A Leap Year Birthday Party in Austria!

Airport greetings with Irma!

I'm in Austria!  My dear friend, Irma, lives here.  She and her wonderful family hosted me for three days, and the big kick-off was her sister's very special birthday.  Centa was born on Leap Year so this is the 7th time in her life that she has been able to celebrate her birthday ON her birthday.  

Even though she is turning 28 years old, we decided to have a 7th Birthday Party, properly decorated with balloons, streamers, teddy bears, cotton candy, and plenty of kids who could not wait to eat the frog-shaped treats.  Irma's son, Felix, is playing peek-a-boo with the camera while his cousin, Agnes, is gazing longingly at the sweet frogs. 

Irma's whole family is extremely musical.  As a matter of fact, Irma is a professional violist, and she had the brilliant idea to fill wine glasses with varying water levels to build a musical scale.  Then we were going to dye the water with food coloring and hand out little sheets with color-coded songs for people to play.  

Except our glasses were NOT cooperating.  We could only get about 4 notes with the glasses we had.  We needed larger glasses and we just didn't have them.  

Even Mary, Irma's sister, tried to make it work.  She got closer than me and Irma, but still no luck.  It was a really fun idea.  Next time we will just have to find some larger wine glasses before the party so we can pull it off.  

Henry, Irma's middle son was very excited for the celebration to begin. 

And who could blame him with this delightful spread?!

Here is our 7-year-old, Centa!  Little by little the guests arrived and just as the living room was about to burst...

...in walked a very unexpected guest. 

A MAGICIAN! 

What 7th Birthday is complete without a magician?  He was totally captivating and quite funny.  I didn't understand a word he was saying since he did his entire act in German, but I still thought it was a great show!  I can't remember the last time I saw a magic show. 

He had us all pretty entranced- kids and adults alike! 

He even had us all chant the magic words in unison to help the Birthday Girl cast the spell.  In German, the magic words begin the same way they do in English with "Abracadabra," but then you add an enthusiastic "Simsalabim!" at the end. 

Irma made a delicious 7th Birthday cake. 

And when we were all starting to drag a bit, we re-energized with a heated game of musical chairs. 

My friend Brian, Irma's husband, was in charge of the music. 

The party went on for hours, and Irma's children Henry, Felix and Theo made a valiant effort to stay awake, not wanting to miss a single moment. 

They did a great job, but even Henry eventually passed out in the middle of the living room floor, playing up until the very last second. 

Now that was a good party!  Happy Birthday Centa!

Holiday On Ice!

I've been seeing these signs all over Berlin since we first arrived in December.  They are plastered to the sides of buildings, they are glued to advertising poles, they are even stuck up on the windows in the U-Bahn!  Holiday On Ice: Passion is touring Europe and in Berlin from February to March.  

Here comes the cool part...

...my cousin, Cindy, designed ALL of the costumes for the show.  Yup!  She is an incredible artist and designs costumes worldwide!  As a matter of fact, she was just in Japan a few weeks ago finalizing her designs for a major event in Osaka. 

She hooked us up big time to see Holiday on Ice!  Ultimate date night!  

The show was at this incredible venue that looked like a giant circus tent. 

We walked by the tour truck on the way in with one of her other designs featured right in the middle!

Cindy got us awesome seats right in the middle of the area!

Super pumped for the show to begin!

To quote the Holiday On Ice website, "The new Passion show pulls back the backstage curtain and shows you the life of the skaters from the first steps on the ice to the world of the beauty, ambition and glamorous elements that skaters experience.  The show follows the true-life stories of the cast members culminating in an explosive representation of Generation Now."

The opening number was one of my favorites because it featured Cindy's Steampunk costumes!!! 

Cindy tasked me with photographing the Moroccan costumes in the second act since Holiday On Ice didn't send her any photos of these costumes. 

In addition to Cindy's gorgeous costumes, they also hung Moroccan-inspired streamers from the ceiling and had a complete aerial ballet scene!

Cindy's Peacock costume was definitely my favorite! 

I also like Purple Spider Girl behind Peacock. 

The new-age laser light skating scene was awesome!

The grand finale took the cake with elaborate feathered wings!

Totally incredible!  The crowd went crazy for this girl!  It was so cool to be there and see Cindy's beautiful designs skating across the stage!

But the magic continued when Fritz and I met Andrei! 

