Loose Leaf Notes

When my Asheville potter son, Josh, was a baby he had a shirt that said “Good as Gold” on it. At first I thought it could refer to his towhead blonde hair and his baby innocence. I later came to think of it as a premonition for his infectious enthusiasm, his ability to attract good fortune, and his love of making art out of everything around him. I’ve often described him to others as “a bright light” with a “big presence.” But as the mother of an artist, at times I’ve wondered about him burning his love of art at both ends. I’ve also seen his hard work and passion manifest surprising results and support from unlikely places.

The fourth firing of The Community Temple, the 3 chamber kiln that Josh built last summer, wound down last Friday, March 8. It was documented by an award winning photojournalist, Frank Bott. Frank is an Asheville River Arts District neighbor of the Clayspace Co-op studio that Josh founded, but he could be another one of Josh’s fairy godfathers. The Clayspace warehouse loft room where Josh once lived has been renovated into a gallery, a showcase for the finished pottery of all the Co-op members. During a recent studio tour, Frank showed up at the gallery and was drawn by the play of light in the new room, and maybe by the light that emanates from Josh when he puts his whole heart into what he’s doing. Frank took his first batch of pictures. Others would follow.

Frank’s website describes him as a “visual journalist of the human spirit.” His photos of the recent Community Temple firing show that there’s plenty of human and elemental spirit to be witnessed at a woodfiring. The potters look like gritty miners, earth welders, alchemists spinning straw into gold. With faces illuminated by fire, their captured expressions show the struggle of hard work and the wonder of creation. The Gold? It’s the vein of clay harvested from the earth; the inspiration it takes to spin it into form; the fire it takes to harden it; the finished pots; the photos, and the thread of magic that shines through them.

Post notes: The photos above are of the last Clayspace Studio Tour and were taken by Frank Bott. As Josh’s archivist, I received them from him the last time he was home for a visit. You can watch the slide show photos of last week’s woodfiring that Frank has titled “The Struggle” at his website HERE. Currently Josh is co-teaching a class with other potters on “Wild Clay and Precise Fire” at Penland School of Crafts. The whole class is going out to the kiln in Marshall, NC, on Monday to watch the unloading of the firing that Frank documented.

Posted by Colleen at 8:26 AM | Permalink | Comments (12)

The following is Part II of “The First Annual Pot Party,” the nickname I gave to my Asheville Potter Son Josh’s recent Hometown Pottery Show, which was held at my house this past weekend.

1. We awoke to what sounded like a war zone. What I first thought was Josh stomping around in one of the upstairs bedrooms was really ice falling off in chunks from the pitched roof of our log cabin. After being slammed with wind and showered with sleet the night before, the sight of the morning sun brought a sense of relief, but the sudden warming it created also caused an avalanche of melting ice.

2. Coffee brewed, tea was poured, fried eggs sizzled in the skillet. Joe pulled up a chair and ate his breakfast while watching the twenty minute slide show of Frank Bott’s photographs, dramatic images of the Clay Space Gallery and the recent firing in the noborigama kiln Josh built this past summer. We all had a snow day mentality. Fulfilled from the previous day’s events, we were ready to welcome any new pottery show guests but weren’t really expecting any.

3. But the sun shone a new day, and all was not lost by the Pottery Show announcement not getting into the Floyd Press. The announcement did appear in the December issue of the Museletter and some who had read about it there came out to see Josh’s new work. Our first visitor of the day, a family friend named Paul, held up his new pasta platter like he had just won a final match at Wimbledon.

4. “I don’t know a single one of them,” I announced as I looked out the window and watched a group of three walk towards the house from the drive-way. They turned out to be some new Floyd residents who used to live in Asheville. Two of them knew Josh from Warren Wilson College. While they all had an enthusiastic visit, talking pottery and kiln construction, I wandered around the house getting to know the new pots better, handling them, gazing at them, and taking photographs like a portrait photographer takes pictures of people.

5. Museletter readers, Rosemary and Walter hadn’t seen a trace of the balloons I tied to a tree out on the Parkway to help visitors find our driveway. Had the wind untied them? Maybe the sleet ripped them to shreds. Rosemary, whose sister is a potter interested in wild clay, leafed through the article Josh wrote for Studio Potter about his wild clay excavation from a North Carolina farmer’s tobacco field.

6. Sunday’s attendance was lighter than Saturdays, but like Saturday, every visit was fun filled and rich with meaningful conversation. By evening, the living room glowed as if it was enchanted. Shiny pots and foil wrapped presents under the tree caught the reflection of the string of Christmas lights in the window.

7. Every pot had been made from the wild clay and then wood fired in the new kiln. Each one had its own personality. In groups, they formed families that looked like they belonged together. I still hadn’t picked out my own Christmas pot. Which would stand alone? Which was ready for a new home? I kept moving them around to see how they looked in different settings.

8. The next day while Josh was packing up to head back to Asheville, I walked out to the road to investigate the missing balloons. The wind had not untied them. They still hung, deflated and sliced. I imagined how they sounded when they popped from Saturday’s gusty wind and icy onslaught. They never had a chance.

Post notes: More Hometown Pottery Show photos are HERE. A collection of posts about Josh’s wild clay and wood fire kiln building adventures can be scrolled down HERE. A short interview I did with Josh in which he answers 'do you remember the first pot you ever made?' is HERE.

Posted by Colleen at 10:50 PM | Permalink | Comments (6)

1. It was the party I never let Josh have when he was a teenager. Although I think he had a few behind my back that weren’t condoned by me. This one was not only condoned, I helped with the planning. “This is the kind of party I can handle,” I said to him as he was setting up pots for a Hometown Pottery Show and I was warming cider on the stove. “It’s constructive, has a theme, and a time frame with an ending.”

2. My house was transformed to a storefront studio. Every surface was enlisted to make room for pots, teapots, bowls, bottles, platters, and plates. They spread throughout the living room and kitchen. A few were on the front porch.

3. “How did you hear about this?” I asked potter Tom Phelps, who along with his wife, Carol, was one of the first arrivals. “I heard it from you, Colleen,” he answered smiling. I needed that validation after the announcement I wrote didn’t make it in the Floyd Press. Tom, who was Josh’s first pottery mentor, also saw one of the flyers I hustled to hang just days before to make up for the lack of press.

4. “Did you see the balloons I tied to a tree out on the Parkway?” I asked Jody who came with her daughter looking for mugs.

