Last week I made over a dozen works in progress. This week I endeavor to finish as much of what I started as time allows. It is better to anticipate what I will need before I dive in, so I have surrounded the wheel with my unfinished stuff and added water bucket, needle tool, wire tool, trim tool, metal rib, wood knife and an Arnold Palmer made with herbal prickly pear iced tea. I have also centered about five pounds of clay to make chess-piece heads and other miscellany using Throwing Off the Hump technique. Please wish me luck and skill!

This morning brought a three-hour session of improvisational sculpting at PIP Coffee & Clay. I broke some new ground by doing the heads of the larger-scale chess king and queen using pinch-pot technique rather than wheel-throwing for their heads. It seems a more intimate, tactile way to do portraiture.