Porcelain Owl

Owl
Originally uploaded by la_v_i_k_a

Unplanned piece of whimsy that turned into a delightful pendant, and finally, into a lovely necklace.

The pendant is approximately 1-1/2" in diameter, translucent porcelain. Swirled bail handmade, of pure copper.

Its custom made box follows!

Heroes

SPIDERman
Originally uploaded by la_v_i_k_a

After two weeks which included eight 12-hour days with middle school students of all sorts, poetry? Yes, poetry.

Latest to Emerge from the Fire

Latest to Emerge from the Fire
Originally uploaded by la_v_i_k_a

I do many production firings. Periodically, I invest in experimental firings, usually of at least 100 buttons, in new designs. In the case of glaze combinations, that means numbering the buttons on the reverse and then recording the glaze process and any other pertinent info (such as where they were fired in the kiln). Afterward, it's very educational to match up the recorded process with the finished results!

In this case, it was a very successful load...many successes from which many new buttons and pendants will spring.

more examples can be found: http://www.flickr.com/photos/la_vika/

Nuns Don't Watch Oprah

As of today, I've read one too many articles citing the Catholic Church's claim to naivete-- 30 years ago we didn't know what we do now about pedophiles, so, in ignorance, we moved them and prayed. I don't hear anyone, not even some of the best, challenging this assertion. Oprah has been covering the subject publicly for almost thirty years. Large swathes of the general public (especially those concerned for children) have been informed for at least that long and, contrary to their assertion, so has the Catholic Church--and probably far longer than Oprah.

How do I know?

The Catholic Church has given birth to and nurtures some of the best universities in the world-- managed and staffed by clergy as well as lay professionals. Notre Dame initiated its psychology department in the mid-1960's. Their counseling program "has been continuously accredited by the American Psychological Association since 1972." That means they've been current on contemporary counseling issues for over 35 years.

In 1984, I began a masters in counseling at a very small protestant seminary in California. At the time of my studies, modern information about pedophilia was already available. It was not presented as something that could be cured by repentance and pastoral reassignment. After my studies, considering chaplaincy, I did an internship in a closed psychiatric unit, with children. The professionals I worked with reiterated what we'd learned in the classroom. Because chaplaincy occurs within secondary institutions (the military, hospitals, etc.), interns come from a variety of denominations. One of my fellow interns was an employee of a Catholic diocese in south Germany.

The Catholic Church has a long history of involvement in hospital care, social work (including clinical psychology) and chaplaincy. They run adoption agencies. It is inconceivable that information about the nature of pedophiles would not have been available to nuns and priests in their work, as a part of their licensing requirements and in the course of their continuing professional development, in these fields, more than 25 years ago.

Every public decision has the potential to affect the way the Church does business. Catholic adoption agencies in D.C. shut down when the law was changed, allowing gay couples to marry. Senators hear from bishops and nuns when legislation will affect what matters to them. The church, and its leaders, are not cloistered; they are actively engaged and educated about all matters that pertain to them. Over 25 years ago, California made teachers and counselors (among others) mandated reporters of suspected child abuse. This change would have affected every Catholic diocese with a school, adoption agencies, teaching credential programs at Catholic colleges, as well as licensed Catholic counselors and clinical social workers. As they considered the requirements for reporting and the signs of abuse they were required to recognize, it's impossible to think there were no discussions of pedophiles framed in modern professional terms.

Thirty years ago they were naive, so they moved priests and prayed? No. The Church has provided professional psychological education to its own leaders for over 35 years. Within the same time frame, its agencies--which include the nuns and priests working within them--have been subject to both professional and legal requirements mandating that they have a thorough understanding of pedophilia and its victims.

Because our upbringings have instilled in many of us a deference to persons and things of God, we are vulnerable to the promotion of nuns and priests as naive and cloistered, in spite of all that we know. The Church, however, is a veritable powerhouse of human knowledge -- and it knows us, often intimately.

Let it claim to be naive, in spite of the evidence. We, however, dare not be.

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Open Letter to UC Faculty Upon UC Walkout

Dear UC Faculty,

Although I can be polite and diplomatic, I haven't the time or energy. I'm a single parent and a laid off public school teacher. I have a sophomore on one of your campuses and I'm under tremendous stress, so I'm just going to speak plainly.