5. A slide show of photos taken by Frank Bott that were playing on Josh’s laptop was mesmerizing. Frank is a photojournalist covering the growth of the River Arts District in Asheville where Clay Space Co-op, the studio and gallery that Josh founded, is located. The photos show the newly renovated Clay Space gallery, a warehouse space that was once Josh’s home, and the most recent wood-firing at the Community Temple kiln.

6. A steady stream of people flowed in throughout the day. Quite a few were fellow potters, like Zack, who is Donna Polsena and Rick Hensley’s apprentice. Later in the day Donna and Rick, two of Floyd’s “Sixteen Hands” potters who also live on the Parkway, dropped by. Donna was happy with the plate she picked out to purchase and pleasantly surprised when I took her in my bedroom and showed her one of her ceramic sculptures on my dresser.

7. My living room chair got relegated to a hallway. “This is where you can sit and tell Santa what you want for Christmas,” I told all the guests. “All I want for Christmas is a roof on our house,” said Chris Deerheart, who with his partner Alina is living in a workshop studio while building a house.

8. By the late afternoon it was sleeting ice and the front steps on the porch were slick. Josh and I got back to our kitchen table Scrabble game while Joe, who had just come in from hunting, made us all supper.

Post note: See the action video clip where Josh makes a spoof sale HERE. Click and scroll down HERE for more photos and narrative on Josh's wild and wood-fired clay pottery. Part II of this post is HERE.

Posted by Colleen at 3:23 PM | Permalink | Comments (16)

During the last couple of phone calls I’ve had with my son Josh, I’ve learned that a mouse was living in his pottery kiln and that he’s taken up Scrabble. I’m shaking in my boots on the second count because, according to the scores he’s been reporting, he plays Scrabble better than me, and I’ve been playing on and off for a couple of decades.

“But you never even liked the game growing up,” I questioned. He explained that he didn’t understand the strategy then. He had played once and didn’t like it. Occasionally Dylan, his younger brother, would play with me.

“But that was only because he knew how much I liked to play and Dylan is sweet that way,” I said. Josh, who likes to play games competitively, agreed.

No sooner had Josh finished the loading, firing, cooling, and emptying of a new kiln, the 1st Annual Holiday Sale at the newly renovated Clay Space Co-op gallery, which Josh was hosting, geared up.

And then he caught his breath, which came in the form of playing Scrabble with his girlfriend Anna. Anna is also a good player, but it’s hard to compete with a play that involves the letter Q on a triple letter box going in two directions.

I’m not surprised that Josh, a word lover who has been published in Studio Potter magazine and recently had his handwriting on the front cover, would catch the Scrabble bug. He likes to play Mad Libs and recently coined the word “chillaxing,” by mixing chilling and relaxing together.

We’ve been on the phone more than usual, making plans for his trip home this weekend to host a Hometown Pottery Show, Saturday and Sunday from 12-6. It’s an open house and the house that will be open is mine. I’ve been telling friends who know I’m a reclusive non-entertainer that now is their chance to finally see where I live.

So no more chillaxing for me. I’m going to vacuum and sweep the cellar floor.

Post notes: The first photo is one taken by photographer Frank Bott, who is documenting the evolution of Asheville’s River Arts District where Josh’s Clayspace Co-op is. The second photo is of a recent Studio Potter magazine cover, an issue on clay and words. It features Josh’s handwriting of a quote by Shoji Hamada speaking to a young potter. It's written on the ClaySpace wall and says: It is important for him to dig deep beneath his own feet to find the spring water. This is better than finding a section of the river of tradition that has already become unclear and weak. True tradition never comes from water flowing above ground: it comes from underneath the ground, from a man's own experience. Individualism is important, and without it one cannot do any good work in this age. To find real individualism does not mean the we should follow the new fashion, but rather the old way, the classic way. What is classic is always new. Fashions are always old ... Click HERE and scroll down for more on Josh's work.

Posted by Colleen at 9:06 AM | Permalink | Comments (16)

AKA: “Santa Came Early” and “How we gonna wrap that thing?”

This is Josh’s early Christmas present, being tested out by Joe. Pulling at the split ends in my hair as a teenager took more effort than this. (See the action video HERE.)

Post Note: We’ll also be splitting the cost of this $1,000 log splitter with Josh. It’s the only thing he wanted for Christmas and will be a needed addition to his Community Temple wood-firing pottery complex. More on that HERE. See what Josh got for Christmas last year HERE.

Posted by Colleen at 3:34 PM | Permalink | Comments (12)

My Asheville Potter son, Josh, has a sandwich named after him at the Klingman Ave Café near the Clay Space Studio where he makes pots. I found this out when I called him this past weekend to catch up.

“What are you doing?” I asked.

“I was just about to walk over to the café and get something to eat but realized they close early on Saturday.”

I asked him about the café, because I didn’t remember one within walking distance from the studio, which was when I learned about the sandwich named “Josh,” made with turkey, cream cheese, tomato and cucumber on a toasted bagel.

“They write your name on the ticket, so when I order it, they write my name twice. If I’m really hungry and order two, they write Josh and Josh x 2,” he said.

I laughed and wanted to know more, so he explained, “When they first opened up they had a menu, but I just ordered what I liked. I was an instant regular, going over for about 4 cups a coffee a day. Then they came out with a new menu with the “Josh” on it.

Some of Josh’s friends have sandwiches named after them too. “The Ford,” named after Ryan Ford, has sausage in it. Another one is called “Tim Pesto.”

“Is his last name Pesto?” I couldn’t help asking.

“It used to be just “Tim” until Tim started asking for it with pesto. Then it became “Tim with Pesto,” and finally just “Tim Pesto,” Josh said.

“Have you ever been in the café and heard someone order a “Josh,”’ I wanted to know.

“Yeah, that’s how it got on the menu in the first place. People started ordering it.”

Tim Pesto is getting ready to open a brewery in the Wedge building, the same building the Clay Space Studio is in, Josh told me.

“Then you guys will really have everything you need right there!” I said.

Post notes: The photo is one of the doodles made while talking with Josh on the phone. To read more about Josh and his pottery click HERE and scroll down. This weekend the Clay Space Studio will be part of the River District Artist's Studio Stroll in Asheville where Josh's pottery will be among the arts displayed.

