Hot Fun in the Summertime

 

It’s hot here in Oregon right now. This is not just uncomfortable for me, but it’s definitely not the right weather for working in clay. So, what do I do while waiting for the rain or cooler weather?

That’s a good question and I have my own answers. 

Paint. 

I have a shelf of newly made pieces waiting to be bisque fired. Before I do that, I paint on colorful underglazes to add detail and texture. Here are a few I got done this week. 

Because I don’t have air conditioning, I just do a few pieces at a time until it gets too hot. Then I stop. 

Watercolor fun. 

I’m very lucky to have such adorable and amazing grandkiddos who like to come over and play. Sometimes, we go to the park or play outside. But with the weather this week, we found ways to play inside. 

I learned to paint in watercolor when I was 16 and now I’m passing this on to my granddaughter, Meyer. We had a great time doing the wet into wet. Adding salt was a surprise to her and a delight for me. 

Baking. 

Yes, you read that right. Hot weather and baking don’t usually go together, but I love to bake. So when my daughter-in-law asked me to make my delicious shortbread into hearts for Meyer’s sleep ‘under’ party, I was happy to help. 

I’ll admit it took a little time to figure out how to cut out my buttery shortbread into enough big hearts for all the girls but it all worked out great. 

Reading and crochet. 

My other hot weather past times go back to my childhood in hot, humid Ohio. As a girl, I spent many a summer on my neighbors covered back patio reading Nancy Drew and learning to embroider. Now I crochet. A lot. 

So, while I sit in the ‘cool cave’, I read silly mysteries and crochet for my grandkids. Right now, I’m working on a polar bear security blanket for the baby. Do I have a pattern? Nope. I’m just  figuring it out as I go which for me is the fun of it. Right now, it just looks like a small blanket but that will change. 

Too hot to work with clay

What do I do?

Play like I did 

Back in the day

Kid fun in a new grown up way

An Appetite for Creativity. And Fun.

Are there times when you feel restless? Like there’s something there and if you just put your hand out, you’d catch it. But you don’t know what it is? Instead there’s a space like that feeling you get before you know you’re hungry. But you don’t want food for your body, you want food for your spirit. 

Creating feeds my spirit in many satisfying ways. It’s play. It’s work. It’s problem solving and it’s mystery. Even as I complete something new, I find a new sound, smell, color, shape, texture to puzzle and entice me. I wonder if I’ll ever really be finished?

Then an answer popped up my inbox:

“You created something amazing, and now you get to do it again.

And you get to do it again and again and again and again your whole life long. It is natural to feel a creative hunger for the next thing when we have completed the arc of creating the thing before. It is healthy. It is for the good. In fact, it is how life keeps us in the flow of life. We need to give ourselves permission around this. Permission for creative appetite.” Author, Tara Mohr

Completion and beginning again. 

Two sculptures I’ve been working on are ready for the last phase: glazing. Instead of feeling that satisfied feeling, I got restless. Instead of glazing these two sculptures, I started looking at two different sculptures on my top shelf. 

I took them down, held them in my hands and wondered. What to do? What colors did these pieces want? How to reveal the textures? Where was the story? 

I knew I needed to finish the other pieces and yet, I yearned to work these two, too. Instead of forcing myself to completion, I let them show me their colors as I painted. I let my creative appetite lead me. 

The result? Now instead of 2 sculptures glazed and fired, I’ll have 4. 

Fun in the sun.  

It was hot, hot, hot here. Although Darby came to us from California, he was hot too. Instead of hiding out with my R2D2 room air conditioner, I decided Darby and I needed to do something different. Like a Dr. Seuss book: it was too hot to play and too cold to stay, so Darby and I decided to go out and play. 

He was not sure what to do with this plastic pond. He sniffed it. He circled it. He ran around it. When I threw his ball in it, he delicately put one foot in to reach his ball. Finally, I used his favorite thing, the hose and got him in the pool.