This is one of the new bear bowls I've been working on. And, yes, I was too excited to wait until I had actually bisqued, glazed and fired the thing, so here it is in the raw.
I did the drawing from my imagination but I do have this great vintage book that a friend loaned me-- its from the 50s and has a lot of stout Russians in it rolling around with bears. I swear some of the photos of the baby bears look exactly like Maurice Sendak's lovely drawings for the Little Bear Series.
Last week, a terrible flu made its way through all of us, first starting with Theo, then on to Gus (who actually didn't leave his bed for three days-- shocking!), then wiping out me and Josephine. Today is the first day Josephine and I have ventured farther than the porch for five days! Bah! It was (and still is) awful.
I was comforted, though, by inhaling down about five Dana Stabenow/Kate Shugak mysteries which are set in Alaska. My favorite is Breakup, although Dead in the Water, with its descriptions of crabbing, is good too.
And the bears! I've run into black bears on my hikes behind our house. I usually joke that I only see "bear bottoms," for they are always running as fast as they can away from me. But the way Dana Stabenow described the grizzlies in Alaska just fascinates me-- the locals seem to treat them like pesky deer, and shoo them away, and try not to get eaten.
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