Posted by Colleen at 6:53 PM | Permalink | Comments (16)

Clay is a material accepting of impression. It is a record of every process, from its geological formation in the earth to its eventual transformation in the fire. My work with ceramics begins with the clay. By using local materials dug from the river bottom and mountainsides of North Carolina, my work gains a connection to place and establishes the materials as a valuable source of influence. ~ Excerpt from Josh's artist statement posted on the Gallery @ Good Earth Gallery website

Since early summer I’ve been documenting the progress on the woodfiring kiln that my Asheville Potter son, Josh Copus, has been building on his property in Marshall, North Carolina. In June I wrote about the raising of the kiln shed roof, which was built with parts from an old house that he tore down and salvaged. Last month, my husband and I traveled to visit Josh at the kiln site where we helped with last minute construction preparations and then took part in the first ceremonial firing. The intensity of that first firing was heightened by the fact that many of the pots stacked inside it were due in Athens, Georgia, for a show just days later. Josh and other area potters were set to have their pots featured at the Good Earth Gallery in a show titled “Pushing Traditions: Asheville’s New Voices.” Adding to the pressure of getting the kiln finished and fired in time was the fact that Josh was the show’s curator, the one responsible for organizing and putting it together.

The manifestation of the three chamber climbing wood-fired kiln started with the excavation of eleven dump truck loads of wild clay from a local farmer’s tobacco field, which Josh wrote about in an article for Studio Potter titled “Neil Woody’s Turkey Creek Field.” The Clay excavation got some good attention and led to a research grant, awarded to Josh and fellow potter, Matt Jacobs, to further their work using local materials in ceramics. The momentum continued when Josh won a Windgate Fellowship Award to build a kiln, not only for the purpose of furthering his exploration with wild clay, but to support the theme of his UNC Asheville BFA thesis show “Building Community,” which Josh described in a recent article for the Log Book, an international publication for woodfirers.

Land was purchased and plans were drawn up. With the help of others, Josh headed up the three month full-time building project. His enthusiasm and motivation for what he’s accomplished and continues to do can be best explained in his own words contained in the rest of his Good Dirt artist statement for his first showing of pots fired in the newly built kiln:

I dig my own clay from a tobacco field alongside Turkey Creek and everything I make contains an element of my response to that experience. Every pot is informed with the qualities and character of my clay; whether it is the subtlety of its dark iron body breaking through a white slip, or the drama of its diverse particle size exposed through a facet, the qualities of my clay effect what I make and my intention is to bring out the inherent beauty of the materials in every pot.

The experience of working with local materials has contributed greatly to my growth as both an artist and a person. It has confirmed my belief that the more highly developed a potter is as a human being, the better their pottery will be. There is no real beauty without character and like the clay that I use to make them, my pots are a reflection of my character. As a human being, I am accepting of impression and each pot I make represents my personality, experience, and my dreams.

Post notes: A short video clip of Josh at the kiln first firing talking with a fellow potter about how the kiln works is HERE. All of the photos posted above are of pots made by Josh that were fired in the first firing of the new kiln. You can view more pots at the Gallery @ Good Earth HERE.

Posted by Colleen at 11:21 PM | Permalink | Comments (14)

A collage works in the same way a dream does. It’s a visual snapshot of various symbolic images that can bypass the brain’s process time and convey a lot of information at once. ~ Colleen

1. The above and the following are a few selected photos of my Asheville Potter son’s collage journal. Josh has had to work with others to design specially made books to accommodate his collaged journal pages. The books expand as he adds to them.

2. I’ve been drawn to collage art for as long as I can remember. I had been doing rudimentary collages for many years, while putting together photo albums and baby books for my sons, but I wasn’t really inspired and didn’t recognize the potential of collage as a creative way to record one’s life until I saw Josh’s journals.

3. My first attempt at collage journaling myself was done as I approached the age of 50. It was a chronicle of my life thus far in colorful bits and pieces. Some photos of that are HERE.

4. Neither Josh nor I tend to buy special items for collage. We prefer to use found items and recycled scraps of our lives. The story of how Josh first became a collage journal artist is HERE.

5. One can work through personal issues by creating art, collage included. Some of Josh’s pages are too personal to post here. Some are almost too personal for me to look at, but I love reviewing his latest work and so far he still lets me. But doesn’t all art come with the risk of having the personal exposed? Doesn’t all art reflect what is deeply inside the artist who made it? (The above is an early collage, one I have always loved.)

6. Josh is a hard worker and an inspired artist. I think he has over a dozen collage journals. He usually weaves the creative work of making them into all parts of his life. But lately building the Community Temple wood-fired kiln, making pots, and having two firings back-to-back has been his full time art. You can see that art HERE. This collage conversation started HERE.

Posted by Colleen at 5:19 PM | Permalink | Comments (14)

The following is Part 2 of “First Wood-firing at The Community Temple.” Part one, “The Countdown” is HERE.

My potter son, Josh, who was a big Lord of the Rings fan when he was a boy, confessed to me while he was dunking pots into glazes that he had just read six Harry Potters books in two weeks.

It had been three months since the last time I visited him at The Community Temple kiln site in Marshall, North Carolina, during the early stages of the kiln building when the shed roof was being raised.

“How did you do that with all this going on?” I asked, referring the pressing deadline of getting the kiln ready for firing pots already promised for shows.

Sean, a potter from the Clayspace Coop that Josh belongs to and part of the kiln work crew, joked that Josh had been taking some extra long lunch hours lately.

“I got addicted to them,” Josh explained.

We estimated that Josh’s Harry Potter diversion set the wood-firing schedule back by about two days and that it might have been Josh’s girlfriend Anna’s fault since she had the books and was reading them too.

Later, I was in our camper making lunch for the workers when my husband, Joe, came in for some reason I forget now. He was getting ready to head back to the kiln site to cut more firewood when I said, “Hey, if Josh asks you where I am, tell him I’m out here reading Harry Potter.”

Next, I heard a ruckus coming from the work site. Peeking out the camper window, I saw Micah, Josh’s neighbor Rob’s daughter, unload six cases of beer from the trunk of her car, which made me wonder if the firing that night was going to be “Wood-firing Animal House Style.” The beer was hauled to the spring box to keep it cool, and in the hours leading up to the first firing and for a couple of nights and days that followed, it proved to be refreshing to more than just the woodfiring crew.

The Community Temple, which will directly serve five Clayspace Coop potters, is aptly named. Because wood-firing is a labor intensive process that demands round the clock time and care, it takes a small community to pull one off. The kiln’s name is also appropriate considering the number of potters and friends who came out during its building to offer support. The visitors that floated in and out to see the kiln on the day of the first firing were like a who’s who of regional potters. There were also a few from neighboring states.

Karl, a potter from Josh’s hometown of Floyd, Virginia, arrived bearing pesto to share and other fragrant delicacies from his garden. Maynard, also a potter, came all the way from Nashville (Yes, you heard me right. That’s Asheville with an N) hauling a load of firewood on the back of his truck and pulling another load in a trailer. He, dubbed the “Fairy Godfather of Wood,” brought a clay horse that his niece had made to add to the community of pots being fired.

