MY Ongoing Burner Adventure

Some potters are equipment enthusiasts. Like George Costanza, who always wanted to be a Civil War buff, I always wanted to be a burner nerd. But UGH. In reality, I want a burner that will just quietly keep doing its thing without any attention from me. Note to readers, if you want this kind of burner, use Venturis! These power burners are for the birds. Can't complain about the results, and they are for sure more efficient, but something goes wrong with these friggin' things a couple times a year, which is way more than I want to think about burners. I'm trying to look on the bright side - "I'm learning so much!" - but learning about stuff that bores you is just a slog. 

But slog I must. 

When I went to light the burner for Sunday's bisque, the baso valve failed. This seemd very odd to me because in my experience, basos can go for decades. This one is barely four years old. With the help of my friend Dennis Chouinard, who takes apart burners for fun, we opened up the valve & discovered one of the wires was interfering with the action if the spring inside - pretty simple fix with a pair of needle nose pliers. It also explained why the button on that valve had always been slow to pop up. Did that fix work? WELL I DON'T KNOW, DO I?? Because in all the transport & handling, we somehow effed up the function of the solenoid valve. If the baso valve is a dandelion, the solenoid is an orchid or a hybrid tea rose - look at it wrong & it gives up the ghost. I know potters who modify their burners not to need a solenoid for this exact reason. I'm not going to do that, because it's a safety feature - its job is to sense if the power goes out, because if the blowers aren't working, the propane could ignite in the plumbing, potentially causing an explosion. If you are the sort of person who hangs out right beside the kiln for the entire firing, this is probably a reasonable thing to do! I am not: I candle overnight, when I'm obviously asleep, and sometimes I take a nap during the long climbing period between ^05 & ^6. So, while I fucking hate the solenoid (pretty sure that feeling is mutual), I wouldn't fire without it. 

Solenoids vs basos

Luckily I have a spare solenoid handy. Repairs are less intimidating to me once the money is already spent! My plan today is to separate the electronic part of the solenoid from the mechanical part, see if I can observe any obvious problems (lol but you never know! See baso valve, above.) If I can see & fix what's wrong, awesome! If I can't, I will replace the old electronic part with the new one. If that doesn't fix it, well, that's why I've got Dennis on speed dial. 

It's been kind of a trying couple of weeks. No pressure but if you want to make me smile (for free!) you could subscribe to my patreon page. (Seriously, though, no pressure. I post a lot there so if getting notices in your email is going to annoy you, maybe you shouldn't. Yes I suck at sales.)

ETA: Astonishingly, there actually WAS a visible cause! The timing of the failure was more or less coincidental, because when I opened it up & found a very corroded surface. I made some effort to scrub it & then thought, why? I have a brand-new one right here. I replaced the valve (well, only the electrical parts - the mechanical parts were still good), tested out the burner, and lo & behold: FIRE 

I'm not on to fire the kiln tomorrow, because I still have a lot of glazing to do. My schedule is a little more complicated than it used to be, because now in addition to teaching I spend most Tuesdays with my mom, who's 91 & needs a little more help than she used to - so I'll probably fire on a weird schedule like, a 4 hour candle Weds night into Thurs, burners on at, like midnight? and firing off around 3 pm, plenty of time to get to my Thursday night class. That means unloading a week from today! 

Pre-Columbian Peruvian Penguin Pot

Due to its durability, ceramic pieces can sometimes survive for centuries or even millenia. They can give us a peek into the lives of people who lived in those times. Sometimes these peeks show us that ancient people were a lot like us! For instance, who doesn't love penguins? The Nazca people of ancient Peru did, it seems.

"A remarkable artifact has surfaced in the world of archaeology: a 1,600-year-old ceramic vessel in the shape of a Humboldt penguin. This unique piece of Nazca culture, which once thrived on the southwestern coast of Peru, provides an extraordinary glimpse into how ancient civilizations engaged with and represented the natural world. The vessel, now housed in the Art Institute of Chicago, was crafted by the Nazca people between A.D. 350 and 500. Known for their intricate pottery and vast geoglyphs, the Nazca people left behind a rich record of their environment and mythology. However, the depiction of a penguin—a species not typically associated with tropical Peru—raises intriguing questions about their knowledge of far-flung wildlife and their artistic innovation."

