Kiln Award

Several years ago I received a blue ribbon and an award for this mask I entered in a ceramics show at Vets Memorial.  As I was looking at this award this morning, it dawned on me that the award (symbolically) is supposed to be a pot being fired inside a kiln.  They apparently forgot to put glaze on the flames surrounding the pot.  If irony couldn't be more ironic, I remembered that one of the boys (in the photo Nesley's smug mug) who destroyed my kiln was also in that same show, that same year.  Of course he didn't have to worry about how or if his piece was ever fired or not, he just painted the piece, and turned it in.  Somebody else had to fire it for him, and he never had to give it any thought.  No wonder he thinks he is special and thinks he is magic!  I, on the other hand made my piece at Denison University, and had to bisque fire it and hope that it made it through that process without some other art student accidentally bumping it, or destroying it.  I was so looking forward to being able to control the outcome of my projects by having my own kiln.  I hope the Universe will punish everyone involved in the destruction of my kiln.  I imagine each of the boys in that photo trying to eat a bowl of cereal, only to have the bowl shatter in their hands, or the bong in their lips melting before they can inhale...anything ceramic in the future that requires a kiln, may they learn just exactly what it is that they helped destroy, by any means necessary...So Mote It Be!  Aren't you glad I am not in charge of punishments?