Olives Make Me Happy...

A dozen or so unreach-ables at the top!

THE tree

...They truly do! Don't know what it is, but popping a couple of these guys puts a little pep in my step. Eight years ago when we planted a hypo-allergenic olive tree in our Arizona backyard, who would've thought that in year seven I would be standing under that supposed non-fruit producing tree, staring up at OLIVES!? As luck would have it, that same year I made a pilgrimage to Italy & Greece: pretty much the olive capitals of the world. It was here that I learned from an old Greek how a newbie like me can cure these little gems... cuz if you've ever stumbled upon a ripe olive tree, you know what I'm talking about. You can't just pick-and-eat like apples! They are steeped in oleuropein, a bitter principle that needs to be leached out through the proper steps.

Fresh picked olives! Black are considered 'ripe olives'

Washing & sorting black from green

Catching this year's crop just in the knick of time, I picked, washed, cut, soaked, changed soaking water daily for a month, waited, jarred in brine, refrigerated and waited some more. Before they are ready for eating, it will be 2+ months since I began the lengthy, but                                                                                              worthwhile process. 

A couple weeks into soaking: they acquire their true olive color

Time for the brine: vinegar, kosher salt & water

Five decades of gardening has earned my mom the title "Tomato Lady". I will keep you posted, but  "Olive Lady" does have a nice ring to it :o)

Bay leaf, garlic & peppercorn added for flavor

They will spend another month+ refrigerated in the brine.

Each jar is topped off with EVOO for a seal

Ta-dah! Swing by come November for a taste!

Please enjoy my latest demo video on butter crocks!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lIBQl6RyjqI

Power Turquoise

Glaze day.

Potters across time face a certain level of uneasiness with this critical step in finishing our clay creations. A flawlessly formed piece could morph into mishap if just one glaze layer fails the perfect measure & application. I myself have experienced this dreadful kiln opening, only to find pools of glaze cementing my once glorious, now-ravaged pottery.

Trailing much experimentation, I have come to know trusty Power Turquoise as my ever-consistent, stable base for my captivating blues. I can count on this bright glaze to bind without pitting, flow without running, finish without crazing: a flawless foundation for beautiful pots!                          


Submerging my vessels into this chalky mud, I'm struck by the parallel: A trusty, consistent-in-love, stable-in-faith youngest sister. My Power Turquoise: Monica. Her love light is the bright base that I build upon. Layered with just the right amount of craziness, it is through her support and encouragement that I persevere in devotion to my roles as wife, mother (now grandmother) and artist.

January 2017

ANOTHER rainy day. 2017 has delivered a steady dose of cold and gloom. I've employed the usual tricks: a good sweat at the gym, 80s tunes in the studio, and a hot mug of Earl Grey to top it off. Nothing. Even God has gone quiet.  I can't seem to shake the wet blanket that has come to rest on my shoulders.

I retreat to my couch, wrap myself in the closest throw and begin thumbing through relationships for sour hints… my oldest, preparing to embark on a 2-year Costa Rica assignment with the Peace Corps; a second son, making his way through undergraduate school 150 miles from home; an over-committed high school junior who is seldom around; a husband of a quarter-century facing his own demons; and a daughter about to become a mother. Here I sit, chewing this slice of reality, detecting the bitter-sweet taste of change, trying to swallow.

Enter Robin. Friend of a dozen+ years & a couple shakes more seasoned in the game of life: a big sister without the baggage. Be it a text, phone call or visit, she faithfully arrives in God's perfect timing; a messenger of hope, patience, courage. "Sometimes you just need to pull in," she'll say, "Look back at all the challenges God has brought you through!" 

Her words find a corner to settle in my soul, "Let go and Let God, Dain- We do our best and the Holy Spirit fills in the gaps." With a humor that only two Catholic girls from nutty midwest families could share, her laughter grabs hold of my boot straps, yanking me out of my concocted pit. And once again, this angel who has seen her share of cloudy days, has lead me out of the fog.

And as if on cue, the weather suddenly breaks...

"There is an appointed time for everything, and a time for every affair under the heavens. A time to give birth, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to uproot the plant. A time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to tear down, and a time to build. A time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance. A time to scatter stones, and a time to gather them; a time to embrace, and a time to be far from embraces. A time to seek, and a time to lose; a time to keep and a time to cast away. A time to rend, and a time to sew; a time to be silent, and a time to speak. A time to love, and a time to hate; a time of war, and a time of peace." -Ecclesiastes 3: 1-8

CLICK BELOW TO HEAR MY FIRST RADIO INTERVEW!

https://soundcloud.com/kyesradio/guest-daina-meyer

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas...

