bigger botanical piece that I messed up when my knife fell right in the middle of it. This was the only part I could manage to keep.

I also proceded work on my dishes and try to fire them a third time with some glass although I have my doubts that this will work out as intended. Working with glass is always surprising and maybe it won't be that unpleasant.

Flowers on my Balcony

2009-08-27T22:37:00.006+02:00

Sweet Peas

Snapdragon

Heather

(Crafting Pictures will return to this blog very soon!)

Big Tomato Harvest

2009-08-26T22:06:00.004+02:00

I harvested 192 tomatoes mainly from two of my plants, that looked very pitiful. There were barely bearing a green leaf anymore but plenty of very yummy red tomatoes, among them this big-nosed cyclops.

Homegrown

2009-08-24T21:03:00.003+02:00

Green Peppers on my Balcony

2009-08-21T18:34:00.007+02:00

My bell peppers grow very fine and they're very tasty. It's really nice to harvest one fresh for breakfast.

Inlaid Slip Decoration

2009-08-08T20:50:00.002+02:00

Avid readers will know I like to get experimental, so I tried a new technique with inlaid slip.

I stamped a pattern, mostly with my own handmade stamps, and filled the indentations with contrasting slip. When the piece was leather-hard I scraped off the excess slip to reveal the pattern. This was quite labour intensive and by far the hardest part of the process. The smallest indentations I had made didn't fill completely with slip so there are only little holes left now. On one of the petals you can see that I went a little to far (or didn't stamp deeply enough) and reached the dark part. Despite the flaws I'm going to fire this little experiment. I want to see the finished result.

Meadow

2009-08-06T17:09:00.003+02:00

On one of my strolls in the countryside I collected some grasses and leaves of wild plants for a wall piece I had in mind.

The photo shows it before I peeled them off of the clay to reveal the imprints. I love the look of this with the lovely greens and shapes against the grey background. I wish I knew a way to preserve it just like this.

The Joy of Oiling

2009-08-01T20:13:00.005+02:00

Whenever I touch clay at the moment I mess up what I'm working on, so instead of further torturing myself with mischance and incompetence I decided to maintain my working tools.

I sanded and buffed my rolling pin and my other wooden tools and finished them with linseed oil (which smells heavenly). They are super-smooth now. I want to touch them all the time. It was such a satisfying and calming thing to do! I even wished I had more raw wooden stuff at home that I could sand and cover with oil!

As I have nothing new to show you, how about an older item?

This is a wall piece. I formed a loop for easy hanging but it filled with glaze on one side, so I must find another way to put it on the wall.

Tasty

2009-07-30T23:49:00.001+02:00

Growth

2009-07-28T16:55:00.009+02:00

I'm terribly exhausted and stressed-out. I need some good things to happen!

For the moment here are some balcony impressions:

Tomatoes are ripening. (How I like the shades of colour!)

There are plenty of green peppers growing.

And the nasturtium is just lovely. The blossoms and leaves are edible but I haven't tried them yet.

Sweet Red and Delicate Pink

2009-07-18T17:28:00.004+02:00

Yesterday I picked my first ripe tomatoes and they tasted so sweet! They are small cherry tomatoes of the only sort I kept from last year. It's the plant that sprouted last and now is the tallest of all.

Some days ago I was at the pottery studio and due to the tiring hot weather got nothing else done than adding some newly purchased colours of glass to a textured plate which should be fired a third time.

I tried out pastel pink, purple, and green, and a dark pink for the first time along with some blues I tested earlier and which melt to very nice shades of bright blue. Pinks and reds are delicate glass colours that easily burn. I hope they don't. That's the excitement of working with glass.

I can't stop taking pictures with William Morris patterns in the background

2009-07-14T22:07:00.005+02:00

These are the last peas of the season. They grew just perfectly this year. I harvested 202 pea pods, all of them maggot-free and absolutely delicious.

These chanterelles didn't grow on my balcony. I went mushrooming in the woods and found them all on the same spot.

Blue and Green

2009-07-06T20:19:00.006+02:00

I'm always intrigued by my glassy ceramics! It's fun to play around with glass. I have complete control of the process of texturing my pieces but I can't influence the melting of the glass. I arrange it in a certain way but I never know exactly how it will turn out. It's always a surprise.

