Chris and I work together, collaborating on pottery with sculptural details. Sometimes he sculpts free-standing pieces, and sometimes I make functional ware without sculptures.We, (mostly he) travel to juried art fairs - about a dozen or more each year - to market our wares. You can see our show calendar at http://www.waxbing.com  We live in beautiful Anderson Valley in the county of Mendocino , in northern California, with our dogs and cats and assorted other living beings.  This land has tall redwoods, a creek, and vegetable gardens. Good people here too. We feel lucky that this is where we landed 30 years ago.

I'm just finishing up a three-day workshop at the Mendocino Coast Writers Conference, and I'm a-buzz with 

ideas for stories - but  most will have to wait until this winter, when the art show schedule cools down.  In the meantime, I'll grab the passing thought, roll it around like a ball of clay, and  leave it here. 

"My thoughts are whirled like a potter's wheel; I know not where I am nor what I do.” Wm. Shakespeare

On the other hand, Will,  in my experience, throwing clay on the turning wheel often helps to clear my mind.

I've been making pottery for many, many years now, ever since my then teenaged daughter and I signed up for lessons with a Berkeley potter. It was going to be something fun that we could do together, a mother-daughter thing, you might say. As it turned out, it was a turning point for me,  - becoming a maker of useful objects out of the earth's most abundant substance - clay. It thrilled me. And my daughter?  She thought it was kind of messy, and she pursued medicine as a career.  I earn my living with my hands in clay.