Petaluma

A trip North would not be complete without a trip to Lagunitas Brewing Co.-- to check out their great new beer garden and their enviable IPA.

Norcal Vacation

We just returned from daughter Chelsea's graduation from SFSU......Hooray for our Environmental Studies major!

We also visited ceramic artist, Robert Arneson's hometown of Benicia.  Arneson  taught at UC Davis for 30 years, and while shunning the functional side of ceramics, developed the California Funk Movement.

 

 

 

 

Austere Landscape

 

The charred trees at Hanna Flats reminded me of Isamu Noguchi sculptures.

http://www.noguchi.org/

The 14,000 acre Butler 2 Fire struck this area September 2007-- very few trees survived the inferno.

Driftwood Search

finding just the right piece of redwood driftwood for  accents on my pots can be exhaustive










the beaches of Gualala (3 hrs. north of San Francisco) are my favorite sources for driftwood-- especially in the spring after all the winter storms

My Heart Goes Out to Japan

Unbelievable! Catastrophic images don't begin to show the immensity of the calamity. My thoughts and prayers go out to all of Japan. I wonder too about the Japanese students we hosted a decade ago--Makiko and Noriko.

I am glad to see the international pottery community is also reaching out to the big Japanese pottery community which has been affected.

Here's an interesting Blog from a potter living in Japan:

http://euancraig.blogspot.com/

Still Intrigued By The Desert

I just listened to Michael Connelly's detective/crime novel The Overlook and now during every biking trip through the desert I see clues: discarded shoes, a stained cushion, broken glass, a silver spoon--someone's discards or evidence of a heinous crime (or my overactive imagination?).

Thinking about all this discarded waste (or evidence) has brought another appreciation for Ed Ruscha's recent artwork: "Psych Spaghetti Westerns" being shown at Gagosian Gallery in Beverly Hills. His recent paintings concentrate on the roadside trash....in the desert. Apparently he has a second home out in the Mojave Desert: a place so quiet, his mother once told him: "You can hear your hair grow out here." But he loves it. Ruscha disdains computers and mobile phones, he doesn't watch television and has never, to his knowledge, entered a Starbucks. "I cherish the idea of being alone," he says.

More Banksy Favorites