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Archive for the 'material possessions' Category

dark water.

from the ferry, the water looks like dark, opaque corrugated glass. the night before was hazy, foggy and humid, and as i drove onto the Cape early this morning, it started to clear. from the window that i sit at now, on my way to the island of Nantucket, i can see no land or […]

on choosing a life of making.

Some stories you carry around in your heart. Others live in the throat, in the skull, in the fangs — all worthy places, too. (Natalia Antonova)
a few days ago, i had to opportunity to finally do some bronze casting. one of my colleagues is teaching a beginning sculpture class, and let me in on the […]

confessions of a literary slut.

on Friday night, i finished reading Empire Falls by Richard Russo. it was quite a delicious novel, and i am looking forward to watching the miniseries soon (which has a fabulous cast, by the way - Ed Harris, Paul Fucking Newman, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Joanne Woodward, and Helen Hunt). but on some level it made […]

checks and balances.

i was lucky enough to procure the use of a bike during the two and a half weeks i was in Davis. Davis is an unusually bike-friendly city, not only with bike lanes on every street, but also with dedicated bike paths that wind through many lovely areas, both on campus and off. i had […]

ersatz italian wedding soup or, tales of domestic assholery.

i rarely write about my dubious domestic exploits here because they are frequently embarrassing and pathetic, and not in a “oops, i bleached my underwear!” kind of way.
anyway, i am writing to tell you that i improvised a surprisingly successful soup today. grad school has left me with little time for normal cooking (as if […]

things i have broken.

it’s a consequence of my line of work that i possess a lot of ceramic objects, both my own and those i have bought, borrowed or traded from various colleagues throughout the last decade or so. owning this many breakable objects (as well as my general klutziness) it’s surprising that breakages aren’t a more frequent […]

i just finished reading the most marvelous book.

well, reading is a bit of a misnomer, as i no longer have time to read, but instead listen to audiobooks almost exclusively while working in the studio (i also have a large complement of podcasts, most of the NPR-PRI-New Yorker ilk). when my iPod was finally finished reading to me, i was overcome with […]

a room of one’s own.

my lungs still hurt from the third-hand smoke. one of my colleagues has a minivan that i borrowed today to move into my new warehouse space. he is also a heavy smoker, which means his car reeks, and he is also 23, which means his car is full of all sorts of strange boy paraphenalia […]

my instant office.

the schedule diet continues, to great success. i have made it my overriding priority this semester to actually get enough sleep on a regular schedule, and see what happens. maybe i expected sunshine to beam out of my ass? i don’t know, but i have been keeping a regular schedule at the studio, which has […]

the things i have.

new studio space, originally uploaded by m. ravian.
on Sunday afternoon, i finished moving into my new studio space at school. it had been vacated by my friend Jenn. i had spent last year in an interior studio space without any windows, and the difference they make for me is just huge. nearly everyone who has […]