Temperature on outside kiln; 50 degrees
kiln firings; leftover image transfer pieces, cone 02
music in the studio; Corrine Bailey Rae
I am back in the studio today after 5 days in Northern Colorado and 2 days in the dining room finishing out taxes...
My trip to Boulder and the Indian Peaks Wilderness Area was awesome.... I checked into the Chez Villarreal (a friend of a friend's house) and this is what greeted me upon dropping my backpack in my room....
After a 400 mile drive and a good night's sleep, I spent 3 days teaching teenagers in two different Boulder County High Schools and an evening at the Boulder Potters Guild. I had a bit of trepidation about teaching teenagers, strictly because I have no experience doing so, but they were very respectful, interested, and really very delightful...
This is the view from the ceramics studio looking west towards the Boulder Flatirons... not too shabby!!
How fun to be back in such a gloriously beautiful place and the city that I went to grad school in... I visited with several old friends and basically felt like I had re-entered by life of 20 years ago... ! A little disorienting but great good fun as well.
After my teaching gigs I spend a night up in the mountains with an old friend that I lived with in Nederland (and in New Mexico), after my husband and I decided to get a divorce. I wanted to see her again as it had been a year and also she bought a house, her first ever, outside of the small village of Jamestown. 3 years ago this area had suffered a 100-year flood event, and the ravages of that historic flood were still evident; rubble and debris still littered the landscape and roads were still impassible and being rebuilt. After reaching the Bar K where Tamira lives with her two very large dogs, another Husky of course which I had found for her in NM, we had our usual meal of olives, cheese/crackers, and very good wine. I was so pleased to see that the north-facing windows perfectly framed Longs Peak, a 14'er right outside her window, in the mountains that she loves so much. So good to catch up on old times and see her happy and contented in her new home.
The next morning I drove home but not before I stopped briefly in Nederland to drive up to the top of Hurricane Hill.. My ex-husband and I built a house here in 1993 and I wanted to see how it was doing after 20+ years of hurricane force winter winds.. I must say it looked great and I was tempted to ask the woman standing outside if I could peek inside. I didn't however, I was feeling shy and sad and a little emotional, so I just pretended I was a tourist looking at the Continental Divide... I just couldn't help thinking about the day I had left in 1997; crushed and sobbing, and leaving one dog behind... off on another adventure, but not really knowing where life was about to take me at the age of 41...
After a deep breath, and another goodbye, I turned from my mountains again and headed for Santa Fe... All the way down Boulder Canyon I thought about my life in Colorado and how much I had enjoyed it; skiing out my front door, the camaraderie of graduate school, the intensity of nature at 8,500 feet of elevation... But by the time I reached the bottom of the canyon, 16 very steep and winding miles, I had shifted my focus and was then thinking about how the move to New Mexico had turned out and how lucky I was to land on my feet again; an incredible man in my life, a beautiful new home , a new studio to work in, four new huskies to love,a supportive arts community and more mountains to play in! Damn, I'm a lucky girl!
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