Loose Leaf Notes

Besides eating Thanksgiving turkey at a Zephyr Farm potluck, we played a rousing game of Taboo.

We lined up in the kitchen at Amy, Rowan, and Zeph’s house for Vietnamese pho soup. One beautiful bowl of pho begged to be photographed.

We visited six hands of the Sixteen Hands Studio Tour at Donna Polseno and Rick Hensley’s homestead and pottery gallery on the Blue Ridge Parkway. Donna’s work was recently shown at Roanoke’s Taubman museum, including the piece pictured here, Irretrievable Losses, in which the broken pot is part of the composition. Donna’s displays are works of art within works of art.

My son potter Josh Copus, the newest Sixteen Hands member, was in town from Asheville showing his latest work at Rick and Donna’s. He and Donna were set up in the old farm storage building that Rick recently renovated into a gallery. There was a spread of food and beer from Floyd’s Shooting Creek microbrewery to partake. Enthusiastic pottery lovers were warmed by the toasty wood stove as they mingled and shopped for prize pieces.

Josh’s big jar pots made for an impressive display on the newly built deck by the outside fire pit.

Later, we were uplifted by breaths of fresh air and lovely views as we opened a window into Josh’s life by looking at his latest collage journal. (Insert singing Love is All you Need from the Across the Universe musical movie that we watched with friends on Thanksgiving night HERE.)

At some point during the long Thanksgiving season and after a long day we enticed Bryce to join us for a series of family photos (minus Josh who came too late for this one) and gave thanks for the shots he managed to sit still for.