Screen House Residency: Big Whoop

Some of you out there have heard stories of various animals wandering a little too close to studio spaces. I think my favorite of these stories regularly occurs at the Arrowmont School of Arts and Crafts (Gatlinburg, TN) where a bear likes to wander in and give the resident artists a good time. I can say that in Florida, I, too, have had an experience that equals in intensity. Yesterday, while dutifully working in the Screen House Residency of Crooked Lake, I had a close encounter with a pair of Florida Sandhill Cranes. These ferocious pack-hunting birds swooped out of nowhere, calling out with a warrior cry that had me hiding under my wedging table! I nearly jumped out of my skin at the sight of their razor-sharp beaks and sun-blotting wingspans. As if trapped in my own personal Jurassic Park, I ravenously searched of any kind of escape route!

Lucky for me, I had my trusty Kemper fettling knife to keep them at bay. Whew! It was a close call and I count myself fortunate to be have captured these pictures of such violent creatures with my ever-ready cell phone. Oh course, they are a little blurry (sound familiar my Loch Ness brethren?) so I've included a shot from the ever trustworthy World Wide Web (aka: the Information Super Highway, or Internet). Behold their terrifying red-masked faces of death! They are the scourge of Crooked Lake, a murderous flying brigade of bandits, hell-bent on the destroying the peace and solace of every hard working ceramic sculptor in the land!

Will the Lake ever again know harmony in the aftermath of such shrieking horror? Will this "endangered" species ever relent its hatred of foolish man? Stay tuned... and vigilant!