Firewood, and a lot of it, is the key ingredient in wood-firing. “We burn enough in one firing to heat a house for a whole winter,” Clayspace potter Matt told me.

When I asked how many wood-firings they do each year, he answered, “about four or five.”

Meanwhile, Josh buzzed around like the kiln maestro conducting the symphony of elements that must come together for a successful wood-firing. Even so, he was always ready to take the time to greet visitors and act as a host. His ceramics teacher at UNCA, Megan Wolf, dropped by, towing her young son in her arms. With them was Jon Keenan, a ceramics artist and the associate director of UNCA’s Craft Campus, an upcoming facility that plans to merge creative arts with green building technology.

Later, work stopped to greet Paulus, a longtime Penland teacher and potter who came to see the kiln with a woman I recognized from seeing at Josh’s UNCA BFA show. Two other women potters brought pizza that night. Others called on the phone.

Vases, platters, plates, mugs, bowls, lidded jars, and teapots loaded into the first chamber looked like a still life art installation. I was told by more than one potter that loading the kiln is the most complicated part of wood-firing, the part that involves the most thoughtful planning.

“You have to know what each piece needs,” Matt told me. I learned that it takes a special knack to determine how close each pot should be to the fire and how to stack so many various sizes and shapes and get them all to fit.

At 11:00 p.m. Saturday night the kiln was ready.

Josh used Sean’s lighter. Joe uttered the words, “Houston we have ignition.” Everyone was speechless when it finally happened. Then, Anna broke out her violin and played as the fire began to rise. Joe joined in with his flute. Rob, from the farm above Josh, had company from Atlanta who had come down with him to witness the occasion. “Like the first torch at the Olympics,” one of them said. A sense of reverence and magic hung in the air.

“Look,” someone noticed, “Josh is finally sitting down! It was the first time in several days that anyone had seen him do that.

Post notes: For the rest of that conversation, go HERE. The first show of pots fired at the Communty Temple is one that Josh is curating, and will be held at the Good Dirt Gallery in Athens, GA this upcoming weekend. You can scroll down to read Josh’s curator’s statement HERE.

Photos: 1. Joe, Megan with baby, Sean holding up pot, Josh, Jon, Matt. 2. Maynard admiring the clay horse. 3. Joe and Sean unloading Maynard's truck. One block of firewood is caught in mid-air. 4. Josh talks to Paulis. 5. Pottery in front chamber ready for firing. 6. Josh lights the fire. 7. Josh finally sits down. Karl sits behind Josh.

Posted by Colleen at 11:33 PM | Permalink | Comments (11)

A Noborigama chambered climbing kiln is built on a slope, and each succeeding chamber is situated higher than the one before it. The chambers in a noborigama are pierced at intervals with stoking ports. Climbing kilns have been used in Japan since the 17th century. ~ Wikipedia

Like a rocket ship with shuttle attachments, the Community Temple kiln in Marshall, North Carolina, has three individual chambers for wood-firing. When my husband and I arrived this past Friday night for the kiln’s first launch, my son, Josh Copus, and other Clayspace Coop potters were glazing their pots and building brick shelves inside the adobe chambers to load them onto.

After greetings and updates and after setting up enough night lighting, my husband, Joe, stationed himself at the electric stone-cutter. A steady stream of water was pumped over the whining saw, preventing the diamond blade from getting too hot, as he cut through bricks. Various sizes were needed for “the furniture” the potters were stacking, which included chamber fireboxes and firewalls, along with the shelves.

Curious about everything, I took photos and asked lots of questions as I navigated around the impressive 27 foot long kiln. Clayspace Coop member, Eric Knoche makes pots with dramatic architectural angles. He was dipping them in a milky white glaze. Matt Jacobs, another Clayspacer, is known for the small houses that often show up on the pinnacle of his pots, reminiscent of refuge on mountainous landscapes. “They look like Dr. Seuss-like worlds,” I told him.

Matt was making a mixture of pine sawdust, clay, and sand in a wheel barrow for “wadding.” I guessed by the name that it was something to plug up kiln openings but was told that the material would be balled up and stuck on the bottom of each pot to buffer it from the direct heat of the brick shelf surface.

Louisa, Matt’s girlfriend and an anthropology student at Warren Wilson College, brought Ellen, a fellow student who was doing field work for their class. The idea was observe while participating in a community project and then write about the group dynamics. Ellen and Louisa sat on a dirt step under the lights, sticking what looked like various colored cone incense into blocks of wadding or clay. The box they were taking them from said “pyrometric cones.” Josh explained to me that they would be put in the kiln and act as testers as they reacted to time and heat.

Later, Louisa and Ellen would ball up the wadding, and I would be handed a trowel for chipping away extra mortar that had dried between bricks on the chamber walls.

Potter, Rob Pulleyn, Josh’s always supportive neighbor who sold Josh the property the kiln was built on, dropped by with a few pieces to be included in the momentous first firing. Rob is the former founding owner of Lark’s Books and is currently heading up Marshall High Studios, the development of creative space for a community of artists in the historic Marshall High School on Blanahassett Island, downtown Marshall.

But the firing didn’t happen as planned that night. Delayed by a day, every one got some sleep, knowing that the next couple of days and nights would involve the painstaking and constant watching and stoking of the fire, done in shifts by the Clayspace community of potters, family, and friends. To be continued …

Post Notes: The Community Temple is a manifestation of Josh’s pottery career that began with the excavation of eleven dump-truck loads of wild clay from a local tobacco farmer’s field (as outlined in the article Josh wrote for Studio Potter); followed by his UNCA BFA show on Building Community, involving a 15 x 18 foot brick wall installation constructed out of handmade wild clay bricks stamped with the word “individual” to represent the strength an individual has when joined together in community; and leading to the winning of a Windgate Fellowship Award to help fund the construction of a wood-fired kiln and further his exploration into using local materials in ceramics.

To see a short video of Josh glazing pots at the Community Temple this past Friday go HERE. Kiln building photos are HERE.

UPDATE: Newly downloaded video - When we arrived for the weekend of the first kiln woodfiring, Josh was building shelves to load pottery on inside the kiln's second chamber. At the same time he was orchestrating woodfiring steps to others. See a clip HERE.

Posted by Colleen at 5:32 PM | Permalink | Comments (8)

The following are photos from the Community Temple Kiln Building. For more photos and narrative, scroll down to the next post or go HERE.