Happy St Nicholas Day!

My latest video: Raku Wine Glasses!
Copy/paste link below to my Etsy homepage. Scroll down to "About" on the left, and enjoy the video!
https://www.etsy.com/shop/Potterybydaina

Trip of a Lifetime

On a recent visit to see our son serving a year as a missionary, we didn't expect to fall in love with the people, the culture, the countryside of Colombia, South America. Click below for a peak at our adventure...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A26yIiDTMrs

Holy Thursday

Gethsemane

After withdrawing about a stone’s throw from them and kneeling, 

he prayed, saying, “Father, if you are willing, 

take this cup away from me; 

still, not my will but yours be done.”

And to strengthen him an angel from heaven appeared to him.

He was in such agony and he prayed so fervently 

that his sweat became like drops of blood

falling on the ground.

-Luke 22:41-44

So excited to be featured in Phoenix Home & Garden Magazine, Dec 2015 Issue! Click link to see article:

http://www.phgmag.com/digitalEdition/index.html?wv=s%2FPhoenix%2520Home%2520%26%2520Garden%2Ff4be56c204c34b7bbf3cfc5527d37f5a%2FPHG00552%2FTrue%2520SW.html

Styrofoam Bats

Springtime Desert

  Winding past orange-tipped Ocotillos, golden Brittle Bush and Crimson Hedgehogs, I startle a family of quail who scurry across the trail. I gasp, then laugh, continuing my trek along the crown of Sunrise Mountain. A curious sapphire butterfly flutters alongside as my feet find their way over the rocky path... a springtime hike in the foothills of the Sonoran Desert.

   

   Suddenly I am a bystander, watching Christ journey His desert. I ponder those forty days of fasting and prayer amidst the creatures and flora of Judea’s wilderness, marking the beginning of His springtime of suffering. 

   

   We Christians now step into the holiest of times, recalling Jesus’ suffering, death & resurrection. I consider the desert of my own life. I’ve stumbled upon some serious barren spots, hit my share of daunting heights, and met with the relentless heat of the Arizona sun. And yet, I’m reminded of the paradox: beauty and redemption amidst the desolate, grace within the fallow, flowers in the desert.

   Stepping over a lavender blossom poking out from the dust, I recall past murmurs, dismissing this as some dusty, futile emptiness. I smile and inhale the warmth of the sunshine, the sweet fragrance of springtime, the glory of the desert.

Muddied hands wiped clean, I duck out of the studio to drop my youngest at freshmen orientation.  In the passenger seat I spy no longer a little girl, but a young lady smiling back at me, mascara flawlessly applied, blonde tresses smoothly brushed.  Not too many years ago I watched a big yellow bus take her away to kindergarten.  And further back still, I kissed her soft pink cheeks and studied her tiny newborn face from a hospital bed, wondering which sibling she most resembled.  

How did we get to high school? 

Throwing an ordinary lump of clay like I’ve done countless times before, a handful of earth begins its transformation into a unique work of art.  My slippery hands roll gently over each piece; shaping, molding, forming, changing.  Dinner table chatter echoes in my mind... Graduate school & a change in degree... A serious relationship... College graduation... A youngest son’s senior year.  Scripture soon knits its way into my thoughts: “Yet you, Lord, are our Father. We are the clay, You are the potter; we are all the work of Your hand.” 

His tender hands eternally enfold and transform us into His beautiful creations.  The work is never complete.  Privileged have I been, co-creator alongside Him, forming and molding my children through all their stages and years.  

The first day of school arrives at 4:05 A.M.  I am up while the world still sleeps.  I start the coffee and step outside my studio.  Gazing up above me are billions of bright tiny lights twinkling against the still, dark morning: a sky full of tiny lanterns, palpable reminders of God’s everlasting light in my life.  His hands never tire, yet remain gently on each of us, His creations: molding, forming, shaping, changing. 

There’s a crib under my bed.  A small wooden nest that cradled my babies for nearly a decade has found its final resting place where I lay my head each night.  Adorned with teeth marks of four little people, I refuse to let Matt donate this white badge of honor. “It’s no longer taking up space in the garage,” cracked the father to my Blondies.  Then it’s going under our bed.