Originally the blue one was meant to be a wall hanging but the holes I left on the backside to attach the piece to a wall filled with glaze, although I did clean them before glaze firing but it seems I didn't do it carefully enough. Nevertheless it also works very well as a low dish.

Flower Garden

2009-07-04T20:21:00.006+02:00

Last week I also made this very elaborate and hand-wrecking piece. (I couldn't hold a thing with my right hand for two days afterwards.)

Perhaps you remember the stencilled plate I made a year ago. I wanted to try this technique again ever since. As I'm a slow crafter and like to brood over an idea and go through the steps of the working process over and over again in theory until I'm confident enough that it might work out practically, it took until last week to try it again.

I carefully cut out the stencils (Some might look familiar to you from my felt flowers.) and prepared the slip less watery this time. It had a great consistency.

You can see the steps the dish went through in the next picture. It's good that I took photos because I wouldn't have retrieved all of the stencils from under the layer of slip without a picture to locate them. Digital photography came in very handy at this occasion.

After I removed the stencils I used my selfmade stamps to imprint patterns. On the following day these were accomplished by carved lines and finally I tried out the Sgraffito technique for the first time and carved through the layer of dark slip, so lines of the contrasting white clay show up. It was very laborious and time-consuming and I hope my dish will look good after firing!

Some new Works

2009-07-02T21:13:00.003+02:00

These are two new dishes I made last week. The one on the right is formed from my mould and I wanted to try this for ages. I can't wait to come to the stage where I can add the glassy parts to see if they turn out better this time than in the prototype.

My first Cup and Saucer

2009-06-29T17:08:00.002+02:00

This set is rather nice for being my first attempt I think. There's a lot to improve though. I always shy away from trying cups or mugs although they are so useful and I could need some in my kitchen. I should definitely put this task a little higher on my list of things to try and practise.

Peas, Peas, Peas

2009-06-28T17:29:00.005+02:00

I just can't get enough of them.

My pea season will be over quite soon though. It seems like the peas in one planter catched some sort of mildew while the ones in the other planter are infested with aphids and I don't know how to get rid of them. But as you can see, I had some good harvests.

A particular Plate

2009-06-28T00:03:00.005+02:00

This plate was especially made for my sister. She's a constant source of encouragement and supports my pottery attempts.

I'm very pleased how the texture turned out on this piece but I don't really like that some of the glass overflowed, although it adds a nice individual touch.

It's greening

2009-06-27T23:19:00.003+02:00

There's no sunshine all day at the moment but extreme humidity. Everything grows and greens quite well on my balcony but my tomato plants bear only few fruits so far and these would need some sun to ripen.

Tomatoes, peas and bell pepper plants

This is a green bell pepper that grew very fast, too fast I guess. It's from one of the plants of last year but was very different. I blame the lack of sunshine. It tasted quite bitter and wasn't as crunchy as last year's fruits.

A little Homage to Michel Foucault

2009-06-26T21:57:00.003+02:00

I expected that some tv-station or other would show a documentary about Michel Foucault and his work and life on the 25th anniversary of his death, which was yesterday, but I couldn't find even the smallest mention. Somehow I personally feel offended about this as he's someone I truly appreciate and who has been an invaluable help to me. His work has lost nothing of its importance, how could one of the brightest thinkers be forgotten?

This is an excerpt of a dialogue between Michel Foucault and Noam Chomsky, who I admire just as much. (Here's a second part.) They treated each other with so much respect, they listen carefully, there's no harsh interruption. It's a pleasure to watch this!

I love Peas

2009-06-22T20:31:00.005+02:00

(Would you have guessed?) I celebrated the beginning of summer with a nice pea harvest. It's moments like this I dream about in winter. Peas are so delicious!

These are 22 pea pods...

... which filled this bowl.

The rainy weather we have at the moment is also good for mushrooms and so we had the first pan of the year full of yummy yellow boletuses.

More Crafty News

2009-06-22T19:34:00.003+02:00

I visited the pottery a few days ago and worked on a few pieces.

I glazed this bowl with a wine-red or rather maroon glaze I've never really used so far. It's a bit tricky. While some glazes tend to run, this one seems to shrink and disappear when applied too thinly. I put some clear glass into the centre that has indentions filled with white glaze and as usual I'm curious what it will look like when it comes out of the kiln.

