shine.

I don’t remember the last time that I’ve went this long without writing. It’s funny- when life is good I don’t feel like writing and when life is awful I don’t feel like writing. Thankfully it’s the former this time.

My new job is monotonous, but I’m enjoying it for now. In the evening when I get off of work I call Dave and sometimes we’ll get together. If he’s busy then I find somebody else to spend time with- most often with Rachel, one of my sisters, or Jackie. I’m so absolutely shocked and blown away by how much Rachel and I have begun hanging out. I mean, really. If you’d have told me a year ago that I’d be exchanging my friendship with Clint for a friendship with Rachel I’d have laughed in your face.

It’s funny how things change.

This past weekend I went to Wisconsin with Rachel for her first ever art show. Let me give you a little background: Rachel is a painter. She’s always been a painter. After she and Clint broke up last year, she decided to take a pottery class for fun- and shortly after that she began merging her pottery with her painting. Her stuff started out very controlled and intricate- very detailed and geometric. A couple of months ago her pottery instructor, who happens to make a pretty good living as an artist and potter, started pushing Rachel to do a show- to get her stuff out onto the market. He loved her stuff and saw great potential in her. When she doubted herself he pushed harder. Last month he surprised her by sending some pictures of her stuff to a friend, which got a ball rolling that hasn’t stopped since.

The friend invited Rachel to do a show. For the last month she’s hardly left the studio- and her stuff has evolved into something entirely different than she began with- something organic and flowing and full of life.

Enough talk, let me show you:

a plate that she made when she was just beginning

A better view of the details:

And here is the stuff that she’s putting out now:

a bowl that she made. These are the size of a cereal bowl- they have high sides. Every one that she makes is different, but this is part of a set of black and white bowls that all have a similar look to them.

Here is another:

Here is a coaster that she made. I actually ended up buying this one with a really neat mug to leave at my desk at work:

I took this photo with my cellphone because I forgot my camera at home. Here you can see some of the black and white bowls. The green bowl to the left (the one with the black and white flower looking things) are another set that she made.

And did I mention that it’s all fully functional? It’s microwave, dishwasher, and oven safe. All of it.
AND it’s super sturdy. It looks like porcelain, but it’s not. I knocked over a bunch of mugs onto a bunch of plates when we were getting everything set up and it was all fine. She said that she manhandles her stuff all the time.

I just love her stuff. The show ended up not being a huge success- but I think the problem was moreso the crowd than her prices or her work. The show was part of a larger festival- the artists around us were all complaining that it was the least profitable show that they’d ever been to (and one lady had been doing shows for 18 years). Her stuff is very trendy and high end- the kind of stuff that would sell great in a metropolitan area but didn’t quite fit in ruralish Wisconsin, The crowd was more attracted to her more generic pieces- the ones that you’d find at the renaissance festival or the fair or a flea market- the brown and red and blue and green earthenware-looking stuff that she could make and throw out quickly and cheaply. The only stuff from other artists that the crowd seemed to be purchasing were pieces that looked very country and Americana-ish.

For now Rachel is planning on continuing with what she’s doing because she sees a little glimmer of hope that through this she may someday be able to quit waiting tables. One of the ladies next to us at the show commissioned her to do a piece for her bathroom (something to hold make-up brushes and the like) and also bought a few mugs and a beeeeeeautiful black, white, and blue platter. That lady urged Rachel to get a website (she specifically mentioned etsy) and to start marketing her stuff that way- we all agree that it’s a wonderful idea. Rachel is in the process of planning a website, but for now she’s seriously considering just selling her stuff in her front yard (her yard faces one of the most walked and driven streets in one of the most trendy neighborhoods of Minneapolis- and because I live only a block away from her and truly believe in her stuff, I told her that I’d be willing to help in any way possible.

Anyway.

Dave is getting his pilots license. Cool, huh? It all came about a couple of weeks ago when he and I drove 5 hours north to hang out with my parents at their cabin for the weekend. I don’t remember exactly how the conversation was brought up, but we were all sitting around a campfire sometime in the early evening and we were talking about world war two and the history channel. Eventually the conversation shifted to a kid a few years younger than me that I went to high school with who is also living in Minneapolis. The kid, named Andy, came from a

very wealthy family and is apparently in mortuary school and just recently got his pilots license. My dad was talking about how Andy flew up to my hometown to play golf with his dad for a night and then flew back to Minneapolis. Dave wondered aloud how much it would cost to get a license to fly and I told him that I used to have a teacher in high school who owned an old plane and had his license. I said, "if a teacher can afford those things on his salary, then you could afford it too if it was something that you would be interested in."

The seed had been planted. When we left for the weekend Dave asked that I be in charge of driving home because he wanted to research plane and lesson costs on his phone. His eyes were glued to his phone quite literally the entire 5 hour drive back to Minneapolis.

I didn’t see Dave at all on Monday because I worked all day at my full-time job and all night at the restaurant. The next day I called Dave after working all day again at the full-time job- it was then that he told me that his lessons were to start the very next afternoon.

It’s only been a few weeks, but Dave has already taken something like six lessons. He’s entirely obsessed. He’s taken off, flown, and landed with the instructor in the plane with him, already. He got in contact with an old friend of his father who owns eight planes in conjunction with 50 other men- and is going to join their club which would give him access to the planes. Last week a bunch of them flew to some random town in Northern Wisconsin to have dinner at a restaurant on a lake before flying back to Minneapolis that evening. Dave hasn’t stopped talking about how excited he is to get to take a plane up north to see my family or his grandparents or even an hour west to our friend Chris’ house in Buffalo.

It is so awesome to see him so excited, you guys. His eyes are so alive when he talks about flying- he has so much passion for it. He hasn’t stopped talking about flying since that day sitting around the campfire with my parents. I’m so proud of him- so, so happy and excited for him.

My heart is so full right now.