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Brooke Simmons

@vrooje.net

2.6K followers 1.1K following 725 posts

Professor of Astrophysics: Galaxies, Black Holes, the Changing Sky. Also Zooniverse humanitarian and disaster relief lead. People first, then science. She/her

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Brooke Simmons @vrooje.net · 23/05/2026

Dear Avi,

Star Trek TNG intro screen, the one with the Enterprise D flying alongside a comet.

The title of the episode is “It’s Not Aliens”.

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Brooke Simmons @vrooje.net · 09/05/2025

I had some pretty good results from the kiln!

A ceramic mug glazed in a natural, runny style, similar to the mug in the other image, but not exactly the same. The main part of the exterior is a mix of purples and blues, with a bit of white-ish highlights. The inside and lip are glazed in solid emerald green, and the green extends a centimetre or so down the outside. There is a similar band of pure green at the very bottom, which is interrupted as the purplish glaze got a little runny. The shape of the mug is slightly conical and with a gentle curve, and is wider at the opening than at the bottom. The handle extends to the right in a half-heart shape. The mug is sitting on a clean pottery wheel, and there is other pottery studio stuff in the slightly blurry background.

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Brooke Simmons @vrooje.net · 04/07/2024

These just came out of the kiln and I’m trying to decide if I want to keep iterating on this glaze style.

A close-up of two ceramic mugs, taken as they sit on a table in a pottery studio - you can see a kiln in the background and various bits of ceramics kit off to the side. The mugs are made in a clay colour called “buff”, which is an off-white. They are glazed in a mottled mix of dark and light blue and a kelp-like dark green. The interior of the mugs (which are just visible given the angle) is fully glazed, and the glaze on the exterior seems to spill out of the top and get drippy. The bottom half or so of each mug exterior is bare clay. One of the mugs (the left mug, which flares out very gently as it opens at the top) has drips carrying almost to the bottom of the mug. The other (at right, which tapers very gently so that the top is very slightly narrower than the bottom) doesn’t have individual drips, but rather the glaze line about three-fifths of the way up is wavy like a shoreline. The maker prefers the mug on the right.

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Brooke Simmons @vrooje.net · 05/11/2023

This wee fellow is the first piece of pottery I’ve made in 5 years, and I’m pretty pleased. (I mostly use the wheel, but this was hand built.)

A zoom-in on a fireplace mantel showing some chonky pillar candles surrounding a slightly smaller ceramic pumpkin. The pumpkin is a light, mottled orange, with darker shading in the creases. A Jack-o-lantern face reveals a lit tealight candle inside, with the flame visible through the right eye. A ridge is visible at the top of the pumpkin, showing where the main body stops and the lid begins. The handle of the lid is a thick, dark-coloured stem with twisting ridges.

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Brooke Simmons @vrooje.net · 25/08/2023

My favorite mug, because the kiln went partially into reduction (not intentional) and half this glaze was affected, which brought out that reddish hue on this side. A happy accident.

A hand holding a mug from the bottom. The mug walls are straight-ish, but there is a slight curve outward from the bottom, a smidge inward through the middle, and then outward just a tad at the lip. The handle curves to the right in a half-heart shape. The glaze is an organic mix of blue, green, and purple. In particular there’s a dark blue bottom layer you can barely see because the top multi-colored, mottled layer drips down to the base. Toward the top right the greens and blues turn a little reddish-purple with more tan specking and it looks almost (but not quite) a little metallic.

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