It's All About the Process

Last month I got the opportunity to take a workshop with Clarence Cruz. He teaches at both UNM and at the Poeh Center (at the Pojoaque pueblo), though I took his Summer class at Ghost Ranch. It was great fun, because Clarence is a patient teacher and also a very nice person. And he has a great sense of humor. He kept us all in stitches the entire week.

Pinch pots from my July workshop at Ghost Ranch

During the workshop, every day brought a new set of challenges. Everyone's pots cracked, and continued to crack the entire week. I brought my pots home, wrapped them tightly, and let them dry very slowly. They were fine for a couple of weeks, but then they, too, developed large cracks. I decided that they weren't meant to be, so I'll crush them and add them to the outer layer of my horno. However, a handful of my tiny pinch pots survived (above), if only for now. I don't generally photograph a work until it's complete, and these little pots still need to be fired. But since I don't know whether or not they'll make it through the firing, I wanted to photograph them as a reminder of my workshop with Clarence.

Rocks and clay soaking in water

Occasionally, someone would lament the cracked pots or some other problem, and Clarence would reply, "Process. It's all about the process." And he's right. We can't get from here to there withouth the journey. And the journey is process.

I love the color of clay. And something that I've enjoyed working on the past month is turning dried clay, and other rocks & minerals into slip. I'll use this slip to decorate my pots.

After soaking the rocks for many days, I crushed them and added more water to make a paste. The paste was then soaked some more to make slip.

The orange rocks (above) came from Hayden Quarry. They were quite pretty, as is, with their little bits of quartz crystal. After a good soaking, and some brute force, I was able to break them up and then crush them. A little water added to the mix yielded a thick paste, which I then added to more water to make slip. This had to soak for a few days before I sieved it.

Chunks of clay from the Late Triassic Period await processing

I followed this procedure with some white and red clay that I picked up from the same quarry. These are the rocks and clay that surrounded the dinosaur bones we excavated back in June, so I like to imagine that I'm working with materials that were once touched by pre-human fauna.

White, tan, orange, and red slips are ready for use.

And finally, the finished product (above). Today I'm going to make some test tiles, paint them with my new slips, burnish them to a high gloss, and then put them into the next firing. I already know that they're going to be gorgeous.

One of the slips (above, second from left) was made from the clay that Clarence gave me. Whenever I use it, or any of the others that have kept me busy for the past month, I'll fondly remember my time with Clarence, and his reminder that it's all about the process.

During the process, a road runner visited my garden

Paleontology at Ghost Ranch

What do Indiana Jones, Canadian TV crews, dinosaurs, graduate students, geologists, paleontologists, documentary film makers, bug spray, rattlesnakes, and sunny days all have in common?

They all converge at Ghost Ranch in Abiquiu, New Mexico. As we were arriving for our seminar, we learned that a film crew for the 4th Indiana Jones movie had just wrapped up. Darn! I would love to have seen Harrison Ford!


This week, Shannon (above) and I joined a small group of other like-minded individuals to experience Paleontology at Ghost Ranch, a week long seminar that involves excavating Triassic era dinosaur bones from the Chinle formation at Hayden Quarry.


And here's the rest of our group, carefully taking off thin layers of sediment to reveal black gold; which in this case would be bone, tooth, armor plate, or coprolite (petrified poo).


Nate (above) is one of the resident grad students. Here he sits above one of his finds, which he's just about to jacket before transporting it back to the lab. Next to Nate is Christy, who took a week off from her work at the Petrified Forest to assist in the dig.


At lunch time, Shannon and I took a hike to the stream to pick up one of the canopies. We brought it back and, with the help of fellow seminar attendee Barb, set it up for some much-needed shade.


When one of us finds something "good," we call the grad students over for a consultation. Randy (from UC Berkley) and Nate (from the Univ. of Chicago) explain to Anita (striped shirt) what she's found.


And in the midst of this, a film crew from Canada showed up to take some footage of our work, interview Alex (our fearless leader, and curator of the Paleontology Museum at Ghost Ranch), and talk with the grad students. Canadians are so cool. They have a DAILY science program on their public television network! I'm so envious.


Shortly after the Canadians left, my friends Pat and Melinda from Convivial Design Studio arrived to take some documentary footage of the site, and to interview everyone. Melinda warned us of a rattlesnake down by the stream, so we were hypervigilant on the way back to the lab. I don't have any photos of Pat & Melinda (a.k.a. the Design Divas), because I was too busy catching up with them to grab my camera.


Anita (above) sits proudly next to her jacketed dino bone. She's found some great stuff this week. Barb has also found several REALLY COOL pieces. I'll try to get some photos of her with her finds before the seminar ends . . .


And when we're not bent over the dig with our tails in the air, we can turn around to see this gorgeous view. If you were to put these three photos together, left to right, you'd see the panoramic view. It's absolutely breathtaking!


Each day, we work from about 8:30 a.m. to about 1:00 p.m. Then we take a lunch break (and rest break!) and meet back up in the evening. Once our bellies are full, and we're rested, we work in the lab until quite late--cleaning and cataloging everything that we found in the field earlier in the day.


Shannon (below) is cleaning the sediment away from some bones that she found. Once everything is cleaned (very time consuming), we often need to glue pieces back together. They're very fragile and break easily. Also, most of the bones are in pieces when we find them.


Below you can see some of what Shannon has ben working on . . .


And then some of the things that I uncovered out in the field: a scute, bone fragments, a vertebra, coprolite, tooth, and a partial metatarsal . . .


He's a close up of the scute I found. I'm not sure where the term "scute" comes from. It's not the official name of this fossil. Perhaps they call it a scute because it's scute :)


And finally, a photo of a couple of yet-unknown things--still in situ. Once I've had a chance to fully uncover them, take them back to the lab, clean them up, and identify them, I'll post more photos!