Mockingbird Hill Cottage

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You are here: Home / Archives for china and pottery

My Latest Finds

July 9, 2014 at 8:09 am by Claudia

We had more thunderstorms last night. Wind, sheets of rain, the rumbling sound of thunder that went on and on. There was a time when Scout would have been going nuts. Border Collies have very sensitive ears and any sort of thunderstorm (or fireworks) made her incredibly agitated.

She doesn’t really hear them anymore. It makes things easier for us, but I confess it also makes me sad. She has cataracts. She doesn’t hear very well. She has arthritis.

But she remains the bright, precious spirit that she has always been. She still has a twinkle in her eye. I love my girl.

Do you remember when I went to the Country Living Fair? I mentioned in passing that I bought a little piece of miniature pottery on my first day there. What with the sudden offer of a job in Chautauqua and the flurry of packing that ensued, I never got around to showing it to you.

minipottery-newestfind

There it is. I rather like it.

miniature pottery on display

And here it is with its brothers and sisters. I think I’m going to have to find another display shelf….I’m running out of room!

I tend to collect lots of things. (That’s an understatement.) One collection has required no monetary investment, just a good eye. The items are found here and there, on the property or on the road. I don’t have room for a Cabinet of Curiosities, but I do have a Transferware Plate of Curiosities. And yes, I do curate it. I just did that the other day. I cleared out and cleaned up and here it is:

plate of curiosities

Next to the plate: two pieces of china that I unearthed in our woods the other day. Love the crazing.

On the plate, starting from left center and moving clockwise:

A piece of china I found on the shores of Chautauqua Lake. The edges have been smoothed by the water.

A polished agate that Don gave me.

A cicada wing.

A piece that Don found. It looks like some sort of nozzle. I love swirly design in the metal.

One half of a nutshell. Love the texture.

Part of a yellow eggshell that I found on the property last year. Still haven’t determined what sort of bird egg it is.

An acorn cap.

These pods fall from the trees in the park I frequent when I am working in Hartford.

A robin’s egg that I found this year on our property. You know how I feel about that particular shade of blue.

Two acorns.

A piece of glass that I found on the shore of Chautauqua Lake. I’d call it sea glass, but I suppose a more accurate term would be lake glass.

All of them live on the sideboard in the living room. I like to stop and look at them a few times a day. They make me happy.

I’m so glad you like the book blog, by the way. There’s another post up today. Just click on this link. Needless to say, with two blogs up and running, I’ve been busy!

Happy Wednesday.

ClaudiaSignature140X93

Filed Under: Chautauqua, china and pottery, collecting, nature, Scout 18 Comments

Slice of Life

October 24, 2013 at 9:35 am by Claudia

thursskylight

thursjeeves

thursbakelite

birdsandacorns

thursswaglight

thursmonty

acornspinecones

thursbowl

A sleepy Thursday morning. I stayed up late watching the World Series but woke up at my usual time. So far so good with the World Series, but make no mistake, it’s going to be a tough competition. Don and I wish the baseball season lasted all year long. What are we going to do in the winter?? I used to love basketball, but try as I might, I just can’t get into it anymore. It’s baseball for me. That always surprises my dad because I thought baseball was the second most boring thing to watch in the world when I was younger. The first was golf. Golf has retained that title, by the way.

The photos are snippets of life in the cottage: what my eyes light on during the course of a day, the little things that make this cottage a home.

Yesterday was a day of phone conversations. I had a wonderful conversation with a dear friend who is an actor and a neighbor and is currently in the Rep at Hartford Stage. He and his lovely wife have become good friends of mine. Then I had a long conversation with a former student who is a talented actress and is just starting to do what I do: coaching speech and dialects. She had some questions about a production she is currently coaching and it gave us the excuse to catch up with each other.

Then I discovered a message on our voice mail from the monitoring system my dad uses. It’s a life alert kind of thing. They had received an alarm from his alert device and they couldn’t reach him by phone so they dispatched an EMS vehicle to Dad’s address. By the time I got the message it was twenty minutes after the fact, so I called my dad. No answer. The I called the monitoring company, but they didn’t have any updates. Then I called my sister, who was working, so her phone was turned off. Then I tried my dad again. No answer. I looked at the clock and realized that it was about the time my dad visits my mom every day, so I called the Nursing Home and mentioned who I was and that I was looking for my dad and the receptionist cheerily responded “Oh, I just saw him! Do you want me to get him?” Just as I had suspected, Dad triggered the wrist alarm he wears by bumping into something. This has happened before. So all is well, but for a few minutes I was in a bit of a panic.

