Lots to Read. Instantly.

It all started last Halloween, at my party. Fellow potter Gary brought a book for me to read as a guest-gift, called "Hands in Clay."  I was excited, but since we whisked off to Hawaii two days later-and the book is a bit big to be schlepping in a carry-on, I left it on my night stand. And it stayed there for a while. I recently picked it up and am working my way through it.

Since then, it seems that "Hands in Clay" has spawned other books to be read, preferably all instantaneously and at once, if that sentence makes any sense at all. Here's the list of "must read for knowledge books":

1) Hands in Clay
2) Making and Installing Handmade Tiles
3) Handmade Tiles: Designing, Making, Decorating
4) The Complete Guide to High Fire Glazes: Glazing and Firing at Cone 10
5) From Clay to Bronze: A Studio Guide to Figurative Sculpture
6) The Figure in Clay: Contemporary Sculpting Techniques by Master Artists
7) The Essential Guide to Mold Making and Slip Casting
8) Ceramics: Mastering the Craft
9) The Potter's Book of Glaze Recipes
10) New Product Development For Dummies

Of course there are a few Halloween and prop-making books I'd like to get to as well, primarily "The Prop Builder's Molding and Casting Handbook," but they'll have to wait for a bit. I just know I'll regret putting those off come build time.

I mentioned to Mr. ShellHawk that I was thinking of absorbing all the knowledge in these books by sleeping on them for a night or two, but he told me it doesn't work that way, if you can imagine! I guess I'll have to read them and make notes like everyone else!

Seriously, though, it's the work anyone would have to put in to become good at anything, and if one wants to master anything, reading is absolutely part of it. I'm just impatient to know all of it right now!