1. An inside job

2. Josh and Karl pondering the plans

3. Checking on the progress

4. The law of attraction

5. The mud that holds it all together

6. Noah's Ark?

7. Fixing a hole where the rain gets in

8. Very cool!

Posted by Colleen at 9:26 PM | Permalink | Comments (8)

AKA: Potters who aren’t named Harry

It’s been nearly three months since my husband, Joe, and I went to the kiln roof-raising at my Asehville Potter son's place, where Joe joined the work crew and I cooked for them. Joe’s been back to help a second time. So has our friend Karl, who snapped this photo of the results of the roof raising, which I documented by way of videos on Youtube HERE. The material for the roof came from the old house on the property that my son, Josh, tore down and salvaged for parts.

Lots of back-to-back work days, hard labor, and sacrifice have gone into building this kiln. Josh worked from morning to night for weeks at a time. Friends and fellow potters (like Matt Jacobs pictured here) came out to lend their bodies and hands.

Josh (pictured here) and other potters at the ClaySpace Coop in Asheville (founded by Josh in 2003 along with fellow members Matt Jacobs and Sean Fairbridge) are making new pots to be the first fired in the new kiln, which is called The Community Temple. It’s a wood burning, three chamber climbing kiln that is 27 feet long, with a stacking space of 260 cubic feet. Check it out and click around on the new ClaySpace webpage HERE. Josh still plans to put together a personal website when construction slows down.

Before the roof went up, the kiln site looked like a Mayan ruin with a tarp hung over it, or an archeological dig. Later it began to take on a mythological look, reminiscent of the building of a megalithic stone structure or ancient pyramid.

A kiln always remind me of the oven that Hansel and Gretel pushed the witch into, and woodfiring is like a "Where the Wild Things Are" fairytale that involves staying up all night and fire alchemy.

The irony that bricks are made of fired clay and that a kiln is a construction for firing clay that is built largely of bricks is not lost on me.

Soon Joe and I will be traveling back to Josh’s place in Madison County, NC, to dedicate the kiln for its first woodfiring. I imagine in this case the dedication will involve the smashing of a bottle of a beer, rather than the traditional champagne against the brick structure, because although Josh currently lives in an Airstream trailer called The Land Yacht, he’s more of a Pabst Blue Ribbon man than a champagne one.

Posted by Colleen at 9:27 AM | Permalink | Comments (17)

Seems you can go anywhere on the grounds of FloydFest with a sparkly pink performer’s wrist band, even to the hospitality tent for a complimentary beer on tap. And if your husband is organizing the parking at the festival you’re likely to get a decent parking place and maybe a ride in a golf cart.

Now if you happen to have on shiny new pink boots (always a good FloydFest choice, since you never know what the weather is going to do) and you’re part of the opening act on the first night of FloydFest, you’re bound to get your picture taken, a lot.

“Did you notice that quite a few people were coming up to take your picture while you were playing?” I asked my son’s girlfriend, Anna, the fiddler player for the Barrel House Mamas.

“I sort of did.”

“That’s what happens when you’re playing in Josh’s hometown and word gets out that you’re his girlfriend,” I told her.

“But you know,” I continued, “that guy with the big camera, that was Doug Thompson. He’s covering the festival for the Floyd newspaper. He didn’t know you were my son’s girlfriend. He was probably just drawn your boots. Wearing boots like that could land you on the front page of the Floyd Press,” I said.

Here’s how the FloydFest program describes the Barrel House Mamas: This trio of women from Asheville, NC, conjure the sweet and sultry sounds of the Appalachian Mountains they call home in their robust three part harmonies and original songs. Imagine the old-timey pluck and the twang of claw-hammer, and sometimes contemporary funk, banjo. Now lace it with middle-eastern inspired flute lines, the wailing honk of harmonica, and the soulful belting of heartfelt poetry. The result is a sound that is all at once bluesy, rootsy, folk, Americana, a touch of country and truly Mama’s own.

I was thoroughly impressed with their set and a couple of them are staying at my house tonight. Check out a short clip of them HERE. And Josh (wearing a Barrel House Mamas T-shirt) talking pottery to a fellow potter on the FloydFest grounds HERE.

Posted by Colleen at 11:19 AM | Permalink | Comments (21)

I’m not much good at a construction site. I don’t have the inclination or stamina for it. So, like my grandfather’s brother, Carol Wentzell, who cooked for a lumber camp in Nova Scotia, I signed up to feed the workers helping my son Josh raise the roof over his kiln this past weekend.

Mostly I used an oversized cast iron skillet that took up more than one burner space on our Palomino camper stove. I scrambled eggs, cooked chili, and sautéed onions and green peppers using it. I refer to this skillet as a cannon because whenever I pull it out from the camp drawer, I feel like I’m pulling out the big guns, as opposed to the small Teflon omelet pan (also in the camper drawer), which is like a pop gun in comparison.

I cooked three meals a day for anywhere from three to seven people for the nearly four days that my husband Joe and I were there. Josh, like a Hobbit, loves a second breakfast when he’s working hard, and sometimes snacks in between meals were in order, especially if it was a box of Cheez-its, his favorite.
When the food was ready, I drove it up to the kiln site in Josh’s old Subaru. One afternoon, the workers showed up at the back door of my camper. Wild lamb’s quarters soaked in olive oil, lemon juice, and garlic was served with venison and brown rice that day.

Before I left home in Virginia, I harvested lettuce, kale, arugula, basil, and cilantro from my garden and brought it with me, which added a gourmet touch to the camp fare. I sliced up naval oranges from Ingles grocery store, four miles from Josh’s property, and filled water jugs from the spring on a wooded hill. I discovered that it takes five full minutes to collect enough spring water to fill a gallon jug, which was okay because it was cool up there on the hill and I had a good view of the construction progress.

Sometimes in the heat of the day, I would retreat into Josh’s Land Yacht Airstream (I’m sure the workers would have liked to do that) tucked into the woods by a creek. There, I’d charge up my lap top, write some notes, or download the photos and videos I was taking; for that was my other self-proclaimed responsibility: documenting the roof raising progress.

I didn’t just cook and take pictures. Beer is sometimes a friend to construction workers and many empty bottles had collected from before we arrived. I put them in a garbage bag but never did find a recycling center or even a green box in town where I could dump them. I staked up Josh’s tomatoes using tobacco stakes lying around that Josh pointed out to me when he saw I was breaking up tree branches for stakes. I mulched the tomatoes using grass clippings from when the garden plot was plowed, but I forgot to get someone to hammer them in with the sledge hammer. I wonder if they’re still standing.

