Like a very graceful ballerina, I tripped and fell on my hands and knee while running towards my car this morning!

   

Did I fall while running? Like a runner? No! I fell while running from the auto place to my car! I'm a little proud that I hit my right knee, since I always fall on my left when actually running (like a runner). The hands are new, though. That hurts, still. I fell nine hours ago. I keep looking at the concrete accusingly. And thinking, "Don't fall now. It's going to hurt so bad."

Here's a fun picture of the copper carbonate I used to mix up a low-fire glaze on Monday. 

Try not to think about my wounds.

Part of the Process

I've come to love trimming and glazing much more than I used to. My heart used to belong solely to throwing, but I've realized over the last year or so that throwing takes the shortest amount of time. In that case, my favorite part is the least involved? I needed to shift my thinking, and I did. I started to find something meditative in trimming. It's become a continuation of the honing process that throwing is. 

The act of throwing takes an unformed lump of clay, and turns it into something roughly resembling a functional object. But then, using the wheel to whittle the semi-formed object into a complete idea. In trimming the foot ring finds a parallel with the rim; walls become uniformly thin and smoothed; in my case, all kinds of details are added, creating a unique object. Take these bowls:

They're at a leather-hard stage. They've been sitting on that newspaper-covered board for a week (I dry things too slowly. I'm working on that.) and are ready to trim. After turning each over and removing all the excess clay from the foot (I need some action shots), each also gets decoration on the rim:

Now they're unique, well formed, and ready for bisquing. Throwing those bowls (all 11 of them) took less than 10 minutes. Trimming them took over twice that time.

Now glazing them.. Well, the final product will take another ten days to get. 

Speaking of glazing. Here are those bottles, out of the bisque fire:

All pink and porous. Amazing that when that gets out of the reduction firing it will look totally different: warm, brown, even a bit grainy on the bare clay.

Post glazing, pre-firing:

I'm so excited for how these turn out. Glazing has become another meditative process, and has encouraged me to really visualize how I want a piece to look. I used to just put some glazes on and hope for the best, but now I think about the form itself, and what would compliment it. A constant learning process.

New Thoughts

I've started making bottles at the studio.

I've never been really interested in creating that form before, I think because I couldn't figure out how to make it mine. However, at a market a few weeks ago, a fellow vendor mentioned that the rain made her wish she had a flask. I jokingly said I would make her one, and started getting excited about how that would work. Though my bottles aren't quite flask-like yet, the form is really interesting.

This is the first bottle that's been trimmed and altered. What you can't see is that I'm throwing them all bottomless, so I can paddle them into more flat or oblong shapes and add bottoms when they're done.

These are the newest forms. I'm excited! Something new!

Thoughts?

Compression

I think putting compression socks on after each run has completely changed my recovery process. I went for an easy three miler this morning, having given myself a day of recovery. I wore a pair of (I'm not ashamed) mens compression socks that I bought for cheap off of amazon for a while after that run (because I forgot to take them off before going grocery shopping), and the run I had today was easy and fast. Maybe the easiest post-long-run run that I remember. I'm glad this is an easy week, though. I pushed my running last week, and I'm proud of myself.

Source: Amazon.com

Yesterday was my last outdoor craft market (SoWa, for Bostonians) for the season. It was another rainy market, but I think that actually benefits me, at the end of the day. Having done a few rainy markets and a few sunny ones, here's what I've noticed:

• People are a bit friendlier when the weather is bad. Customers are appreciative and maybe even grateful that we, the vendors, have come out at all (this is heightened by there being noticeably few vendors yesterday).
• The perusers who do come out to the market are looking to buy. When the weather is bad, it's not a pleasant window-shopping Sunday stroll around the South End. It's business.
• Vendors are friendlier to each other. There's a bit of a sense that "we're all in this together" amongst vendors, and we share stories, appreciate each others wares, and help each other out. This might also be due to having more time to talk to each other with fewer customers around.

When I did the Bazaar Bizarre Boston last year I didn't talk to anyone except customers until the last forty-five minutes of the market, because I just didn't have time to even look around. For a good four hours of the seven that we were there, we were just ringing up one sale after another.

I'm glad to be done with markets until December. It's time to buckle down and make.

On the schedule for today:

• 9-1, Mudflat, doing work for them (kiln unloading, scraping shelves, loading up again, etc.
• 1-5, Mudflat, doing work for me (trimming, throwing, figuring out how this last glazing went, and what choices to make next time.
• 6:30-8:30, group supervision for art therapy. I'm 10 hours away from fulfilling my requirements to get my ATR (registered art therapist), which would allow me to have more letters after my name. Letters = respect, and potentially more money. 

Let's go.

Developing

Yesterday I ran SEVEN miles, for the first time since my stress fracture. It felt so damn good to rack up the miles. To hear that voice on my mile-tracking app tell me "Seven..Miles..Completed." and to feel like I could keep going. To run on the river again. I missed the feeling of being able to just start running and feel confident that I can keep going.

