So maybe it’s just a pot. Maybe the Greek guys were right. Yet it strikes me, looking into the maw of this volatile and strangely comforting furnace, that our foolhardy canoe slipping downriver into the current of an unruly past is bringing back something that the future needs. A sense of the vitality of the frankly physical. The nitty-gritty joy of sheer cussedness. The primal and transformative power of clay and blood and bone and raw human doing-ness that can’t be conveniently abstracted away by the intellectual arbiters of an overcrowded lockstep world. The fugitive pleasures of fun. The potters, the weavers, the carvers, the hand people, are our wild children and our pioneers and our roots. Let them feed the fires. Let them float the canoes. Likely as not, we’ll be needing what they know. ~Bob Hicks, Free Lance writer for the "Oregonian".

2011 March firing, East Creek anagama

Art Scatter, by Bob Hicks, photos by Richard Yates

This is the story of the East Creek anagama—gorgeous photographs by Dick Yates and a compelling poetic tale written by Bob Hicks, capturing the nuance of twenty-six years of
woodfiring in the Pacific Northwest. Read it at:

http://www.artscatter.com/general/circle-of-fire-tending-the-anagama-kiln/

The Goat Who Ate My Art

"The Goat Who Ate My Art" is characterized by a sculpture constructed by my good friend and colleague, Totem Shriver. The "Goat" periodically finds new "positions" around the art building—sometimes on the roof (as in this case), sometimes under a bush. But always watching for a chance to eat "My" art. He is illustrated in the book, often at the end of a chapter, symbolizing the threat of falling victim to imitation. He is, after all, the god of the authentic.