[Clayart] sand pits etc
mel jacobson
melpots at mail.com
Wed Oct 2 19:34:26 UTC 2024
My Pal Rod and I drove past the reclamation of the huge sand pit near Barron, Wisc. yesterday. It is complete. 600 acres of soft hills, a lake and hundreds of new trees planted. It is very lovely. In fact, better than when they started. They do not leave mess.
The copper mine project in Ladysmith, Wisc is also complete. The mining company asked the community what they wanted in place of the mine. They offered a community center with golf course and swimming pool. The community said to "put it back the way it was. So, the old barn was rebuilt, the dead cars and tractors were hauled back in and the old rusty rolls of barbed wire were set in the weeds. Yes, even the weeds were replanted. It is what the community had, a junk hole.
I did a study of the soil and sand from Dubai. I went to the U of Minnesota and had the soil folks run it through a sim microscope. I got to see the sand as pure marbles, and the earthy clay that needed grit to hold it together. So I made sure I had a bag of gritty silica sand in the container I sent to Dubai.
The Ruler of Dubai had a Michigan Loader full of super dry camel dung sent to our studio on the sea. It burned like gas. We made black-ware, animals burnished black, all from native clay. Some of my students were oil folks from OK, and New Mexico, that said I could never make native black ware. They screamed when we opened the coffee can kilns. Jet black. Maria would have loved to have been with us.
The snow in the artic is also pure marbles. Years of frozen snow rolling in the wind. Same for the sand...hundreds of years of rolling makes perfect circles.
It was pointed out that Sheik Rashid's great grandfather was a potter in old Dubai City. He was very interested in our projects. I might point out that making the Ruler of a Country happy is critical to making me happy. We sent about 25 native made pots to his office. Those pots are in the history museum of Dubai. And we know that some of them were in his mansion. He also bought all the pots in my one man show at the ART Center as gifts for his extended family.
Mel
website: www.melpots.com
WWW.clayartarchives.com
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