Lil Suppers are out!!

June rewards are out of the kiln & WOW are they nice ! I have more rewards than I have patrons at the Air ($25) tier, so the first 3 new patrons at that level will get an extra reward. Subscribe at this link to get yours! 

The firing overall was...good. More gray than I prefer, but nice enough, with a handful of amazing. (I feel like I say this every time! I've had maybe two firings from which the bare bmix came out that peachy-rosy-gold that I love so much but I keep trying to replicate it. Probably should start looking for a flashing slip that will give me the results I want. ) Anyway! A good firing is nothing to sneeze at. Here are some of the best pots: 

About 3/4s of the kiln already has a destination (YAY!) but expect a shop update soon. 

I Peeked!

 I have to wait to unload the kiln, because I promised we'd do that Saturday morning during the tour, but I couldn't wait to look! 

Unload The Kiln With Me!

I think we can all agree that the best part of being a potter is unloading the kiln; the reward for all our hard work. This post is to offer you two opportunities to unload with me!

First, paid subscribers to my Patreon page get access to the unloading video! When I can get out of my own way, I like to do that live; yesterday the technology defeated me, and I just took a video & posted it after the fact. Your paid subscription also gets you first choice of items out of the kiln, and discount codes. 

And second, I'm going to unload a glaze firing on day one of the Maine Pottery Tour. The tour is May 3rd & 4th this year. The lead up to the tour is crazy, I always have a lot to do even without throwing a firing into the mix, but I find people really enjoy being a part of the aspect - see also "best part of being a potter." I'll open the kiln at 11 am. 

I hope you can make it on the tour! But if you can't (or even if you can!), there's always Patreon. 

A Whiter Shade of Pale

Well, I unloaded the firing at zero-dark-thirty this morning! Just when you think you know what you're doing, the kiln will surprise you - or at least, me. 

I knew this firing was different than the most recent firings before it. The back-pressure flame was very transparent, even once the sun had set, which usually makes the flame more visible. Even if I pushed the damper all the way in, the flame didn't get any longer, although I did get back pressure out the burner ports, which would indicate a very heavy reduction. So, weird mixed signals all around. The kiln also stalled for nearly two hours with ^11 bending on top & ^10 just barely tipping on bottom. Nothing I did would move those cones! Eventually I had to turn the kiln off, mostly out of concern that a long hold at 10/11 would cause warping. 

Small blessing: that didn't happen. In fact I had only one second in the entire kiln, and that a very minor flaw: one mug got a piece of wadding stuck inside, but it was a very small piece and I can make the resulting flaw almost invisible with my trusty Dremel tool. 

But the pots are very pale, obviously oxidized. I am always hoping for that golden tan that is a common soda-fired surface on b-mix, and which I got quite successfully in the last two firings. I'm not too disappointed - they aren't what I hoped for, but they have a delicate prettiness of their own - but I am a bit worried because I don't know why this firing was different. It may be that in my efforts to tip those cones during the stall I inadvertently slipped the fire into an oxidizing state? I feel like I would have noticed that! But I don't have a better explanation.  

Anyway, that's clay life for ya! I've never been one to hide my errors or pretend to perfection. I think it's important for students & early-career potters to know, they aren't screw-ups! Clay is just like that; there are so many variables that we all get unexpected results sometimes. 

If you want to see the pieces in real life, many will be at the Portland Pottery Holiday Show, December 13th - 24th, from 9 am - 7 pm. Also, you are my invited guests to the opening night party, Thursday December 12th from 5 - 9 pm. I'll be tending bar in my festive finery! 

Notes from the firing

I unloaded the soda kiln this morning. (live on youtube! in a slightly less disastrous event than the first time I tried that. If you watch at the link, skip ahead six minutes. ) Good firing, with maybe six or eight flawed pieces. 