My muscles are still sore from hauling three loads of Josh’s laundry to the laundry mat, which, besides cooking, was my most successful activity and one I was happy to do. A potter’s clothes can get purty dirty and so many had piled up since the constant work of kiln building began. Add a building site and a few afternoon sprinkles that turn dirt into mud to a potter’s already dirty clothes and you’ll need one of those jumbo washers (which I happen to know takes 16 quarters) to get them clean.

Always the collector, I learned some new words hanging out at the building site. I wrote down “hurricane clips,” “collar ties” and “purlins” in my notebook. Nobrigama is the Japanese name for the type of climbing chamber kiln Josh is building. At one point Joe referred to a saw cut as a bird’s mouth cut. I wrote that down too.

In the few days I was there a couple of Josh’s art collectors, a couple of people from the neighboring farm community, and a woman doing a pottery tour stopped by to witness the kiln’s beginnings. One of the three nights we took showers up a Rob’s. Rob, a member of the community that borders Josh’s place and the man Josh bought his property from, is also a ceramics artist. He was cutting clay slab pieces in his workshop as Leonard Cohen played on the stereo when we arrived. Not only did we get hot showers, but Rob fed us hot soup, and so the camp cook got the night off.

The morning of our first day back home, I called Josh on the phone. He answered from the building site and I could hear him and Sean putting up the salvaged tin from the house they tore down. I knew by the end of the day the kiln shed that was framed over the weekend would likely be covered. So now the rain that’s been badly needed but only threatened to come down all weekend could hopefully let loose, I thought. And maybe the cosmos seeds I planted in Josh’s garden will be standing tall in bloom by the time the kiln is finished.

Post Notes: Photo #2 (left to right) is my husband Joe, fellow potters Matt and Sean, Josh, and his girlfriend Anna. Photo #4 is of Josh and I just before Joe and I headed back to Virginia. You can read more about Josh on the Asheville Potter Son category on my sidebar HERE. Scroll down for older posts. A collection of video clips from the long work weekend can be seen HERE.

Posted by Colleen at 9:37 AM | Permalink | Comments (16)

1. While working a long weekend helping my son Josh raise a roof over his kiln site, my husband nearly forgot the foot injury he got at a recent martial arts event. The first morning back at home, he started thinking about it again and it started to hurt. “Why is it that when things slow down our thoughts like water tend to flow to the lowest level?” I asked.

2. Also heard on the same first morning home after camping along the creek on Josh’s two acre property: “I have to go uncamp the packer now.”

3. After four days at Josh’s place, when we first got home I was feeling out of whack, or should I use my construction education and say, “out of plumb.”

4. I have to rethink the question I recently heard myself ask someone: “What’s the matter?" Technically, I’m not sure how the term came about but it's a question that seems to expect the worst. 'What’s new?’ ‘What gives?’ or ‘What’s happening?’ are all improvements, but in the spirit of keeping it positive (not to mention hip) I think I’ll go with ‘What’s up?’

5. You’ve heard of an omnivore, or a vegetarian? My son is an “opportunatarian.” That’s when “you take an opportunity that comes your way and make it meal plan,” says Josh.

6. In the rural outskirts of Asheville, where Josh lives, his closest neighbor is a snake handling Holiness Pentecostal church congregation. I don’t know if they still handle snakes, but from what I cold hear, their Saturday night church services are pretty rousing.

7. The best part of the arugula, cilantro, kale, and basil that I harvested from the garden for my camp cooking was not how good it tasted when we ate it but that by the time we got home it had all grown back and was ready to be picked again.

8. Besides runs to Ingles supermarket for water, chips, oranges, and sandwich fixings for the workers, I made a few runs to the library to get on the internet. “I’m going to the library. Do you need anything?” I shouted out to Josh who was up in the roof rafters on our last afternoon there. “Yes,” he shouted back. Check and see if the Red Sox won last night.” When I got back he took one look at me and asked, “What’s the matter?” The Yankees had won.

9. My younger son Dylan is a construction worker by trade, along with plumbing and electrical wiring. When he was four, I asked him what he was going to learn to do when he grew up. His answer was: Learn to ride a bike; Learn to ride a motorcycle; Maybe I could jump from the clouds on a parachute; I’ll learn how to swing from vines; And open an orange by myself; I’m going to learn how to work on cars with a screw; And open sodas by myself and put one in my lunchbox and go to work.

10. My father used to call me the Duchess because I didn’t like hard work … So why me? I ask the muse …My calluses are ink stained … I labor over words … put them together like a mathematical equation … dream them like Einstein dreamt theories … I write like I’ve got a problem to solve …and if I don’t I feel hypoglycemic … ~ Colleen, from the Zen of Winter Poetry.

11. Although my natural inclination for writing may have come from my father’s Irish heritage, I suspect that my mother’s heritage had an influence on me too. Her lineage is largely one of self-sufficient Lutheran carpenters of German descent, and carpentry and writing have a lot in common. Once you learn the basic skills of construction, whether you’re writing an article or building a home, the rest is about problem solving and working in changes as seamlessly as possible. A good eye for detail also helps. ~ From my Silver and Gold Website bio.

12. Since the summer trees in my yard have filled in, it seems that my favorite birds are having a hard time finding my birdfeeder. About the same time I noticed this I also went out of town and visits to my blog went down. I wonder if it’s related.

13. My Crone Crowning is revisited HERE and THIS is my favorite hood ornament in action.

Thursday headquarters is here. My other 13's are here. View more 13 Thursday’s here.

Posted by Colleen at 9:01 AM | Permalink | Comments (26)

“Always we are eating and drinking earth’s body, making her dishes.” ~ Potter and poet, M.C. Richards.

Between the bullfrogs and the snake handling church service being held just above Josh’s pottery kiln site, Saturday night in the Walnut part of Marshall, North Carolina, was pretty lively. The sound of hammers banging, electric saws singing, and the big bass hum of the generator filled in the mix as the kiln shed roof was being framed. Gabe, who was perched high on a beam rafter, occasionally broke out in building commands, or a song.

Josh’s girlfriend Anna arrived from a gig where her band was paid in beer, so there was beer for supper that night. I’ve heard that her fiddle playing is impressive. So is her skill with an electric saw. I held the flashlight for her when it got dark to see without it. In between the whine of her saw someone who sounded like Bob Dylan sang from a nearby IPOD.