I also worked on these vases. Their insides are still unglazed in the picture but should be green after firing.

A new Bowl

2009-06-17T19:37:00.002+02:00

This is the only crafty thing I got done in the past couple of weeks but it was quite labour-intensive. A seashell was my main inspiration. More and more new ideas keep piling up and I also feel the weird urge to try wheel throwing again.

More Peas

2009-06-15T20:21:00.002+02:00

Hraun

2009-06-10T23:34:00.005+02:00

This means lava in Icelandic (like in the infamous Ódáðahraun lavafield) and it is one of those words I'm not aware of knowing until they pop into my mind constantly. With this word it happens whenever I look at this dish.

Its bubbles and crustiness remind me of boiling lava, now cooled down and frozen. The process this piece passed through is still visible and I love this very much. It's one of my favourite glass experiments so far.

Pigeons in Love

2009-06-09T20:31:00.003+02:00

Peas

2009-06-08T22:11:00.002+02:00

Pigeons love my Balcony

2009-06-01T23:25:00.004+02:00

Do they have some gossip going on?

Increasing numbers of them visit my balcony every day, especially in the morning, when soon after the flapping of the wings of a pigeon flying away the next one stops by and currs. (One of them can make sounds like a dog. And some are ringed while most of them are not.)

Do you see the height of my peas at the left border of the picture?

They look around very, very carefully and seem to be very attracted by my plants.

Blues

2009-05-30T13:14:00.003+02:00

To prevent insanity I took a walk in the woods and on my way picked some cornflowers and grasses at a field.

At home I put the small bunch into one of the vases I made and I am so delighted how well the colours of the glazes I used match the natural blues and greens of the stems I had picked.

Peas and a Bargain

2009-05-24T17:34:00.005+02:00

I found this pretty picture on a flea market yesterday and now it's already on my wall.

It's called "Harvest" and the first owner wrote on the backside that it was bought in Leningrad 30 years ago.

Now take a look on my balcony.

My pea plants are incredibly big and sturdy and they are in bloom now. They never grew so well as they do this year.

Let's see if the pods grow as big as the leaves. You can see the size of my hand for reference. The leaves look enormous to me.

Eurovision Song Contest

2009-05-17T19:32:00.002+02:00

I was in a grumpy mood when I watched the Eurovision Song Contest this year and I think Russia messed it up. They messed it up with blatant homophobia, when the police violently broke up a gay pride rally. It's a shame! (Dima Bilan, last year's winner, who actually made it possible for the Song Contest to take place in Russia, is rumoured to be gay, which makes it even more ridiculous. Let them sing on stage, but beat them in the streets?)

Russia messed it also up by failing to present itself at all within the show, despite spending more money on it than ever before. Usually the start of the show and the voting break are dedicated to show off artists and culture of the hosting country and I'm sure Russia has plenty of talented people but they gave us Cirque du Soleil from Canada and Fuerza Bruta from Brazil. They are surely spectacular but a bit inappropriate in my opinion.

My favourite song this year came from Portugal again, Flor-de-Lis with "Todas as ruas do amor". The winner is very likeable too in my opinion, although I always prefer it when songs are sung in a language of the country they represent.

France and the UK finally made some effort this year to show a decent performance, unlike Germany. There was so much talk about quality and expertise in Germany after finishing last in 2008 and then they entrust a man with the task, who writes songs entitled "Du bist so Porno" and put a disgustingly tied up Dita von Teese on stage (I'll never get what should be erotic about her, and I'm glad it takes more than that to win.) and make a performance that should (and did) remind of last century's fourties. Do they think this awakes good memories in other countries? Next time they really should try something that's not anachronistic and misogynistic and they should put the vote back to the people and don't let juries decide.

My Bucket full of Wild Plants

2009-05-16T19:34:00.004+02:00

I love all the various pretty shapes and tiny blossoms!

The Textured Prototypes

2009-05-15T17:40:00.007+02:00

These are the first two of my textured plates and they are very exciting experiments for me! Can you imagine the anticipation to see how they turned out? I was very satisfied with these first results.

The first plate.

Some of the identations catched air bubbles and didn't fill with glaze when they where dipped and I left them like this for an organic look. I like it!