Andrei is Cindy's manager who travels with the show.  He has the huge task of taking care of all the costumes as they bounce from city to city.  He met us after the show and took us for our very own backstage tour!!  

Cindy connected us as she and Andrei have become good pals over the years of working together on design projects.  She shared a memory from when she and Andrei stayed up chatting through the night as they frantically sewed on feathers and beads before an opening performance.  It's easy to see why Cindy likes Andrei so much... he's the friendliest person ever!  He was so hospitable and let me take pictures to my heart's delight behind the scenes! 

We started in his sewing room while the skaters were all changing after the show.  You can see one of the Steampunk corsets needed a few repairs.  

Here is the Peacock crown.

Andrei showed us shelves full of hats, headpieces, props and more!

Fritz modeled one of the Steampunk headpieces.  Check out those details!

Andrei let us pose on the jumbo vanity from the showgirl scene.  You can see his reflection in the mirror to my left. 

Here is Andrei center-stage with the theater seats behind him. 

He actually let me try on the show-stopper wings!!!!  I couldn't believe it!  I thought he was asking me, "Do you have a tripod?" (like for my camera), but he really said, "Do you want to try them on?"

Um... YES!!!  

So special!  A huge thank you to Andrei and Cindy for hooking us up with a terrific date night!  It was incredible to watch Cindy's creative genius dance across the ice!  Thank you for sharing it with us!  What a talented cousin I have!

New Potter In Town-- And It's Me!

Well.  It's one kind of coincidence when you find a pottery studio and a yoga studio at the exact same address.  

It's another thing entirely when the owner of the pottery studio meets you, then tells you she is going on vacation for a month and is wondering if you'd be willing to look after her shop while she is gone.  

Yes. For the month of February, I helped run Feuer Zeug Keramik.  Now you understand why I haven't been able to post as frequently.  Sorry about that!  Tuesdays, Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays I have been maintaining the shop and doing my own work on the wheel.  

I'll give you a little background on the whole process.  

First, let me tell you a little bit about the area around the pottery shop.  The shop is located between two very hip boroughs of Berlin: Kreuzberg and Neukölln.  If you look up these neighborhoods on The Google, you'll find expressions like "the center of all things hip," "home to Berlin's punk rock movement as well as other alternative subcultures in Germany," "famous for its alternative lifestyle and its squatters," "graffiti-stained shutters," "highest percentage of immigrants," "influx of students, creatives and young professionals," "social hot spot," et cetera, et cetera.  

Before arriving in Berlin, I'd heard it described as a "grungy" city, to which I was like "Yeah ok, what is that supposed to mean?"  Grungy did not sound like a very nice way to talk about a place.  I wouldn't be flattered if someone said I lived in a grungy apartment.   It sounded derogatory out of context, but the way it was being used about Berlin made it sound sort of cool or edgy in a good way.  I'm still not exactly sure what it means, but when I walk around Kreuzberg and Neukölln, I understand why the term is applied.  One of the most observable characteristics of these boroughs is the graffiti that is literally EVERYWHERE.   There are also posters and fliers plastered on every available surface.  And if there wasn't a free surface, the fliers were just layered one on top of the other.  

There are fantastic murals (some also on the "grungy" side) all over the place.  

This one is 2 blocks from the pottery shop and I feel like it captures the spirit of the area.  "Love Art Hate Cops" is written across the top.  You can see it from the U-Bahn stop where I get off.  And speaking of that U-Bahn stop- I used to feel kind of nervous walking down from the train platform because there are always guys (between 18 and 25 years old) standing in groups on the steps and down on the ground level under the tracks.  I couldn't figure out what they were doing there since they never seem to ride the train and they don't leave the train stop.  I thought maybe they were waiting for vulnerable commuters that they could attack and steal a wallet or two, so I was always very careful to walk up and down the stairs while there were lots of other people around me.  To my relief, I found out I was in no danger of being jumped.  These guys are merely selling marijuana and it seems interested customers know to meet them at this particular train platform.  Lovely.  

If I want to avoid the drug dealers completely, I can walk from our house, which, in addition to getting some exercise, allows me to discover some merry Berlin-isms...

... like this bike full of daffodils... 

... or this intricate and colorful pole warmer. 

In preparation for my month in the pottery shop, I needed to acquire the correct supplies.  Although Cordula (the owner of the pottery shop) said I was allowed to use her clay for my pottery projects, I did not want to take advantage of her generosity in letting me use her potter's wheel and space while she was gone... plus, I had some pretty big projects in mind.  

