Here we go again..

not much time for blog writing these days...the holiday whirlwind has begun a'blowin! I've been putting 7 day weeks for a while now and realized I was just a wee bit overstressed earlier this week when I blew a gasket and ended the day in tears over a shipping mishap. (nothing broken or damaged, just a postal return that needed to be rerouted to a gift recipient--it all worked out fine in the end)
Time to reassess how hard I'm working, and how much I let it get to me. Perspective is a good thing.
At the moment, I have a relative on his deathbed over in Europe, and took some time today to call overseas and spoke with him and his wife and son. It's very hard not being there to say goodbye, and knowing we won't see him on this earth anymore, and what a dear man he is and that he will be gone soon from our lives. I've been wandering in circles all day, knowing I should be working but also knowing it's much, much more important to attend to his passing however I can. Sitting down with the phone to speak to family, and cry together, letting myself be raw and sad and teary. Talking with my son about it...

I know later I will put in a few hours in the studio--the mugs and bowls I threw yesterday need their handles and decoration. I wonder how the state of my heart right now will affect my work. I always want my pieces to be imbued with my presence--that is what I enjoy most about being a potter--sharing a part of my spirit in my work. Right now that part of me is full of emotion, for letting someone go, feeling very tender about the loss of a wonderful person from our lives. Yet I'm not in a bad place, even though I'm sad--just a very bittersweet and poignant place.

OK, so it wasn't so bad after all....

I know I was whining a bit yesterday about having a crappy throwing day....it's true I didn't get very far with production, but my big wobbly bowl got fixed right up last night...sometimes just letting it harden a little bit and then continuing to throw can work wonders.
And I had some fun playing with new ideas for vases (and a whole bunch of other things...in this style)

I can't throw for sh*t today....

really, I've tried. I've messed things up, I have a mighty wobbly salad bowl rotating on the wheel as I speak and even tho I know it is beyond saving, and I should just give up, the eternal optimist in me (or the idiot--not sure which) thinks it can be salvaged. *sigh*

This whole week has been a bit of a bust....production-wise. I know I'm off my game and I just don't know when to step away from the wheel. This was going to be my week to get on top of things after the boy was home sick last week.
At least I took some pix of the last pomegranates on the tree--nice and Autumn-ish don't you think?

The Messenger

Went to see The Messenger last night. A new film by Oren Movermen starring Woody Harrelson and Ben Foster about the trials of two army officers currently working in the Casualty Notification service. You know, they guys who have the job of personally notifying families that their loved ones have died in Iraq. Pretty heartbreaking stuff.
According to director Moverman, his friend, producing partner and screenwriter Alessandro Camon came up with the idea for “The Messenger” a few years ago.

“He suggested writing a script about Casualty Notification Officers because no one was looking at the war from that angle at the time. No one was shining a light on the home front from the perspective of the messengers who bring the consequences of war to the families, to the people who pay a direct, intimate and everlasting price for the decision to go to war,” said Moverman. “It's an impossible, horrible job, and yet it's as real as it gets.”

Moverman insists that the film is not about casualties of war, really. It's about the people left behind to deal with life after casualties of war have gone.

“ ‘The Messenger’ may say a thing or two about war, but I think it ultimately deals with grief and the desire to live, to let life into the darkness, even to laugh,” said Moverman. “It definitely makes the point that there are people who have to deal with war in a way that is not strategic or political, but personal.”

When asked about his hopes for the film, Moverman says, “We obviously want people to see it, and listen to it, and be moved by it. This is a film that a team of people poured their hearts and souls into, and we all feel the film has something to say and a lot of love and healing to offer.”



Harrelson says in an interview with the Wall Street Journal, "It was a good experience for me because it's one thing to consider yourself pro-peace, like I consider myself, and quite another to understand what the soldiers are going through. On the film, we had to shoot at Fort Dix and talking to all the guys there just made me really have a lot of respect for the soldiers. I don't love the war, but I do love the warriors I ran into, so it was very important for me philosophically to have that time with them."

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Regardless how you may feel about the war, this film brings a sense of humanity to the forefront in dealing with a universally human subject.
I'm glad we saw it yesterday, right before Veterans' Day.