the above picture is of some tiny sculptures i call the saskunei seeds.  saskunei means “no worries” in the fukushima dialect of japanese.  in late 2007 i attended a sweet kiln workshop in mashiko, japan.  it was my first time to fire woodkilns and we fired 4 kilns in 4 days.  one of those kilns was the saskunei smokeless kiln built by kusakabe masakazu.  months later i would get to visit him at his studio in fukushima, two times and spend a couple of weeks there total.  while i was visiting his studio, i made the sculptures above.    pretty soon after that i returned to the united states for good.  on the way back i had a layover in atlanta, which i extended so i could visit my good friend and potter kelly sullivan.  she works over at an awesome studio/gallery mudfire and during the visit, i got to do some work there.  i made some monster sculptures and more of these little seeds, which she fired and glazed after i headed back to florida.  over one year later, on a trip up to bowling green, ohio, a friend and i stop in on her and after all this time i get to see the finished peices.  when i returned to my studio in st. pete, i decided to make a some more of these little guys, as favors for the folks who purchased work from my exhibition.  i’ve given a lot of them out as little gifts, but kept at least a few from each batch, and i’ll keep making them. 

which brings me to the next stop on this train line, philadelphia, pa.  i’ve “graduated” from my residency in st. pete and in january i’ll be moving up to philly.  i started this blog to write about the good times, struggles and process of the clay life and hopefully the next year will bring more to write about.