In other news, I've been logging at least twenty hours a week at my ceramics studio. I've taken a training position there, in that I'm a part of how the studio runs. For example - a typical Monday consists of:

• unloading the glaze kiln (it's a 54 square foot kiln)
• scraping down the kiln shelves (it's my favorite thing to do)
• loading the bisque kiln (careful not to break anything)
• wedging up at least 50 pounds of recycled clay
• four hours of my own work (trimming, throwing new pieces)
• miscellaneous tasks like wiping down empty carts and consolidating shelves and carts

The more time I spend at the studio, the more I want to make it my full time job. I want to document the time I spend at the studio, and working on my art, and see how it develops. Here's some in-process work!

Liner glazes in the mugs, and lots of tiny bowls.

Slow

Several things are developing at once. it's a little overwhelming, so I'll try to map it here.

First of all, back to running, finally. Fits and starts. I started with week 3 of the running 101 podcast, because it added up to 15 minutes of running, which is closer to what my PA recommended. I did my first run on a treadmill, and was bored out of my mind, but curious to watch my form in the mirror. My feet hit on the outside edges. I'm surprised I don't have runner's knee (knock on wood) from my odd form. Since that first run, I walked to work for two consecutive days in my rain boots and did something weird to the tendon on my left foot that connects to my big toe. It would hurt when I pressed on it, and would ache a bit while walking. It hurts more the day after a run, but after a week of walking and very little pain, I ran today. But I'm getting ahead of myself.

I moved on to week 4 of running 101. 20 minutes of running total, with minute walking breaks every four minutes. I got so bored I started skipping walking breaks, doing two intervals of 4 minutes, one of 9, and one of 4. Two intervals of 4, and one of 14. When I noticed my foot wasn't feeling better, I took a few days off. Then, over the weekend, I headed to New York City to spend a few days with my mom (she met me there), and walked all over the Village, Soho, Chelsea, Nolita, and then up around the museums. Ate really great food, saw amazing art and a Sunday matinee showing of Death of a Salesman (with Andrew Garfield and Phillip Seymour Hoffman). A pretty stellar weekend, and after a delayed bus ride with no napping, I made it home to S around seven last night.

This morning was my final day of week 4, in which I ran one interval of four minutes, and two of nine minutes. Thursday, (my birthday) I'll start week 5, three intervals of eight minutes. I'm excited. I had hoped to be able to run three miles again by my birthday, but I'm getting there.

Next: clay.
Excitingly, I have six markets this summer and autumn at which to sell my ceramics. So I've been furiously working away at the studio, making mugs and tiny bowls (big sellers) and a few big bowls (for myself and my creative/artistic pursuits). I just got accepted to the SoWa Markets for five Sundays between June and October, which means I need to buy:
* 10'x10' white tent (EZ-UP, preferably)
* (4) 40lb tent weights (and fill them with sand)
* Folding table (because one six foot table under a ten foot tent will look so sad)
* 2 new tablecloths (White? Off-white? Need to make the goods pop)

Finally: work.
S and I are driving cross-country in July, which, there and back with a wedding in the middle, will take the month. When I come back, I will not be staying in the same position here. Whether that means I don't have a job or I do is unclear. That one's still in development. We'll see.

For now, I'm having a birthday on Thursday, and going out to T.W. Food for dinner. My favorite restaurant, and my (I think) 3rd birthday in a row dining there. I hope we get the same table.

X-rays and MRIs

This morning was my follow-up x-ray to see how my stress fracture has healed. I showed up, and my PA showed me images from the MRI. Terrifying. As he pointed out, the bones of my leg and forefoot were black in the MRI image, but the area around my heel was all white due to fluid and inflammation. In an alternate view, the bones were white except for a jagged black line that seemed to separate my heel from the rest of my foot. That, he told me, was the stress fracture. It looked so severe and huge, and reminded me how strange that I wasn't in pain at all when the MRI was done.


So, a quick x-ray was on the docket for today. I was seated on a table and two x-rays were taken, one from the side, and one from the sole of my foot.


Within minutes I was back with my PA, and he was pointing out the white smudgy line indicating that my heel was healing.


"BUT," he said, "It takes 3 months to totally heal. You're looking good, so you can start to walk to work again, but a week or two more on the elliptical is in order, and then you can start running."


So it should look like this: 2 more weeks on the elliptical. Then slowly running a mile, then taking the next day off to see how it feels. Stay at 1 mile runs for a week or two, then increase to 1.5 mile runs.
I'm thinking that I'll start the Running101 podcast from week 4 after a week more on the elliptical, and I'll do it on a treadmill. (refresher: week 4 is four intervals of four minutes running at an easy pace, with recovery walks in between. I'll do the podcast for a few weeks on the treadmill, then switch to outside.


And new shoes. Any suggestions? I pronate slightly, and need extra support for my heels. Thoughts? I'm open to anything.