In other news, I'm still dealing with my burner troubles! I've got an extra class to teach today, so won't get to it today - hopefully tomorrow morning, so there's still a slim hope that I can fire on Sunday.

Just Like the One-Winged Dove

Just like the white winged dove
Sings a song, sounds like she's singin'
"Ooh, baby, ooh, said, ooh"

And the days go by like a strand in the wind
In the web that is my own, I begin again

That song - The Edge of Seventeen - came out in 1981, when I was on the edge of seventeen myself. For years - like, until last year - I thought the lyric went, "Just like the one-winged dove...." I imagined the one-winged dove struggling mightily to do what seemed easy for everyone else, and felt seen. I was wrong, of course, but that's the lyric I still hear. I sang it today, while firing my bisque.

Wait, what? What, you may ask, does all this have to do with firing?...[read more]

Class Demo: 2-quart casserole

A student took this video of my 2-quart casserole class demo. The second half, the lid, will be available on Patreon. 

After firing, this piece will hold about 2 quarts. 

Creating the Nautilus Pattern with Slip

After drying & firing, there will still be a raised texture, but the ridges will be much lower than they appear here. Still, this technique is best on a serving platter rather than, say, a dinner plate. 

 

Finishing A Lil Sipper

 

Finishing Day

 

Yesterday was finishing day in the studio: trimming & slip trialing bowls. 

New Photo Dump

 Here are the clay specific photos. To see the life-in-general photos, pop over to Patreon! There's a short raku video, too. 

Sweet Shards

Pottery is my job and my joy, but even an artist needs a hobby. Longtime readers know that mine - one of mine - is royal icing cookies. I'm also interested in news about ancient pottery finds, so I have a google alert set for that topic. Imagine my delight when a story arrived in my inbox that combines my interests! 

Dr. Ella Hawkins Reimagines Ancient Artifacts and Prized Objects as Edible Replicas

Academic research is notoriously niche and often opaque, but Dr. Ella Hawkins has found a crowd-pleasing way to share her studies. The Birmingham-based artist and design historian translates her interests in Shakespeare performance, costume, and matieral culture into edible replicas.

Hawkins bakes batches of cookies that she tops with royal icing. Decorating takes a scholarly turn, as she uses tiny paintbrushes and a mini projector to help trace imagery of William Morris’ ornate floral motifs or coastal scenes from English delftware. Rendering a design on a single cookie can take anywhere between two and four hours, depending on the complexity. Unsurprisingly, minuscule calligraphy and portraits are most demanding. [more...]

I've done some intricate and time-consuming designs, but four hours per cookies is well outside my tolerance! I admire Dr. Hawkins her patience and dedication. Hashtag goals! 

 https://www.thisiscolossal.com/2025/05/dr-ella-hawkins/ 

Finishing the Berry Bowls

...to be continued

When I tell people I'm a potter, they usually think of the wheel (more specifically, they usually think of that scene from Ghost!) In fact, throwing on the wheel is only about 10-15% of what I do. Even for each individual piece, the throwing part is less than half of the making. For these berry bowls, throwing takes about 6 minutes each; finishing is more like 20 minutes. You can see the whole process in the video at this link. 

Guess what? I'm on the Internet!

Finally got my website rebuilt! It looks the same as it did before, with a small change: on the home page below all the important links like those to the online shop, this blog, my patreon, and so on, I have a slot for Photo of the Week. It'll just be a snapshot of something interesting I did or saw that week.

I have a reason for this! I've known all along that more frequently updated sites get higher google rankings, and if you go a month without updating your homepage, Google assumes your site is abandoned. This seems a little dramatic to me but who can argue with an algorithm? So I put that in to give me a reason to update frequently. This week's Photo of the Week is a shot of the hummingbird cookies I made for my mom for Mother's Day. 

I can't remember if it was on my list of resolutions for 2025, but it is now: be more diligent about updating the site. 

Pop by the site & give my stat counter a little thrill! Also to make sure the security warning is truly gone, & not just gone for me. 

Underglaze Watercolor Results

A few weeks ago, I bought myself an underglaze watercolor kit. There were several palettes to choose from; I selected the one with colors I thought most likely to survive ^10 reduction. 
I applied the underglaze color on top of two different white glazes. Here's what they looked like when they went in the kiln. 

Click here to see the fired result!