Improvements - mainly gardeners at work

 

The drainage basin by the Clay Studio now looks like a rain garden. I took this photo May 16, 2024

Back in February it looked like this (from the other direction).

It's a bit hard to see, because it was winter, and with the shade cast by the tree. There were cattails which would come up later, but the gardeners pulled them all out. 

We shall see if they don't come back.

But the main thing is this is a basin for sludge from the pottery studio's sink. It supposedly catches solid clay waste before it is drained, but the water always has glaze chemicals in it. I can't wait to see how it looks differently in this sumer!

I salute the Beautification Committee of Black Mountain for doing so much to improve many areas of the town. However, I personally feel they put in low maintenance shrubs just so they will be convenient. A three tiered planting area by Lake Tomahawk now has this sense to me, where before an Extension member gave us interesting plants. Even volunteer elders like myself could put some veggies and flowers into the lower space. A huge lavender plant was at least saved. And now lots of little blobs of green are all in a row. But change is necessary, and having no consistent gardener to care for it meant sometimes it got weedy. Yay new things!

Today's quote:

We must be willing to get rid of the life we’ve planned, so as to have the life that is waiting for us., JOSEPH CAMPBELL

Sharing with Sami's Colorful World Monday Murals

Yesterday, today and tomorrow

 

Main Street (now State St.) looking east on US Highway 70 Black Mountain NC (date?)

Today:

Looking east on State St. 2024

State St. looking west from corner of Montreat Rd. (NC 9) 2023

Tomorrow:

 I  will return in a few days from visiting family out of state, and resume working on clay again.

Sharing with Tuesday's Treasures

Today's quote:

We’re built to live simultaneously in love and loss, bitter and sweet.

SUSAN CAIN

The BMCA Clay Studio

 

Don't strain your eyes, here's a bigger version below:

I didn't write it. That dangling last sentence isn't my fault.

.

Clay Club of Western North Carolina met in 2013 at our studio (that's John Britt talking, whose instrumental in Clay Club, but not a BMCA studio member.) 

I'll show more historic photos of the insides of the clay studio over on "Alchemy of Clay" blog HERE.

Today's quote:

“To me, poetry is somebody standing up, so to speak, and saying, with as little concealment as possible, what it is for him or her to be on earth at this moment.” 

By contemporary poet Galway Kinnell, He spent many years studying abroad through the 1960s before returning to the U.S. to join the Congress for Racial Equity, helping to register black voters in the segregated South.

Today is 

World Wildlife Day, 

National Anthem Day, 

National Mulled Wine Day, 

thanks to fellow blogistas Frog and Penguinn

Murals near the clay studio

 People who drive down this hill probably get a glimpse of the mural...Doughtery St. goes steeply down from State St.

But it also goes around the corner...

where we meet our local black bear (they really do come into town and get into people's trash)

and the mural continues over the retention pond...

and then you see the Clay Studio with it's art-tile murals! (more later)

This wall is behind an enclosed dumpster, as well as the retention pond, where clay sludge is filtered before going into the aquifer.

There are apparently a sunset and a moonrise pictured on the wall.

Sharing with Monday Murals

Today's quote:

Living gratefully offers a merciful path for walking through life with our eyes and hearts wide open."

Kristi Nelson

Grey Eagle park and BMCA Clay Studio

If you're climbing the driveway or the path from the lower to the upper parking lot, you see some gorgeous variations of shade tolerant plantings.

About halfway up, the studio comes into focus.  This is where I usually stop to catch my breath.  No stairs, but the climb is about the same as 2 stories in height.

Down by the tracks where there's lots of sun, pretty blooms have been planted.  And (besides the portapotty darkly hiding but being very necessary during the art show) there is a new (to me) sign.

Now this is Centennial Park, it says.

A grey eagle statue reminds us this town was once called Grey Eagle.

North Carolina flag to the right, American flag to the left.

Today's Quote:

I will love the light for it shows me the way, yet I will endure the darkness for it shows me the stars.

OG MANDINO