I want to share a link with you. It is a post by artist Lisa Congdon which tells an all-too-common tale of her art being stolen by a major company and sold for profit. This company is Cody Foster, maker of lots of Christmas decor, among other things. You might have some Cody Foster items in your own home. I might. Allegedly, they have been copying the original work of independent artists for years. They do not compensate the artists or attempt to get a licensing agreement. They just steal. Correct me if I’m off base here, but isn’t stealing wrong?

I cannot begin to imagine how painful it must be for an artist to see her work copied and sold for profit by a company – to realize that companies can steal and seemingly get away with it.

If you Google Cody Foster, you will find a long list of links to articles and posts that concern this very thing. They’ve been called design pirates and ripoff artists. Shameful, don’t you think? Here’s a very informative article about the whole thing.

I will not be buying anything from Cody Foster.

Happy Thursday.

ClaudiaSignature140X93

Tagged With: Cody FosterFiled Under: china and pottery, Dad, life, Mockingbird Hill Cottage 45 Comments

A Cuppa. Or Two. Or Three.

September 27, 2013 at 9:55 am by Claudia

fristackedcups

Say what?

Remember me saying I was going to go back to Anthropologie on Wednesday? Because it was in a pretty little shopping center where I could do some window shopping?

Ummm….these came home with me.

fricups

I couldn’t help it. They’re so pretty. And big, so they hold a lot of coffee or tea or…hot chocolate!

It all started out with me thinking I should get one more like the two cups I bought the other day. For those of you who didn’t see the post, I’m talking about the one on the right. Anthropologie has carried that design for a long time and there weren’t that many on display and I worried that they might stop carrying them. Can you blame me?

So I walked over to the display and grabbed one more. In aqua. With an aqua handle.

Then I saw more and more beautiful, heavy, wonderful-to-hold cups. I told myself that I would choose one more. Just one.

I went for the one in the middle. With an aqua handle.

But then, right before I was going to head to the checkout, I saw the one on the left. With an aqua handle. And aqua everywhere.

Oh my heavens.

You know the rest.

fribluecup

Not only are they pretty on the outside, but they’re pretty on the inside. I am in love.

fricupsinarow

These are my current favorite things. I now have five of them. I have a plan for displaying them. We’ll see how it works out.

I hardly ever buy anything new or spend money on what I would normally call an indulgence. Our budget is beyond tight. But…I’ve been away from my loved ones for nine weeks. It’s been very hard to be separated from Don and Scout. So you know what? I’m giving myself a little present. I deserve it.

Everyone deserves a treat now and then.

fricupsdiagonal

I think I shall start collecting these. I guess I already have.

Tonight is opening night. Tomorrow, I head home. I wrestled all week long with whether I should go home early or stay for the opening. I really shy away from parties now that I’m older. My partying days are long gone. But, I decided to stay. So today I’m going to start packing up my things, take a little walk, and say goodbye to the ducks (I sat in the sun for an hour or so yesterday and watched them. They were napping. It was wonderful.)

A heads up: tomorrow is my dad’s 90th birthday. I’m going to write a little post about it and if you dear friends could come back tomorrow and leave a birthday message, I will print them out and send them to him. He doesn’t read the blog any more, which makes me sad, but it’s too much for him to remember every day. Anyway, is it a deal? Not today. Tomorrow. (I wasn’t entirely clear about that on the post, so I edited it to include that info. Tomorrow.)

Thanks!

Happy Friday.

ClaudiaSignature140X93

Filed Under: china and pottery, On The Road 71 Comments

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Welcome!

Welcome!

I live in a little cottage in the country with my husband. It's a sweet place, sheltered by old trees and surrounded by gardens. The inside is full of the things we love. I love to write, I love my camera, I love creating, I love gardening. My decorating style is eclectic; full of vintage and a bit of whimsy.

I've worked in the theater for more years than I can count. I'm currently a voice, speech, dialect and text coach freelancing on Broadway, off Broadway, and in regional theater.

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