All posts filed under: North Carolina

Thanksgiving and what I’m thankful for!

Published by Anita

I’ve been meaning to write more, but right now life has turned a bit topsy turvy again. Plans have gone out of the window. But life kind of tends to be that way for me, I’ve noticed. So just because it’s Thanksgiving today, I decided to look back on the last 10 years and my travels and adventures. Just for fun. It was hard to choose of course, but here are a few highlights. I definitely have a lot to be thankful for!  2008 My first experience at self supported cycling through the state of Goa A glimpse of the working life of women in rural Kerala on a photography assignment A young kid along with his grandfather in a sunflower field in Karnataka 2009 More explorations of Kerala on a bike recce trip for Muddy Boots, which has now become a major player in adventure tourism 2010 More explorations of rural Karnataka – spent many happy hours on my trusty Trek cycle with wonderful friends 2011 A time to chill and a beautiful hike …

The Penland Diaries: Washing dishes and making them

Published by Anita

From washing dishes to making them has been the tagline of these last few days. And I’m borrowing and modifying the phrase from my very talented sister Ranjita (who used to be a chef and is now a potter) who says she went from: “Making dishes to making dishes”. Exhausting. Hectic. Overwhelming. Intense. Fantastic. A few words to sum up my experience at Penland so far. Time flies when you’re having fun and it really did. I have no idea how 10 days went by–it’s like one of those sprint races with Usain Bolt. It’s over before it started. The 18 member group worked at breakneck speed to fire “Rosie”, Penland’s three-chambered wood kiln. After 24 hours of stoking and firing, making sure all the three chambers were heated up, we stopped a bit past midnight on Wednesday. It was a first time for me working together with a team to fire a wood kiln and it was memorable. Now, I can see the reason why people fire these things. It’s tough and challenging–I still …

Pines

The Penland Diaries: Arriving and settling in

Published by Anita

The Penland School of Crafts has been on my “wish” list for a few years now. In 2013, when I was visiting friends in Virginia, I did a 2 month ceramics course down at Manassas. Around that time, I happened to chance upon the school and the workshops it offers and instantly put it down as something I’d like to try and do someday. Workshops are on a wide variety of mediums—glass, metal, wood, drawing, painting, clay – check out the current workshops and also future ones here. A peek at some of the workshops During the last year I’ve been able to explore both jewelry making and ceramics to a greater extent with access to more resources than I had earlier. Some of the artistes I’ve been able to learn from are Edith Schneider (jewelry), Elaine Pinkernell, Linda Mau and Jamie Meador—all three being fantastic handbuilders. And then towards the beginning of the year, I was browsing and came across a link asking those interested to apply for the summer sessions that would be …