The UC Walkout? I love the newly discovered (rediscovered?) sense of altruism among you. I hope it's real and that your sudden solidarity with public school teachers under the brunt of Prop 13 is not simply a conveniently played "empathy card."

It's been over 20 years since Prop 13. The universities and colleges of California, and the nation, have been complaining about the decline in skills among the students we send up to you, but you haven't lifted a finger of solidarity on behalf of the public school educators below you, until now, when you face what we've been dealing with for the last 20 to 30 years. As in historical dictatorships, you watched us "carted off" and failed to raise your voices in our support, and now you face the same.

You failed to address the undermining of public school education nationwide in the aftermath of post sixties' social and educational enfranchisement for the poor and those of color. Did it never occur to you that the threat of enfranchisement, to established power at the top, was responded to by undermining the bottom? No longer facing barred doors at the top, the students are now, instead, crippled at the bottom of the staircase. We have been rendered incapable of sending you the quality of students you need.

If you provide universally low education at the public school level, not everyone suffers. Families that already have power and means can make up the difference by providing enrichment experiences (travel, music, sports teams) and tutoring to their children. The poor (and now the middle class) are stuck with what they get in public school. That means the number of income disenfranchised and children of color capable of applying to your universities has been diminished year by year. It also means that those who do manage to arrive are more disadvantaged than their peers of means from the same school. That is a lifetime deficit for which a university experience doesn't always provide remedy. After 30 years, a generation, it is not just our public school students who are undereducated, but now, many of our colleagues, as well. Today, we have a multi-generational culture of low education. This is the new way that power maintains exclusivity in the face of Affirmative Action.

I know you must have discussed the various systemic problems plaguing public school education. But, I want to scream that, over the thirty years of its development, you never seriously addressed this, never set your students on it as a primary research project, never worked at creating the statistical and political means of changing it. What blinded you? Why weren't you curious?

We are your colleagues in education. There is a lot you could have done for us that would have prevented the situation in which you now find yourselves. We needed you to study and report on the hidden "furloughs" we face. We needed you to study teacher turnover and the number of teachers who don't stay beyond their first years, and why. We needed you to survey our health: the level of obesity and prescription drug use amongst us, our rate of counseling use and family problems, our divorce rates, and how these things have climbed. We needed you to document the dwindling amount of time we spend with our families during the school year and how that affects all the facets of our lives. We needed you to assess the amount of money we spend out of pocket, annually, on goods our districts don't cover, but our students need, and what that means. We needed you to go beyond asking what happens to children in overcrowded classrooms and ask what happens to us, their teachers. As colleagues, we needed you, not our unions or faculty senates under their own pressures of self-preservation, to have our backs.

We matter as much as the students; we were students once. And now, we are you.

One Book a Year / #OneBookaYear

It'd be great to leave a bequest or fund a scholarship at the high school from which each of us graduated, but most of us don't have the means.

However, we can send one book a year to the library at the high school from which we graduated. It doesn't take too many participants, from just a handful of graduating classes, to enrich the offerings of their former high school, on a yearly basis.

Multiplied by ten or twenty years, it becomes a profound contribution.

It's a way to share a piece of yourself with students like you, where you started out. Who knows what windows you may open with just one book?

October is International School Libraries Month. It's the month to send the book.

If you're on Twitter, tweet your book's name and the high school you sent it to, with the hashtag #OneBookaYear. Use the hashtag to look up what's being sent and get some ideas, if you need them.

I've also started a FaceBook group: One Book a Year. Join us, and then post the name of the book you sent, along with your high school's name. Not sure what book to send? Get some ideas there...and go for it!

Handmade Porcelain Buttons

Handmade Porcelain Buttons
Originally uploaded by la_v_i_k_a
On the way to 100 views in my flickr account, these seem to be a hit!

1-1/4" porcelain buttons with a variety of ceramic decal work. Unlike most work of this kind, which is fired thrice, these buttons were single fired to maturity and then refired once to apply the designs.

They are more well-traveled than their maker, having already been to Portland this summer for the Sock Summit...who knows where next. Maybe your home? :)

Several are still available. I'm easily contacted through Etsy:

vika.etsy.com
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