The Adventure Continues… Terra Cotta

I don’t do this very often, but this week I’ve decided to repeat an episode — one that I originally featured way back in May 2017. For the past few Mondays I’ve been sharing photos with you that I found in the Hicks Album from the Feats of Clay XXIII exhibition, one of the last years the event was held inside Gladding McBean. The images have raised a few questions about the terra cotta factory; and the fact that the company no longer offers tours to the public makes this look inside all the more wonderful. I hope you enjoy seeing Huell’s visit to Gladding McBean as much as I have. My original post: Lincoln is a little town not too far up the road from my house, and I’ve never spent much time there at all. So I was very surprised when I first saw this episode of California’s Gold to realize there is such an important and historical company located there. From the Brooks Brothers emblem to light standards for a bridge in Moosejaw, Canada, these guys create art for public spaces, and every piece is created by hand. Step back in time with Huell to the olden days of making pottery the Gladding McBean way. The 118-year-old company in rural Lincoln, near Sacramento, is the nation’s only remaining major manufacturer of terra cotta. From decorative to functional, McBean’s terra cotta is acclaimed for its distinctive style which graces […]

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Finding space

I’ve been doing a little early spring cleaning around my house lately. So much of the stuff I keep is of no real use to me anymore, but I’m attached to it out of either nostalgia or the fear that I may suddenly find a purpose for it after it’s gone. So I shuffle things around and try to make […]

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Geocaching

I tried my hand at geocaching once, very briefly. It seems like a fantastic hobby, fitting perfectly with my love of hiking — but I already have so many other hobbies that I just couldn’t manage to fit another one into my life. That said, sometimes I stumble onto a geocache site purely by accident, like the one that caught […]

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At home in the outdoors

I’m never surprised anymore when hiking around Folsom Lake to find driftwood shelters; some of these are constructed near the waterline (or where the waterline used to be), but others are far from the water, in among the trees. Most appear to have been hastily built, but occasionally I’ll find a shelter that was created with great care and skill, […]

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Colors of spring

Yes, it’s still only February — but to walk along the Lake Natoma bluffs on a morning like this, you would never know it wasn’t the middle of April. For me, it was literally a bluebird day; these beautiful Western Bluebirds seemed to be in tucked into every tree and working busily in the grass along the trail. The sparrows […]

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