This one is bigger and filled with a lot of fine-grained glass shards that create a spectacular unpolished but sparkly surface.

This was an auspicious start and I still eagerly test and try with texture, glass and glaze.

My Balcony Garden

2009-05-14T18:21:00.002+02:00

Thanks to the help of my father my plants are finally out on the balcony!

I've got ten bell peppers, six sorts of tomatoes, many peas, strawberries, some flowers and a bucket full of lovely wild plants that others might call weeds, and I can barely walk on the little space that is left. (Makes me dream of a roof garden.)

Delicious

2009-05-13T15:24:00.000+02:00

My first strawberry!

Made of Holes

2009-05-13T15:19:00.001+02:00

The regular classes only start again in autumn, but until then I can nevertheless go to the pottery every now and then to glaze my things and such. That's what I've done this week and here's the batch I worked on.

I feel so very inspired at the moment but my hands hurt too much. It's quite frustrating.

New Stuff made of Clay

2009-05-10T16:52:00.004+02:00

I finally got my difficult hands dirty again and started with a pinchpot that ended up differently from what I had in mind, but so far I like it. Because I never can get enough of them, I also made another textured plate.

The little white fellow you can see in the picture is Moby-Dick, who suddenly appeared on my working table when I made the small vase in the picture below. It's a piece of scrap clay that in my eyes totally looks like a whale.

The vases have imprints of various wonderful leaves and grasses all over, that grow right now. Some petals still stick to the clay. (Want to see them take a bath?) I've always wanted to try this but didn't imagine it as so fiddly to make. It's quite impossible to mend messed up parts, so these have some little flaws here and there.

I'm late

2009-05-10T15:19:00.003+02:00

My Morning Glory enfolded its first blossom today on my window sill. (Yes, my kitchen is a jungle.) I thought I sowed a pink one. Seems like I'm wrong. I need to get all my plants into big pots and out on the balcony. They already could have been outside for a month, because this year's April pretended to be summer.

Look, I've got a new addition to my little balcony garden this year. Little strawberries!

A little Sculpture

2009-05-07T18:34:00.002+02:00

This pictures shows three sides of the same piece. It's wonderfully tactile and looks different from every angle.

A Leaf and a Flower

2009-05-05T15:55:00.005+02:00

This ceramic maple leaf brings to mind how long I delayed the picture-taking of my finished stuff.

I made it last autumn, from one of the giant leaves that served as a background of the quite average-sized maple leaf I made back then.

This is my carved flower dish. Unfortunately I messed it up. The glass looks awful and did not stay in place, but for some reason my mother likes it and uses it for her keys.

Photography

2009-05-03T16:08:00.005+02:00

I took lots and lots of pictures of my ceramic pieces in the past days and weeks, testing my patience by trying out different backgrounds, indirect light and direct light and a bit of photoshoppery. I'm never really satisfied with the results, but I can tell that I mostly prefer photos taken in bright direct sunlight, although all the professional tips and tricks I found on this subject in the world wide web advise the opposite to avoid hard shadows and reflections and such.

I find my pieces look much more vivid and lively though when they get a bit of sun and in many cases I don't mind shadows. Especially the items adorned with glass just crave for light. You can watch them come alive and sparkly in the sunshine.

For a start here are two small test pieces I made for the wedding plate, that didn't really come to use because time pressure demanded a decision before I could see how they turned out. I'm very happy with the combination of green and clear glaze I used for the wedding plate and how it turned out there and I'm quite glad I didn't see how pale it turned out in the test plate. The other version, a combination of oxides and clear glaze, looks way too dark for a wedding in my opinion.

Secret Surprise Revealed - A Wedding Plate

2009-05-02T15:47:00.004+02:00

Hiding these pictures as long as the plate was in the making made me almost forget to reveal my secret surprise. Better late than never.
I made a custom wedding plate for a Czech-American wedding and I was extremely excited and eager to make this (although I'm not a big fan of weddings or marriage and don't know the couple myself, that was going to marry).

The wedding plate for Emily & Lukáš with a carefully carved and etched briar rose

Added together I worked about 10 hours on this piece (kiln times not included) and I was a nervous wreck all the weeks it took me to make it. It was hard to finish it in time and once I even dropped the plate and almost broke it.

