There and Back Again: The 2022 Edition. Part Uno.

 Ahhhh, ye olde road trip - a summertime tradition.  But where to go?  Go West middle-aged man, go West.  The goal this time was to visit Oregon and Washington since I had never seen them before.  But to get there, required tackling Nebraska.  Omaha, for the first night.

We headed west on Interstate 80 until we hit Grand Island, Nebraska.  That's when things started to get cool.  Whenever you can, get off the interstate and take the back highways.  We took Highway 2 west across Nebraska and were treated to mashed potatoes and gravy and a patty melt in Broken Arrow and then the Sand Hills for the next several hours.  Beautiful.  There's really nothing that I have detected while driving west on I-80 that would have caused me to realize just a few miles north is some absolutely amazing landscape.

Hills and valleys. Marshy areas. Lakes. All kinds of wildlife.

Wyoming. The southern portion is not nearly as captivating as the northern part.  Sorry Wyoming, somebody had to tell you...

Some artwork in Rawlins.

Can't pass through Utah without hitting The Bonneville Salt Flats.

Ancient pictoglyph near the parking lot.

One of the areas we passed through receives virtually no rainfall each year and we happened to get grazed by some of the rain. It would barely count as drizzle in the Midwest.

Elko, Nevada.  This was my second time ever stopping in Elko and this excursion was certainly a longer stay than my first visit.  Elko did not disappoint.  They've got some intriguing restaurants and a nice crop of neon and/or motel signs.  Here are just a few.  Elko, you treated me well.  I will be back.

Pyramid Lake.

Not too far from Pyramid Lake is the old mining town of Virginia City.  Sweet slice of yesteryear.

Sun setting behind the mountains in Virginia City.

To get to California, we zipped through the Tahoe area.

Between Tahoe and Guerneville, we stopped in Sacremento for lunch at a local eatery named Tori's Place.  I wish I had taken pictures, but I was focused on how amazing the food was.  Corn bread, superb.  Gumbo, beyond amazing.  Mac and Cheese, hell yes!  If you don't beleive me, check out their page on YELP.  IF you are near Sacramento, California and have any appreciation for amazing food, you gotta stop at Tori's.  Mandatory.

Chicken Marrakesh in Guerneville.

Wonderful French bakery in California.

Napa Valley.

Heading north in California on our way into Oregon and Crater Lake.

Crater Lake.

Next time we'll take a peek at the second half of the trip.

Bottles: Part II.

 When we last left Bottles, the struggle to finish the piece was well underway...

Now it is time for some color!

Rounding third base and sliding into home.

Until next time...

Relics of The Republic: Disharmony in Two Parts and Broken Arch Number 3

 House cleaning.

Sometimes your backlog of bisqueware becomes too numerous to ignore and it becomes time to glaze.  I'm not a fan of the glazing process.  It lacks the immediacy that I look for when making work.  For anyone who has read a few posts here over the years could easily call me out on how time-consuming the rest of my process seems to be.  The difference is that if I paint a swath of red across a canvas or build something out of cardboard and fabric, it is what it is.  I see what it's going to be in relation to everything else.  Glazes that have been fired to temperature look nothing like what they do coming straight out of the glaze bucket. 

I'm not a fan of the glazing process.  It lacks the immediacy that I look for when making work.  For anyone who has read a few posts here over the years could easily call me out on how time-consuming the rest of my process seems to be.  The difference is that if I paint a swath of red across a canvas or build something out of cardboard and fabric, it is what it is.  I see what it's going to be in relation to everything else.  Glazes that have been fired to temperature look nothing like what they do coming straight out of the glaze bucket.

I have included a couple of examples of glazed and glazed-fired pieces to show the marked difference between the two stages.

This is what the same piece looks like after being fired up to 2232 degrees Fahrenheit.

This is the right after I applied the glaze, but before I fired it.

The same piece after being fired.

The time delay between glaze application and finished results are at least 24 hours, if not weeks (depending on my firing schedule).

Ugh. Anyway, let's take a look at a few pieces that have gone through the whole process: Disharmony in Two Parts and Broken Arch Number 3.

Now while I'm not a fan of the glaze application process, I do like finished glaze results.  Especially, when the different glazes pool, flow, and showcase textures.

Broken Arch Number 3.

Until next time...