IT'S COLD

It is cold, how cold? Well it is too cold to work in the studio with temperatures hovering at -10 at night and +7 during the day. It has made it as low as -21 at the house with the official temperature listed at -20 and yes I am aware this is a widespread situation and not solely concerning my neck of the woods. The issue is that my studio is under our house which is built into the side of a hill and is totally unheated. The temperature normally stays between 58 and 65 all year round and for use during the winter, I have two small electric/oil space heaters which work fine. However when it stays this cold for this long the temp drops into the mid-40s making it too difficult to work with wet clay and your hands constantly in water. The cold also dramatically affects the drying cycle and knobs crack, attachments crack, some s-crack and others warp. It is officially a no-clay zone until it warms up a bit.

I have a friend who recently uprooted from the mid-west and moved to San Diego. In an attempt at internet humor and possibly just a bit to annoy, he send along photos of the weather, flora, ocean and magnificent sunsets to let everyone know, San Diego is the greatest place on earth and to rub the cold weather in my face as well. He has kept up on the current northeast weather and is also sending along Henny Youngman caliber cold jokes and jpegs of San Diego basking in the sun along with some of the unusual sights he encounters on his walks. Sometimes, it just doesn't pay to have a friend with a similar sense of humor.

(Photo courtesy of a San Diegan)