The bottom side with the dedication and the names of the givers of the gift

I wanted to make it very special and very romantic (but not in the cheesy glittery hearts kind of way) because this is a special day and love should last throughout the whole marriage. I'm very glad I already had my plate done before I did a Google search for "Wedding Plate" that brought up quite a tasteless collection that would have killed all my inspiration. Why do people try to be funny on a wedding plate in such an unfunny way? I rather stick to romance. May it last and may the marriage be a happy one!

Annie Leibovitz

2009-04-29T15:33:00.003+02:00

Again I'm out of my crafting routine and not feeling very well. My hands haven't been fit enough to work with clay and the class is not taking place at the moment.

But I've seen the very impressive Annie Leibovitz exhibition in Berlin two weeks ago, showing her famous professional works as well as private snapshots of her family and very personal pictures. I feel a bit ambivalent about the latter because they obviously were not taken for the public eye, yet I did not feel like an intruder when I looked at them and I liked them.

To me the strongest photographs in this exhibition are those of her lover Susan Sontag as well as the war photographs. A picture of the destroyed National Library of Sarajevo would be bitter and a symbol for brutishness in itself, but it is much more expressive with an outstanding intellectual like Susan Sontag sitting amidst the rubble. The glamorous celebrity pictures even appeared a bit vulgar in comparison.

I was moved by the pictures Annie Leibovitz had taken of Susan Sontag during her illness and until her death (and I recommend you to read "Illness as Metaphor", a strong text that she wrote during her first battle with cancer as well as "AIDS and Its Metaphors"). I don't know if these pictures are shown with Susan Sontag's consent, but they are full of respect for her. The greenish picture showing her dead and dressed for her funeral to me shows the state of shock Annie Leibovitz was in at that time and thus is much more a picture of herself than of Susan Sontag.

At the exhibition the BBC documentary "Imagine - Life through a Lens" about Annie Leibovitz was shown and I watched parts of it there. You can watch the trailer above and the film split into one, two, three, four, five, six parts is available on Youtube.

Bang Bang - Ein weiterer Nachtrag

2009-04-28T18:33:00.003+02:00

>> Im Inneren des Walfischs
>> Was Männlichkeit heute bedeutet

Frühere Einträge zum Thema:
Bang Bang
Bang Bang - Ein Nachtrag

Glazed

2009-04-19T14:26:00.003+02:00

The vase on the left was dipped into glaze and then dashed all over with other glazes and I also applied a thick coat on the rim. I'm curious what the firing will make of this. The vase on the right is just covered with green glaze.

The pot in the middle is glazed green on the inside and stained with oxides on the outside. Its surface design is immensely popular among my clay mates. I received some very flattering remarks about it. Now I hope all the more that it'll turn out alright.

Fragments

2009-04-13T19:00:00.007+02:00

I've been very busy making stuff. According to my hands I overdid things (and they are right). I am totally addicted to piercing my pieces although it is so exhausting. I take this as a tough exercise for my hands as well as some sort of compulsive fun. Here's what I made:

Look, I decorated the outside of a bowl! You could even eat your soup out of this one.

It's not recommended to try it with this one though.

Here you can see my favourite parts of the remaining fragments of a bowl I made that cost me a lot of work. It cracked right through the middle when I gave it some finishing touches and obviously applied too much pressure doing so. I broke it into more pieces and can't decide whether I should fire some fragments or not.

I also deliberately made some pierced fragments, because I love them so much.

More Experiments

2009-04-10T15:56:00.003+02:00

Two of the pieces you can see in the picture are already glaze fired, which means they are finished actually, but I'm trying something new with them. I applied glass beads and now they are going to be fired a third time in a bisque firing, which is done at a lower temperature than a glaze firing. I don't know if the glass will melt at all. I'm extremely curious how they turn out!

Cylinders

2009-04-08T23:52:00.004+02:00

I had a bout at cylindric shapes for a couple of days which resulted in these vases and a pot. One is just plain so I can mess around with some glazes. On the one on the right I finally used the mould I made some time ago. Spring made me do the pattern on the pot. It has been so warm and sunny recently and the subtle scent of freesias is in the air. I couldn't resist to buy a bunch of those because they smell so lovely.

