The life lessons of pottery

Everything you need to know about life can be found in pottery and in the act of making pottery. It’s hard to not get philosophical when talking about pottery because so much of it is in the head and the heart, not just the hands. Here are some of the …

Surprise and Delight

“Surprise and delight” is a phrase often tossed around in business meetings. “We need to surprise and delight our customers!” senior managers cry out! “We need to provide them with unexpected rewards and promote customer loyalty!” No. You don’t. You need to solve a problem for your customer. That’s it. …

The Chewed Receipt

I grew up in a border town in the Okanagan valley just North of Washington state called Osoyoos. One big advantage of living in a border town was that you could go down into the US for cheap groceries and gas. We used to wear our old shoes down, buy …

Another botched restoration

So another “masterpiece” was restored by an amateur and ruined. I wrote about Elias Garcia’s “Ecce Homo” in a previous post. This time a copy of the “The Immaculate Conception of El Escorial” by Bartolomé Esteban Murillo was cleaned by a furniture restorer. “Ottomans, chaise, masterpieces, whatever! We do it …