A little different then other art pottery websites is a blog from Daryle Lambert. He is quite forthright in saying why he is into art pottery: the money. But it brings a direct objective view & his posts on many different potteries cut to the matter of what makes them valuable and what are the most desirable lines.

Had a need for an SUV this weekend to get to the house up north.  Since we don’t plow up there it would need to get through about 6-7″ of snow, something that the Miata or TL don’t have a chance of doing.   Got a dirt cheap rental for what I thought was going to be a Jeep Liberty, but as they hand me the keys, it turned out to be a Jeep Patriot.  Was a little worried that it might not get through the snow, but I didn’t have much of a choice because that was the only SUV they had.  Well it did the trick, other then getting stuck going over the snow plowed off the road at the end of the driveway.  It was reasonably roomy to get all of the stuff into it.  Would I want to own one?  Probably not.

In some ways the interior seemed cheaper then my ‘95 Neon or even my parents old ‘76 Subaru.  The HVAC controls were so brittle they felt like they were going to break.  That was the final straw on the Neon after less then 3 years when the fresh air/re-circ knob broke & the estimate was over $400 to repair.  The vinyl seats were nasty.  Was it something that Chrysler got from Daimler and other German manufacturers about putting vinyl seats into cars as a substitute for leather?  I know they make much better vinyls then what they have in there.  The vinyl in the MINI takes a bit of effort to figure out that its not leather.

Performance wise it wasn’t bad.  The unusual part is the CVT transmission which gives you a different aural sensation then a traditional transmission.  It was odd for the engine to rev higher & lower when the cruise was set at a certain speed.

Checking their website,  shows the pricing a little over $20,000 for the one I drove plus a $500 rebate.  For less you could get a Subaru Impreza 5-Door and for not much more a really nicely equipped one.  A Forester or an Outback wouldn’t be much more.  You’d also know that they were reliable.  Granted its a smaller car, the Suzuki SX4 would be significantly less & its reliability would be about the same in my opinion and its interior wouldn’t be spartan.  I’d probably go for a used car over the Patriot, just because of how cheap the interior was.  I’m hoping they do a serious upgrade of the interior in its mid-cycle update, otherwise I’d never consider it.

Stopped by Steven Kozar’s holiday open house today. He has been the artist on Dane County Cultural Affair’s poster in 2002 and again in 2007 (shown to the right). His images are so photo realistic that many people think they are photos. He works in water color & in oil. A couple years ago he lived down the street and had a Holiday Open House which he advertised by putting flyers on the neighborhood mailboxes. That was my introduction to his work and while he lived down the street, he did several scenes of McFarland. One was near the old house & another one is near the new one. His 2005 “Cows on Parade” entry entitled “Where the Cows Are” was located in the Capitol Rotunda. He moved to Stoughton for a while, but has since moved back into the neighborhood. He currently has a kiosk at West Towne Mall and is frequently at shows, so check out his website to see where you can see his work’s in person.

Normally I don’t post much on studio pottery outside of Wisconsin because I had to set some limits or it could get overwhelming because there are so many studio potters out there, but I’ll make an exception for someone just over the border in Illinois.  Emily Murphy makes soda fired pottery .  On her blog she shares a lot of information on making pottery and on the soda fired process.