I experimented a little bit with these pieces. I tried to close the seams without using slip because it inconveniently softens the clay a bit too much on these parts, which I don't like at all. The weight of the walls can make them go baggy at the bottom when the seam is too wet. I tried to prevent this and they seemed to be very stable and neat when they dried, so I hope they come out of the kiln intact.

WIP - This Week

2009-04-05T16:02:00.005+02:00

This is the pot I made last time in class and forgot to photograph. I sanded the edges this time so it's ready for bisque firing.

Here's all the stuff that already is fired once and now got a coat of glaze and a bit of glass and is ready for glaze firing.

Homegrown Bell Peppers

2009-04-01T22:01:00.005+02:00

My bell pepper plants as well as my mother's spent the winter in my kitchen, that serves not only as a pottery workspace and a dumping ground for necessary and not so necessary stuff, but also as some sort of greenhouse. Some still hibernate and don't even have a single leaf as yet while others prospered all winter. One of them bore fruit on my window sill.

A Rocky Pot

2009-03-30T18:21:00.003+02:00

Last week I made a small sculpted pot at home (and skipped the class for a birthday party). The surface of my pot is inspired by geological formations like you can see them in pictures here and here. They are truly fascinating! The design is also an advanced version of the sculpted vase I made some months ago and that I like very much. It's done in a bigger scale this time and in dark clay.

I still haven't taken proper pictures of this old vase as well as of all the other finished pieces of the last months due to bad light, bad health, bad mood and bad photography skills. I hope to get this done quite soon though. For a start you can sneak a peek above on my new blog header.

Young Tomato Plants

2009-03-25T18:13:00.002+01:00

Sowed five weeks ago.

Bang Bang - Ein Nachtrag

2009-03-22T19:27:00.003+01:00

>> Fünf Tage Mediengau: Der Mädchen- und Frauenmord von Winnenden
>> Am Ende angekommen: Pornografie und männliche Normalität
>> "Fragen stellen ist nun mal unser Beruf"
>> Winnenden-Berichterstattung fördert zukünftige Gewalttaten

A Pot and a Book

2009-03-19T19:25:00.003+01:00

This week I made a pot in class but I forgot to take a picture. One of my friendly helpful mates rolled the clay for me and then I pressed a doily into the surface of the slab, cut it into a rectangle and wrapped it around a newspaper-covered plastic pipe and attached the bottom. I smeared the pattern when I put the seam together and when I had to shorten the slab to arrange it to fit, so my pot won't look that nice. I intend to use it on my balcony for flowers once it is finished and this time it doesn't matter that much to me if it has some flaws, although I usually want everything to be done especially careful and neat.

Another one of my friendly claymates lent me a deeply interesting book about ceramic jewellery. She said she had to think of me immediately when she saw this book. This is so nice! It contains many useful tips and I think I can learn a lot from it. It's influence might be visible here sometime soon.

Pinched and Pierced

2009-03-17T11:24:00.003+01:00

After my first failed attempts of making pinch pots again I got the feeling back and was quite busy last week.

I made a batch of pierced pieces...

... and another one with textures.

They are ready for their first firing now.
I'm glad I made these before I tried out wheel-throwing, because my right hand and wrist are still swollen. Nevertheless I'm very glad that I did it.

Mud Wrestling

2009-03-16T18:03:00.002+01:00

Yesterday I've wheel-thrown a piece for the first time! People could visit the pottery studio, look at everything, ask questions, mess around with clay and so on. As you could also get your hands on the potter's wheel I thought I should give it a try and test the stability of my wrists. Everything was prepared and demonstrated and I got an overall so I won't get my clothes dirty. My first try started quite good but I ended up with two parts, one in my hands and the other still on the wheel. My second try produced this low bowl (You see, I always end up with a bowl.) and I left it like this so I won't mess it up as well.

I became nervous during my third attempt, because people came to watch and it was hard enough to coordinate my actions without anyone looking. The almost vessel-like shape I made had a hole in the wall at the end. I didn't try it for a fourth time because my wrists proved to be not stable enough for more and the sides of my hands, which touched the rotating wheel were sore. I really admire everyone who can master wheel throwing and make it look so easy!

Bang Bang

2009-03-16T17:56:00.004+01:00

>> Herr Koma kommt: Der Frauenmord von Winnenden
>> Guten Abend, meine Damen und Herren, Sie sehen die Abendnachrichten.