Looking more like an ancient Mayan compound at night, with a spotlight emanating from the center, the construction site took on an eerie glow that felt primal and monumental. From the first shovel of clay dug from Neil Woody’s tobacco field, to the Windgate Fellowship award Josh won for his work with wild clay, followed by the Wild Clay Exhibit and his Building Community BFA Thesis show, each were steps that lead to this roof raising night. I thought about the future wood firings that would take place here and the area potters they would bring together. What would the clay vessels created here hold? Where would they end up, I wondered?

What’s the name of the kiln going to be?” I asked Josh as the night and the frame of the roof grew pitch.

“The Community Temple,” he answered.

Soon there will be two kinds of services going on in the neighborhood.

"Potters like sun and stars perform their art--- Endowed with myth, they make the meal holy." ~ M.C. Richards

Posted by Colleen at 12:05 AM | Permalink | Comments (6)

AKA: See the T-shirt in photo number 4.

“What’s the first thing I should do? Enjoy the scenery? Okay, I’ll check that off my list,” I joked to Joe just few miles out of our driveway, heading south on the Blue Ridge Parkway. We were on our way to Asheville to visit Josh for the weekend, to help put a roof over the pottery kiln he’s building. I was having a hard time shifting gears from the flurry of last minute travel preparations to beginning the actual three-hour drive to North Carolina. Mabry Mill, just ten miles up the road from our house and the most photographed scenic site in Southwest Virginia, got my attention. There were two white ducks looking perfectly placed, gliding across the pond in front of the old grain mill when we rode by.

I tried to deny that I wanted to stop and get a better look when Joe asked if we should pull over, thinking we shouldn’t waylay our trip. But Joe knew better and I was glad he did. After a fellow traveler in leather biker pants (a confessed workaholic who had strict orders from his doctor to stop and smell the rhododendrons) offered to snap our picture in front of the picturesque scene, I took a deep breath, let go of the life details we were leaving behind, and felt like we were on vacation.

When we arrived at Josh’s two acre property in the town of Marshall, he was on his hands and knees working at the kiln site. Using white sand to level out the bricks he was laying in a measured section of flooring, he explained that he was doing what he knew how to do best.

Raising the roof was something he would be learning as it went up, with the help of Joe, a one time timber framer, his master carpenter friends from his Warren Wilson College days, Jody and Gabe, and fellow potters, Sean and Matt.

I couldn’t believe how much the three-level kiln site looked like a Mayan ruin or an archeological dig. Josh had dug out the site, including a dirt stairway, from the side of a hill with a tractor. It was loosely framed with salvaged boards from the “Tearing Down the House Party,” held up by locust posts that were harvested off the land. A tarp spread across the top where a roof would hopefully soon be.

The Zuma Café in downtown Marshall, five minutes from Josh’s property, featured turkey wrap sandwiches, a wireless internet connection, and one of Josh’s Community Bricks displayed on a shelf behind the counter. Josh and Joe ate while I checked my emails and blog comments and sipped on some Earl Grey tea. I couldn’t see buying lunch when we had a camper fridge full of food, venison sausage, lettuce and other greens from the garden.

Our waitress let me go behind the counter to snap a photo of the brick. I later learned, from looking at Josh’s latest collage journal, some more places where his Community Bricks are building community, brick by brick: Besides locations up and down the east coast, there are bricks in California, Arizona, Hawaii, and Alaska; as well as England, Ireland, and Japan. The bricks have traveled on planes and been sent by mail. I didn’t expect to see one at the Zuma Café. I’m going to have to start paying more attention because I’m sure there are more than a few that have found homes in the Asheville area.

Post Note: Read more about Josh's Community Bricks HERE.

Posted by Colleen at 6:58 PM | Permalink | Comments (8)

During this past fall while working on my BFA thesis exhibition, I became interested in exploring methods of using wood-fired ceramics to visually explain the strength of community. I wanted to create an installation that would communicate ideas about the universal importance of co-operative spirit in our world today, while also specifically expressing my gratitude towards the people who have supported me as an artist. The solution that I finally arrived at was using bricks as a form to give structure to my ideas. ~ Josh Copus

Two of my son Josh’s Community Bricks were displayed at Notebooks, Floyd’s independent bookstore. The owners got the bricks at the “Building Community” slide show presentation Josh did when he was in town last Christmas. Although they weren’t for sale, a woman who was shopping in the bookstore was keen to have one, and so the bookstore owner sold her one, although she felt awkward because she didn’t know what to charge.

The brick was chosen as the vehicle for my concept because of its connection to ceramics, as well as for its connection to shelter and the historical significance of bricks in creating permanent civilizations. In this case, the brick acts as a metaphor for the human condition; individually each brick is relatively useless and displays very little of the power, strength, and stability associated with bricks once they are bonded together to build a structure. The solitary brick seems insignificant, like a solitary person, and only once it is joined in mass with others of its kind does it gain the capacity to garner attention. ~ Josh

Another Community Brick sits on the window sill at the entrance of Jacksonville Center for the Arts, where Josh gave the slide show (shown in the first photo) and where my Writer’s Circle meets twice a month.

The Building Community installation is compromised of 1600 handmade bricks, extruded from local clay excavated out of a nearby tobacco field, open-chequer stacked and wood-fired in the anagama at UNC. The kiln was purposefully fired unevenly to create a color spectrum ranging from the hot, dark purple bricks in front, to the cooler, light orange bricks in the back. I used the common practice of branding firebricks with a company’s name or other defining characteristics, as a method of literally communicating my idea about an individual’s role in their community. Half of the bricks were stamped with the word “individual” and installed in the gallery as a wall, while the other half were stamped with the word “community’ an arranged in a solid cube on a pallet. ~ Josh

At our April ceremony honoring elder women in our community, one of the women was addressing the crowd of about seventy about the importance of community. At one point, she looked directly at me and said, “I have one of Josh’s bricks. I use it as a doorstop!”

My intention was to make the wall large enough so that its physical size would command the attention of the viewer, and its presence in the space would successfully communicate the power of organized individuals to create a unified whole. The ‘community’ bricks were given away during the exhibition, both as a symbolic gesture of giving back to the community that supports me and also as an attempt to raise the level of consciousness in each person as they entered into a relationship with me, by taking a brick with them and participating in the experience.” ~ Josh Copus

Josh’s bricks are building community. They’re getting around. There’s one in Ireland, another in Japan, and a number of them have found their way to different parts of this country. My blogger friend Naomi received one recently. She was surprised to discover that it was delivered without packaging and with her name and address written directly on its surface. “My post woman asked me why I was receiving a brick in the mail...LOL...” Naomi later emailed me to say.

