Jay Jasper's Blog, page 53

Your Personal Invitation To Healing 🙏

Life does not stop
during these strange times

Though the perspective is surely changing.

With the world shifting each day, I am able to see more clearly those things which are truly important to living the life I want.

I am taking this time to reflect on the kind of life best lived for me (don’t worry, pottery is of course in there) and personally, helping with healing is part of that best-lived-life.

Hooray for pottery!In 2019

I was contemplating how I might integrate my own healing into my artistic process and how I might involve and possibly help others with their healing. After contemplating this for sometime, I came up with the concept for ‘The Healing Vase’.

My concept is to allow the process of raku and the flames of the reduction process to act as a healing tonic for grief and pain, for myself, for our world, and for all who to choose to participate in this process collectively.

The Healing VaseI would like to extend an invitation to you

Join the Healing Vase project for 2021.

I would love your participation in healing together. I welcome you to

Visit the project page and add your Wishes for Healing.

Thank you and I hope you are keeping safe and well in this time of increased difficulty.

Namaste,

The Alchemist

Subscribe to our newsletter for updates and announcements related to this project.

This Week At The Studio In Photos

The last flower is still holding on A preview of next week’s vase story! It’s out of this world! This one tree still has all it’s very green leaves! Crows are prominent in many myths, including this weeks Norse-mythology inspired vase.
Read about it here.

(Actually, I was adding in compost to the garden, but it’s not as fun of a story!) Find out about a new kind of radiation brought to you by the letter B!

A new piece fresh from this week’s raku firing
(please inquire here for pricing info)

The sun setting on the raspberry bush to end the weekThat’s been the week here.

How’s your week been?

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and win before the year is out!

Saturday Soiree

Time For a cocktail! One of our tumblers What do you
like to do to relax?

Resilience

“You can tell a lot about a person by the way they handle three things: a rainy day, lost luggage and tangled Christmas tree lights.” ~ Maya Angelou Christmas Breakfast At Tiffany’s Ornament Set
$100
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Do you agree that these 3 things are a great way to get to know a person?

What might you add?

Enter to win a mug before the year is out
as part of the Great Pottery Gift Basket!

What Do You Offer The Woman Who Has Everything, Including A Foot Fetish?

Our raku pottery vase story for this week

Is called ‘Njord’s Fjord’ and tells the tale an intriguing and cautionary tale of murder, retribution, the follies of choosing a partner by their feet, two possible foot fetishists, and a complicated marriage where their souls just aren’t in it. Today’s story comes from Norse mythology.

Njord’s Fjord
$ 124
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Skadi was a giantess

And she was eagerly awaiting the return of her father Thiazi. After all he had only gone to retrieve the apples of immortality from the gods, who were no match for the prowess of giants.

How long could that actually take, really?

As time passed, she became more and more concerned that her father had not yet returned to their alpine mountain home, but soon that concern became rage as she became convinced that the gods must have somehow killed her father. She put on her powersuit of armor, and also grabbed her father’s sword, and stormed down her mountain to pay those gods a visit.

The guards of Asgard could see Skadi approaching

Because of the flaming sword she carried: the sword prophesized to help end the world. The gods quickly convened and decided it might be better to negotiate with Skadi.

But what largesse can you offer the giantess who has everything? She laughed at their offer of gold, as she had mountains full of gold. But something, or someone, rather caught her eye.

Baldur Dash

Skadi told the gods she’d be willing to forgo her need for revenge in exchange for a husband, and it was the god Baldur who had caught her eye.. Odin agreed to her request, but only under one condition – that she chose her husband by his feet. An odd request to say the least. But Skadi was not one to back down from a challenge.

Odin had noticed Skadi checking out Baldur, and he wanted to protect him from having to marry a giant. But how was Odin so familiar with the feet of these male gods to know how this might influence Skadi’s choice? Maybe Odin should look the gods in the eyes when he is talking to them instead of checking out their feet.

