Pinterest Pattern Board

Many years ago I spent some time generating Pinterest boards to identify my artistic interests and expand my visual landscape. I have always been facinated by pattern. Lately, I have been trying to create textured pattern on my pinched ceramic forms. I feel terribly lacking.

One source of frustration is due to my ceramic working technique. I pinch forms until leather hard. I try to get my forms as thin as glass. I like a light cup. Once the form gets to this level of delicacy it is hard to impress texture without fully changing the clean lines of the form.

I have been struggling with this for years. Many of my pieces have sgraffito. I love the look, but this process is time consuming, often taking hours for one piece. Add to that I make each piece a fully unique script-like pattern. I enjoy the meditational flow I enter into, but it is not sustainable as a production approach.

I started looking into a new approach: One that uses patterns - eliminating the fully unique aspect; one that will apply the pattern to the finished or partially finished form using molded sprigs.

In the next week or so I will post my process. I have 50 lbs of #1 plaster. I have made some hump and slump molds. I have tried making spring molds that really didn't work. I am now slowly making blanks to carve patterns into. I hope these carved plaster molds will begin a new era for me.

I will be looking through my boards to find inspiration. I hope they inspire you as well.

 

 

All Thumbs Comes to Life

This Sunday, July 12, 2026, I finally gave my distracted brain the time to rebuild my Joomla website. I had heard that people use AI to help with website development, so I worked with Google’s Gemini to guide me through what I once knew how to do manually: setting up a Joomla website and database.

After deleting old junk from my host server, I installed Joomla 6 and found a template suggested by Gemini. The template actually required Joomla 6, which was the ultimate reason I had to upgrade the install. That process took me a few hours of poking and prodding the sycophantic AI personality.

Because the template featured social network icons, I needed to figure out the actual links to my existing Facebook, Instagram, and Pinterest accounts. Each one required password resets and a bit of juggling. I also created an “All Thumbs Studio” YouTube page to eventually start publishing videos. In my mind, AllThumbs.org is a central hub for all my websites. I may be old school, stupid, or just stubborn, but I’ve paid for this domain for so long that I figured I should use it. A central hub seemed like the most reliable use. Besides, I like writing small screeds like this to settle my jittery, racing, thought-filled brain. At last, I have recreated my blog.

Once the installation of the CMS and the template was complete, I started trying to integrate my Instagram feed into my site. It seemed like it was going to be a simple process of copying some scripted code and pasting it into my home page.

It wasn't. Things have changed.

Meta is a beast. I knew my Facebook studio page was linked to my Instagram and Threads accounts (both personal and studio pages,) but I had no idea how cryptic and opaque Meta makes the process. To put it simply: I was required to create a Meta Developers Account and set up an “app” just to get an Access Token to enter into the Joomla Module that facilitates the connection. The integration techniques seem to go out of date as fast as developers can code them; Gemini kept giving me yesterday’s news. I spent hours re-asking the same question, flipping through websites, admin panels, and Joomla functions.

In the end, I got it to work. It works—but it isn't working pretty.

Making it look good will be a task for another day.

[AND Gemini proofread this.]