Brad Sondahl's blog

They are smaller than robins...
After the eagle stop, I went into Spokane. One of the stops there was to get honey. The honey people weren't home, but the neighbor's house, south of Valley Hospital on Vecler

Behind the metal and brick facade is a modest, albeit covered with aluminum, house. This place hasn't the height of Watts Towers, but it's getting there on vision. For some reason my wife thought I'd like it a lot (our own shop has its manic side when it comes to design). She was right...

Then on the way home I saw a brightly lit patch of cloud in the sky away from the sun, which I otherwise would have mistaken for a sun dog. It turns out it was a shaft of light, caused by ice crystals aligning as they fall in the high atmosphere, and reflecting light brightly. I'd never seen that before... It may have been caused by a jet contrail, which are often brighter than the lower clouds, but nothing like this.
I also stopped along the highway and got a very nice windblown fir tree top for our Christmas tree, which we'll put up on Friday.

   We got a couple more inches of snow, turned to slush... Here's the best new kitten picture yet... Merry Christmas to you!

    Dec. 26
    Just before Christmas I got an inquiry to make 1000 small tumblers with a stamped logo for a camp. I had made these for 4-5 years until last year, when a potter on their staff decided to produce them. When they told me they were going to do it, I was delighted--they are a huge clump of boring repetitiveness. They originally wanted them for less than a dollar, so I priced them at 90 cents each. Of that, about 20 cents is material/firing costs. So if I were to make them for the same price, I would be working at it full time for over a month, and clear $700 or less. Actually the most tumblers I've made for them was 800, and it took days just wrapping them to ship.
    What I'm leading up to, is I'm thinking of saying no. I could just charge them 4 times as much, which is what a tumbler like that retails for here. But even at 4 times the price, making a 1000 of anything is too tedious for me at this stage of life. If I wanted to learn to make tumblers, it would be an excellent way to do it. But I already know how to make them as well as I ever will.
    This is part of the ongoing realization that a craft potter isn't a machine, and can't compete with machines producing large orders. (I'd prefer not to die with a hammer in my hand, John Henry style). It also coincides with being able to sell most of what I produce without wholesaling, which reduces any financial incentive.
    But I haven't made a final decision yet...

    Dec. 27
    The white kitten got a sore eye last night, so we took it to the vet. It got scratched on its lower eyelid from play fighting with his brother. At least the trip was worth it--they got started with their shots.
    Christmas eating continues. Homemade turkey noodle soup and lefse for lunch, a gift ham with fresh banana bread for supper.
    We've been getting a lot of snow lately but it all becomes slush.
    Meanwhile in Spirit Lake news, I read in the local paper that the Big Fish restaurant is indeed gone, but there's a chance another restaurant will move in... Meanwhile, the new deli that opened up this fall has been closed for several weeks. And two realty offices are opening on Maine St. And the local leather and biker store are extending into body piercing and tattoos. It kind of goes with the bar motif...

    Dec. 28
    I decided, as previously discussed, not to make the 1000 tumblers. It was partly sane business sense, and partly because my relationship with the camp is waning... One might give anything "the old college try," assuming you like the "old college..."
    Meanwhile it was another day of holiday baking-- pecan rolls and bread, granola, and pffefferneusse (to send back with my son, who may or may not leave tomorrow, as his flight is scheduled through blizzardy Denver). It's leftovers from here on out...

    Dec. 29
    I treated myself to getting the DVD of the 1st season of Rocky and Bullwinkle for Christmas (I put it in my stocking). It was my favorite show when I was 6, and clearly had a role in my life. I'd even venture to say that the current episodic nature of my fiction blog is based on them (as well as some of the humor). Unfortunately the DVD doesn't make it easy to skip the repetitive intros for the show segments, so the DVD has its weak points. A lot of the humor went over my head at the time, and was rather wild, such as the leader of the moon men having a sign saying Moon uber alles, while the leader smoked a cigar and resembled Winston Churchill. Since it was being done in the heart of the cold war, I'm sure adding in moon men to the mix of east and west was a good defuser for the US collective unconscious.

    Then a customer wanted to see the kittens, and seeing the white one, enquired if it were deaf. It turns out (after some web research), that white cats with blue eyes have a fair chance of being deaf. I don't think ours is--it wakes up when I hiss at it... Still it's a curious quirk of nature. The white one purrs readily--the Siamese marked one only purrs when the white one is around. (They still don't have names). They managed to disarm one strand of the Christmas tree lights today by pulling a bulb...

    Dec. 30
    I use some computer made graph paper to keep track of my firings for the year. For the first time, I ran out of space at the end of the page, meaning more firings than ever before. I think the main cause of that was expanding the outside show area, so I now have to keep more pots on hand than ever before, so that the shelves don't look empty. The result was 237 total firings, or about 2 days out of 3 on average. The final firing is going as I write. Electric kilns are a great convenience, when they shut themselves off...