I’ve spent my life as a small time retailer and manufacturer. I’ve spent my life encouraging people to come into my store and shop. Today I have a sign on the door that states “call us, put on your mask and we’ll let you in to pick up your gift.” Last week a person came …
THE RIVER OF DOUBT The book captured my imagination, it was Teddy Roosevelts darkest journey. President Roosevelt had suffered a defeat in 1912 and set off for South America. He was still filled with a devil-may-care attitude and wanted to repay Brazil by helping map the Amazon’s darkest reaches. He also wanted to make sure …
We stop to visit all my old friends in the hometown cemetery. We clean the ground level grave stones and back off the encroaching grass as a cold mist and rain temper our resolve. The stones are made of Morton Gneiss (Sioux Quartzite), a stone that is native to the region in which I live. …
As I dwell in Milwaukee……..Home of the Harley! At the age of 15 I started working at a music store in my home town. Even though it was a small town it serviced an area 100 miles in all directions. The local community had no concept of its importance. The music store that I worked …
Pottery and its relationship to humanity Ten thousand years before we became agrarians a man or a women squished some mud that contained a greater amount of clay. (20,000 years ago.) It had different properties than that of mud that was found along the river bank. The clay resisted absorption differently than the mud. The …
Few envisioned the lifestyle would ever end? Decades allowed us to travel this nation with our posses of artists, artisans and craftsmen. We displayed little thought of its impermanence. We met up in Dallas, Duluth, Fargo, Milwaukee and Bozeman, Montana, Phoenix, Tempe, Tubac and Tucson. Thousands of miles inbetween….. We shared flat tires, engine heat, …
I spend time in London more than many of my U.S. friends. I hang on every word that is uttered by my friends in London. I have a small library of books on London. I have a predilection to everything London. I ponder the last decade and the times I’ve spent there. I go there …
A Haviland pot shard smaller than a penny. It’s glaze and thinness stood out on the shoreline of a tiny little lake (Lake Okabena) in the middle of the expansive Great Plains of North America. The small town hadn’t even been in existence when the Haviland’s started their pottery and porcelain business. The French Company …
He cruises past me with a broad smile on his face. He is lying flat on his skateboard pumping the ground, the bituminous recreational trail. He may not know it that he is surfing/skateboarding on Sailboard Beach, a famous beach known for windsurfing festival and regattas. He doesn’t know the notoriety of the beach because …
A number of years ago we were exhibiting in the South West U.S. and on our return trip we spent some time at the Taos (NM.) Mountain Film Festival. There we met Dr. Mark Plotkin and watched the premier of his documentary “The Shamans Apprentice”. Dr. Plotkin is an ethnobotanist from Harvard and has spent …