   Frugal me says it’s in a holding pattern; a sacred structure awaiting future grandchildren.  But that’s not it at all.  

   Those strangers in restaurants were right.  They do grow up fast and the teenage years are not for the faint-of-heart.  Yet here I am, on the eve of my twenty-second Mothers’ Day, lamenting the words of Keith Urban: Life is a balance of holding on and letting go.  What those unknown, veteran parents concealed was the heartache I would feel in the middle of the night, the tears I would see in my children’s father’s eyes, and the prayers I would worry never made it up to heaven.  They left out the part about anguish, grief, emptying and surrender.  They didn’t tell me I would be brought to my knees, with an extra large dose of humility, right back to my young adult years with my own mother.  

   And so here I lie, my dismantled timber relic safely tucked away; surrendering, entrusting, praying for balance.

   A retired electrician eagerly volunteers for the humble mission of adding more outlets in my pottery studio- all for a cup of jo and leftover cake.  He is the first man in my life.  The one who strummed a guitar while my sisters and I twirled in nightgowns singing, “You are my sunshine, my only sunshine.”  He is the one who dished up glorious ice cream sundaes on ordinary nights and tucked us in with concocted, silly bedtime stories. 

  Alongside him, I study my Dad’s thick, bristly eyebrows & beads of sweat that dot his wrinkled forehead.  He squints at the array of wires that stare back from the cavern in the wall, whispering questions at the tangled mess.  His cracked, calloused hands fish around the cardboard toolbox as he announces the strategy.  Meticulously separating the colored strands, he outlines the procedure, mindful to incorporate me in the project. I hand him tools, fetch the tape measure, hold a rope of conduit, marvel at this old electrician in his element.  In this sacred moment, time stands still.

  Suddenly I am ten years old again:  A little girl at her father’s side.  We are creating a tree fort, constructing a lemonade stand, converting a run-over wagon into a go-cart.  I am his proud assistant, watching, calculating, absorbing, dreaming.  I am the luckiest girl in the world.  He would mark the first man in my life, paving the way for the one he would give me away to.  

   Chattering to himself on how they don’t make ‘em like they used to, Dad stops to scratch his head.  My mind drifts back.  I imagine Matt- carrying Dad’s torch of humility, patience, gentleness and love. I consider the creating, constructing and converting we’ve undertaken over the past 22 years of marriage & children. I haven’t always recognized his sweetness in my life; his support, his humor, his friendship.  I pause and whisper a prayer of thanks...  I am the luckiest girl in the world. 

Watch my JUST-released demo video: "Creation of a Cruet".  I'm having trouble getting the link here.... click on "About Me" over to the left and find it under "Videos".  Thanks for watching!

Light

Christmas 1999

Christmas Morning: the culmination of MONTHS of shopping, spending, decorating, wrapping, baking, planning.  December 26th: we can’t put it all away fast enough.  As a kid, I can picture the naked Christmas trees abandoned at the ends of white driveways up and down our Minnesota streets.  But not the Wood House!  Those old colorful bulbs shone proudly through the frosty picture window until the first week in January.  Having come from an Orthodox Catholic home, my mother insisted on keeping the tree up until Three Kings’ Day, otherwise known as The Epiphany. I recall feeling some embarrassment for not keeping pace with the neighbors.  And yet today, 40-some years later, pop over to my place around January 7th and you will find Christmas still at it, trees and all.  

Either way- the day after or 2 weeks later, that stuff has to come down.  I dread it just as much as the next guy.  Room by room, I disassemble the holiday, eager to have my house back & free of dust-collecting Christmas chach-keys.  In no time at all, the whole thing turns into the mom version of “If You Give A Mouse A Cookie”:  If you give a mom a ladder, she’s gonna notice the dusty fans and need a vacuum.  When she goes to get the vacuum...  You get the idea. The process is painstaking: fake pine needles sprinkled about, stray hooks that find their way into the carpet and plastic tubs that somehow seem incapable of housing the Christmas Crap-ola that just one month prior came out of them!   