Skadi of course picked the god with the most beautiful feet, thinking they would belong to Baldur. But nay! She was quite disappointed to find out they belonged to Njord.

Njord was the god of the sea and lived in a shipyard, or as I like to call it – Njord’s Fjord.

This was to prove a constant source of tension between the couple as Skadi loved her mountain home and could not abide living by the sea, and Njord absolutely hated life on the mountain. They tried compromising by not staying ‘sole -ly’ in either of their respective locations, but this ‘flip flopping’ of locations only made them both miserable. All that walking was also probably pretty hard on the feet!

So what do you get when you cross a beautiful giantess and a sea man?

Apparently no children.

Skadi would have to wait to have children until after the relationship failed (which did not take long, much like most mass produced shoes today) and she gave Njord the boot.

What did you think of today’s vase story? And what do you think about our latest addition to the Alchemist’s Studio, ‘Njord’s Fjord’?

Please let us know in the comments below – and have an amazing day!

Thanks for checking out our pottery! You can see more raku vases here.

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Light

“Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: Red Candle Holder and Vases
$120
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only love can do that.” $48
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~ Martin Luther King Jr.Hope you have
a colourful and peaceful daythank you for being a part of mine.

Enter to win a mug before the year is out
as part of the Great Pottery Gift Basket!

Space Connection

Like any skill, raku pottery takes learning and practice

Which means taking a look at old work and learning more about what I like and do not. This helps me to further define my artistic practice.

Yesterday, I was taking a look back at this vase called 65 Cybele, which is a vase I made a few years ago.

65 Cybele is named after one of the largest objects in the asteroid belt. The asteroid is named after Cybele the ancient Phrygian mother of the gods. It really does look like it could be from space!

$62
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With that space connection in mind,
I couldn’t help but be reminded of bb-8 from star wars!and I noted that while I have been creating space-related raku pottery for awhile now, The connection between the future and past via mythology is a curious area for further exploration A few raku pottery planets I have created

Cybele was considered the mother of all and an exotic mystery goddess who would arrive in a lion drawn chariot to the accompaniment of wild music, wine and a disorderly ecstatic following.

The more I learn, the more I am convinced that
those ancient Greeks sure knew how to throw a party!

I wonder if their parties
would have been like this?

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(you also get an entry to win the vase below as well!)

Lying In A Pit And Looking At The Sky

Pit firing is the first method that humans used to fire pottery almost 30,000 years ago.

It was considered a great milestone in the development of civilization – in part because people were tired of drinking their wine out of wooden buckets.

With such an interesting story behind these pieces, and their ethereal smokey qualities with small splashes of textures and depth, pit-fired pottery makes a welcome gift for someone who likes unique and eclectic pieces.

I find looking at them is a relaxing experience akin to laying on my back and looking at shapes in the clouds.

Check out our selection of pit fired pieces here and see how it is made here.

Prepping the pit before the firing begins $ 123 (reg $136)
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$ 88 (reg $98)
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$1 13 (reg $125)
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What is something you like to do to stay connected to your history?do you enjoy pit-Fired Pottery?

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Hoo Doesn’t Love Owls?!

I’ll have to resist the temptation

For a free-for-owl of puns as I unveil this recently rakued piece from the kiln!

Though a pun party can be a real hoot . . .

I’m talon you, this piece is a real beauty

I love the crispness of the white owl and the subtlety of all the cracks juxtaposed with the darker more pronounced cracks on the face that almost jump out at you.

The raku gods weren’t
winging it with this one! White Owl
$75
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What do you think of our latest raku owl to join the parliament (group of owls)?

Do you give a hoot? Or did I ruffle too many feathers with owl the puns?

Let us know in the comments below!

You can check out more of our owls that we have available here.

The Sweetness Of Change

When the seasons aren’t around forever It makes them even sweeter. Mug 13
$38
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Hope you have
a colourful and beautiful day Mug 18
$42

Shipping Included in US and Canadathank you for being a part of mine.

Win a mug before the year is out
as part of the Great Pottery Gift Basket!