Time for a grand expedition to Carl Jäger, a pottery supply store in the southeast.  Cordula provided me with their address so the day before starting at Feuer Zeug Keramik, I threw an empty satchel over my shoulder and started out to by some clay and glaze.  

The trip requires 2 train transfers and a tram (or streetcar) taking almost an hour to get from door to door.  The transfers were in parts of the city I had not yet experienced and I was reminded just how big and dynamic Berlin really is.  

After taking the second train, I decided to skip the tram and walk the last leg of the journey to Carl Jäger.  

I was now in the former Communist part of the city, which also was quite residential.  Although there were fewer murals when compared to Kreuzberg, I still managed to find a few.  

I walked along backroads that bordered parks and bike paths.  

I discovered uniform efficient-looking German apartments.  The combination of the architecture and the cars made me feel like I was on the set of "Good Bye Lenin!" the famous German film about the end of communism in the late 80s. 

Since you're obviously wondering what I looked like on my way to the pottery supply store, here's a picture of me sitting along the sidewalk with my empty, green, poke-a-dot satchel.  

After walking for 45 minutes, I arrived at Carl Jäger only to discover it was closed.  Apparently they have a mid-day break from 12-3pm.  Good thing I brought my book!

The surrounding neighborhood was quite residential but I did find a cozy cafe... 

...which serves latte macchiatos and waffles!  I've been trying to minimize my intake of glutenous foods so I haven't been eating many waffles, but I think it's worth noting that German waffles are delicious and readily available all over the place at almost any time of the day.  They are often served with powdered sugar like my little snack pictured above.  

I killed an hour or so in this little cafe, munching and reading until Carl Jäger reopened.  

As you can see, it doesn't really look like much of a shop.  And that is probably because it really isn't a shop.  If you walk in the side door, you enter a small room with a counter.  There are a few samples of glazed tiles hanging on the wall along with some tools that potters can purchase, but it really isn't a place to browse.  You need to know what you want ahead of time so you can place your order at the counter.  

I had come prepared since Cordula had given me the Carl Jäger catalog.  I wanted two varieties of clay and a blue glaze that I picked out by looking at the sample tiles on the wall.  Using a mix of English, sign language, and bad German I was able to place my order with the shop owner's son, a burly man with pierced ears and a long beard.  He turned out to be quite a sweetheart despite his gruff appearance.  

Considering how long it took me to get out to this shop, I decided to place a bulk order so I wouldn't have to go back and forth to this place every other week, but carrying 100 kilos of clay home on a tram and 2 trains would have been totally impossible.  Lucky for me, Carl Jäger delivers!  So I gave my new bearded friend my home address and set a date for the delivery.  I took one 10-kilo bag of clay in my satchel so I'd have something to work with at the shop over the weekend (for my fellow Americans who have no sense of the metric system, 10 kilos converts to roughly 22 pounds) and set off for home.  

I passed this random configuration of mushroom stools on the way back to my house. 

A few days later, my clay arrived!  Perfect timing too!  Fritz hadn't left for the archives yet so I had help carrying almost 200 pounds of clay up to our 4th floor apartment.  We selected a remote corner of the living room for it to hide and I've been transporting it to the pottery shop as needed, one bag at a time.  

Having successfully acquired all the neccessary materials, it was pottery time!!  I had planned ahead and brought my rubber pottery boots to Germany.  They aren't exactly high fashion, but what can I say, sometimes an artist must place a higher value on function and leave fashion at home.

Feuer Zeug Keramik is a small shop divided between a display of finished pottery for sale and a working pottery studio with two potter's wheels. The picture above shows some of Cordula's pieces. 

The two wheels are hiding behind the white shelf in the foreground.  The shelves on the side wall are loaded with unfinished pieces.  

I got right to work making a few mugs.  They haven't been glazed yet, but I'm quite happy with how they turned out.  It's been a least 6 months since I've done any throwing (that's the term potters use when they are making pieces on a wheel), but it wasn't too tricky to get back into the swing of things. 

I can't tell you how good it feels to be back in a pottery studio.  I still have to pinch myself whenever I think about how this all came together.  It blows my mind!  I've been quite busy producing surprises for our wedding in August, which means photos of my finished products will be limited, but if anyone has any special orders, let me know!  I'll make anything that can be shipped (so no giant vases please).  

Peace, Love and Pottery!