Hog pile with Dad - 2003

By hour eight of the dismantling process, I drag my ladder over to the family room tree: the last remaining evidence of Christmas 2013.  Savoring one last holiday moment, I plug the tree in as I begin the unraveling.  Winding tiny twinkle lights onto a wheel, a nostalgic sadness envelopes me.  So many bulbs, so many memories. I stop, holding that warm ring of a thousand lights & snap a mental picture of its radiance.  I’m reminded of all the lights in my life: my four children and husband of 22 years. I think back to decades of parenting and marriage, with all its challenges and gifts. I thank God for the many bright souls who were a light to my sometimes darkened path.       

My Four Babies - 2013

Before I know it, another Christmas is put away: the wad of lights in their proper tub, and the tree, squeezed into its tattered box for safe keeping until next year.  I pause, pondering those three kings... ‘Star of wonder, star of night, star with royal beauty bright, westward leading, 

still proceeding, 

guide us to thy Perfect Light.’

'Tis The Season

October marks the beginning of a new Etsy Chrismas Season. These last 2 months encompass 80% of my year’s work.  As an artist & shop owner this equates to long production days in the studio.  Creating with clay’s earthy aroma & slippery goop smeared up to my elbows is God’s taylor-made job for this chica. Called to contrive these reminders of our Savior’s birth, it is this Catholic girl’s way of evangelizing, one baby Jesus at a time.

And yet, those warm fuzzy feelings are usually fleeting.  I must admit, come early December, not only am I up to my elbows in icy water, I am knee-deep in bad attitude.  Pandora’s Christmas tunes and my favorite tea only go so far....

Enter Victoria.  In recent weeks, I have been privileged to have this peaceful painter alongside me in the studio; sharing stories, laughter & tears over some tea and a bag of clay.  With faith enough to move mountains; abundant joy in the days’ smallest of treasures; the courage of a thousand warriors, and ample hope when even the bleakest of news is on her horizon, she is not just a friend.  She is one of my favorite people. Were it not for her salt & pepper chemo ‘do’, you would never know the future she faces.  Born just three years before me, she is who I want to be when I grow up.

Alone in the studio, I plop down in front of my wheel to throw the day’s 50-some wine glasses, and notice my phone’s message alert. It is a customer, offering a touching account of her grieving friend who will soon receive my creation. It marks only one of many sacred stories. Tears stream from my tired eyes; shame for my selfish, ungrateful attitude.  I whisper a prayer of contrition and Victoria’s wise words bubble to the surface, settling on my muddied soul, “This is not just a job, Daina. This is your ministry.”

I return to my work and begin a soft hum to Sara Groves on Pandora, “God is for us, God is with us, God is in us: Emmanuel.”

I've been featured in Artizan Magazine!  Click to see publications.catstonepress.com/i/227739/10

Humility

As with any job, we have certain tools we simply cannot do without.  Mine happens to be a giant toaster. It is here, that ordinary dried mud is transformed into original works of art.  

In recent weeks, that cooker has struggled the climb to 2250 degrees: the clay’s necessary curing temp. In a potter’s perfect world, 10-12 hours is ample time to complete a firing cycle.  But Ol’ Bessy was taking upwards of 26 hours to get there. Conversations went back and forth to my supplier, kiln manufacturer, and jack-of-all-trades/fellow-artist-friend Gary. I was determined to fix this beast myself.  The most obvious solution was to switch out the elements, which have a shelf life of 150 or so firings.  According to YouTube, the average bear can pull this off in a matter of hours,  no problemo.

Sure enough, four hours and about 293 old element fragments later, and I had myself some fresh coils in place!  Now just to ‘season the elements’ with a quick low-fire load, and my girl would be up and going.  Visions of a victorious blog post & Facebook brag flooded this electrician’s-daughter brain. 

As it turns out, God was cooking up a different story with a small dose of humility.  I awoke the next morning only to find my kiln STILL struggling to warm up after 8 hours. (Insert bad word here!)  Frustrated, back to my people I went: supplier, manufacturer, friend. He must have heard the desperation in my voice.  In the middle of my rant Gary casually mentions, “Daina, I have an extra kiln that you’re welcome to borrow.”  What? Who can say that: ‘I happen to have an extra kiln just laying around.  Oh, and it’s just like yours, only newer and practically un-used’?

In a mere 10 hours my first load in that borrowed kiln was done.  Bam. Back in business!  Excitedly, I phoned my friend Gary only to hear his heart-melting words that still ring in my head: “Daina, I want you to keep the kiln.”  

Every morning since then, I step into my studio & glance at the shiny gift beside my decrepit old toaster; thankful, humbled, blessed.