Gone to Pot.....

This is the Mayfest weekend for Tulsa. Great artists gather and sell their wares to an art hungrey population. Tulsa is one of the great supporters of the art market and this event brings out some of the best.I met one of them this morning through a potter friend of mine, Brent Skinner. I' ve known Brent for years and he is a wildman from the word go.....and a great potter.His fried Dan Ishler creates some fantastic pots that are classical in shape and wood fired. This process results in Bisque ware which he then treats with different colorants and refires. Dan has done this professionally for years and has created a rather large following of collectors for his amazing pots. As an art major in college I took ceramics and used it in my regimen of nightly duties. Originally I was a printmaking and drawing major and would start the evenings off with the print room and get all "inked up" running proofs and finished prints. By 10:00 it was time to hit the pottery room and throw pots for a couple of hours to get my hands clean from the ink. About midnight I'd enter the darkroom with clean hands and generally work till 3:00 or so. Ed Albin, head of the Art Department, instructed the janitors to leave a room open so I could get in on the ground floor and crawl through a window to walk back to the dorm. It was during this period of time that I not only learned the qualities of processing and printing B&W prints, but also the magic of the early morning. On many occasions I would overextend my time in the darkroom and leave just before dawn. The magic of sounds and the smell of dew on the grass are memories I'll always treasure from my college days. Dan and I got together and photographed a few of his pots. It was a great test for the new studio and the lighting controls I have. It was a fun shoot.