Post notes: The italicized text is excerpted from an article Josh wrote for “The Log Book,” an International Wood-fired Ceramics Publication. For more information on Josh and his work, go HERE and scroll down. Check out Ronni Bennett’s Elder Story Telling HERE. The guest post features a recent Loose Leaf Post, “From First Holy Communion to Community Croning.”

Posted by Colleen at 9:33 AM | Permalink | Comments (15)

The following aired as a WVTF radio essay on June 15th.

“Mom, what do you want to be when you grow up?” My son Josh asked me once when he was a little boy.

I smiled and indulged him with an answer, “Probably a farmer.”

Both Josh and his younger brother Dylan regularly gave thanks to the farmers when we shared what we were grateful for around the dinner table. Although we didn’t come from a farming background, it was considered a noble vocation in our little family, which is why it seems fitting that Josh has grown up to be a farmer of sorts.

He harvests clay from the land. His market crop is the pottery he creates. With his homemade treadle wheel he makes pots and fires them with wood in a hand built kiln.

Born in Texas and raised in the Mountains of Virginia by a mother from Massachusetts and a father who was born in England, there was really no telling what direction Josh might take in life. I’m not surprised that he’s an artist. He’s been making art since he was old enough to hold a crayon, but the farming connection is one I’ve only recently fully recognized.

Living in the country now, outside of Asheville North Carolina, Josh is a good-old-boy with a twist. In his beat-up truck, he hauls clay instead of manure, bricks instead of animal feed. He carries a racquet for racquetball on the rifle rack in the truck cab. He’s currently building a kiln, the way a farmer might build a barn. He lives in a trailer, but it’s an Airstream called “the land yacht” that looks like a spaceship and has a disco ball hanging from the middle.

“The house is gone,” he told me over the phone the other day. He was referring to the old house on his property that he and some friends recently took down and salvaged for parts.

“You had the bonfire? Did you have friends over to help?”

“Yeah, the Volunteer Fire Department, and now I’m a member,” he said.

“You’re a fireman!?” I asked. "Are they going to train you?"

“I know something about fire, mom,” he reminded me.

After we hung up I remembered that when Josh was four years old he wore a yellow thrift shop slicker, rubber boots, and a red plastic fireman’s hat for weeks at a time. I pulled out the article titled “Building Community” that Josh had recently written for The Log Book, a pottery magazine. In it he described how fire was what first sparked his interest in woodfiring pottery. He wrote: I was mesmerized by the fire – the way it moved through the kiln, its long flames pushing their way through the waves with a velocity that bordered on violence, yet contained a sensitivity that left nothing disturbed.

Okay, a fireman makes sense; he works with fire everyday, but it also makes sense for another reason.

Many of us here in the rural county of Floyd are transplants – artists, crafters, musicians, herbalists, organic farmers – who dropped out of the mainstream to live a country lifestyle in community with others of like mind. During the 70’s and 80’s when the influx first began, locals and newcomers were like two distinct and separate communities. Since then, there’s been a more integration.

It was the kids of the Floyd alternative community who first paved the way for a meeting of the cultures. It wasn’t an easy thing to do and many of them felt like outsiders when they finally made the move from home-schooling (or The Blue Mountain School, our parent-run-cooperative) to public school. Josh and his home-schooled peers had a tight knit community of their own. They were proud of their upbringing, but they also knew the sting of being considered different. Eventually they earned the respect of the local community as they excelled in sports, acted in high school plays, dated local kids, worked at high school jobs, and became salutatorians and valedictorians of their classes.

Josh’s roots are diverse, but he’s grounded in the Appalachian Mountains, the bio-region that includes his childhood in Virginia and his current home in North Carolina. I’m not surprised he’s on the volunteer fire department in the rural town where he lives and belongs. Once he gets more settled, he’ll grow a good garden, and maybe even have a goat and some chickens.

Photos: 1. Josh at home. 2. Josh and girlfriend, Anna, working. 3. Burning down the house. 4. Josh on the tractor. See "The Tearing Down the House photos HERE.Scroll down HERE for more posts about my Asheville Potter Son.

Posted by Colleen at 9:43 PM | Permalink | Comments (15)

1. This is the mailbox that used to belong to a man named Cleopis whose nickname was “Cope,” and it now belongs to my son, Josh Copus, whose nickname is also “Cope” (dog).

2. This is the old house that Josh un-built.

3. This is the crew that helped Josh un-build the old house.

4. This the part of the house un-building where my husband who was helping un-build the house said, “See, how easy it is to make a sunroom, Colleen.”

5. This is the intermission part of the house un-building where burgers were eaten and refreshments were enjoyed.

6. This is the end of the first day of the old house un-building where metal was sorted, plastic recycled, and 2x4s were saved. A follow-up de-nailing party is planned.

Post Notes: See the Before and After video clips HERE and HERE, taken at the start and end of "Day I" of salvaging the old house on Josh’s 2 acre creek front property in Madison County, North Carolina. The materials from the old house will eventually be transformed into a pottery studio, kiln, and a new house. In 2006 Josh won the Windgate Fellowship Award and received $15,000 to further his exploration into using local materials in ceramics and for the construction of a kiln. He recently had a story published about his Building Community project HERE. You can read about it HERE. Tearing Down the House Party! is HERE.

Posted by Colleen at 9:31 AM | Permalink | Comments (15)

These are the stats: 96 beers, 12 pounds of hamburger, 8 meatless patties, 9 tomatoes, 2 blocks of cheese, 24 buns, 30 best friends, 1 videographer, 1 band, and 2 dance performances. The whole house is coming down in one day. Siding, roof, and floors. We’ll salvage what we can. The rest: We’re gonna burn it.

So goes the list I took down verbatim from a phone conversation I had with my Asheville potter son Josh this past Friday night. I was going to be working all weekend doing respite foster care, so would miss the “fun and a little bit of dirty work.” But my husband, Joe, who bought Josh a sledge hammer for Christmas, headed out for the three hour drive to Josh’s two acres to be a crew leader. The old house on the property wasn’t worth saving. A new house will eventually take its place.

Since his days as a little boy with his teddy bear ninja army, to his love for the Red Sox and the big clay dig in the fall of 2005, my son, Josh
Copus, aka Josh Circus, has been keeping stats. Since the “After Fool’s Day Parade Party” where Josh took to the street wearing a suit that made him look like the Riddler, to the Drury Fest, which involved him in a gorilla suit and 90 people tubing down a river, Josh has been producing events.

I sent two cameras with Joe. I hope he can capture a small part of this bigger than life occasion.

Posted by Colleen at 9:16 AM |