I want to jot down a couple of notes, before I forget:

• The soda glaze is almost perfect, but it was a little light in the bottom front & a little heavy in the bottom back.
• I laid ^11 down up top, halfway on the bottom, as I usually do. This may be been responsible for some warping of two slightly-thin plates. Or maybe just because they were slightly thin. 
• I had some crawling inside two pots where glaze was applied over flashing slip. It was pretty minimal, but might be a good idea to wipe any flashing slip on the inside away. 

The rest of today is grinding, pricing, sorting, and packing; tomorrow I'll photograph the pieces to list on the website. 

Shop Update: Chubby Cats!

Remember that story I told you, about losing the wand in the burner channel during the firing? I was lucky the copper & zinc in the brass didn't do more harm. One thing it did do, though, was interact with the items in the kiln that were wearing Bauer Orange Flashing Slip. The white clay pieces turned blue (luckily just a few seashells intended to be refrigerator magnets) which they brown clay pieces achieved almost a wood-fired look. Several of the pinch-cats fell in this category. (LOL CATegory, get it?)

I've been putting a few of these critters in every firing lately. They amuse me to make, and it is not secret that I am a cat lover. I like thinking up their names & personalities, which are loosely based on the many cats I have known. As usual, most of these sold the day I listed them! I do have two left: Gaia and Woody. 

Today is packing & shipping, putting away the photography equipment (can't wait til I have a dedicated space for this. Such a pain in hte ass to put up & tear down the whole thing), posting the functional ware in the shop, and working on the Maine Pottery Tour! 

A Sigh of Relief

Ooo looks pretty good!

Pretty good indeed!

Even in the back!

A few pieces from the firing

What a relief! After what I started referring to as the Murphy's-Law firing, I was very anxious what the results might be. Well, I can put that to rest - it's all peachy-tan & pearl grey, no disasters of any kind. I did have one plate warp too badly even to be a second, & one lidded jar crack, but every firing yields a few failures. 
Takeaway: those burner/blower/damper setting once again produced results. I'm starting to get this kiln dialed in. 
I'll photograph these properly on Wednesday (assuming my dental appointment isn't too horrible) and list some in the online shop. Of the rest, some will go to Portland Pottery, & some to the Maine Potters Market; but the majority will be held back for the Common Ground Fair. See you there, September 22, 23, & 24. 

I WAS RIGHT!

 The firing was perfect! Nearly. There were 4 pieces that were a little dry & will need to be refired but everything else was peachy-tan, with a little grey shading where the soda landed heaviest...so glad I made notes of all the settings! 

I've been kayaking all afternoon & my arms are like fettuccini, so I won't be putting up my photo set up, and these pots are all on their way to various stores this week. I did take a couple a shots this morning...you'll just have to picture a whole kiln coming out like this: 

Thanks for sharing in my joy, my dear readers who have heard me bitch about so much stuff over the years! It's always nice to have good news to report. 

My favorite day

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I'm always happy on unloading day. Well, almost always. I certainly am today! This kiln load was a little light, because I have an unloading scheduled for May 6, during the Maine Pottery Tour, & I wanted to make sure I have enough pots left for that. 
The soda was a little heavy this time...weird because I always weigh out the soda & measure the water, it ought to be the same every time. Maybe the damper was closed a bit more than usual? I don't know what else would cause a noticeable amount of variation. 

Although I do like variation! I like having some peachy, some grey, some bone, some darker pieces when I set up my display. 

This result was 1300 grams of soda - 600 soda ash, 700 baking soda - in 3 gallons of warm water, sprayed while cones 8, 9, & 10 were falling. I typically lay 11 down. 

These pots will mostly be available during the Maine Pottery Tour. A few will be making hteir way to shop - Bay View Company, Monkitree, and  - new! - the Maine Potters Market. (More on that later! :) )

My kiln is probably cool now so I'm' off to finish unloading. I hope to see you during the Maine Pottery Tour! 

New pots!

 I unloaded a firing last Sunday! Between packing & delivering the pots to their awaiting outlets, & photographing, then processing the images, I am only just getting around to posting about it. Nice problem to have: a week out, & almost all the pots are sold. I held out a few for the online store. 

Lately I have been producing two bodies of work: Dotopia & Sweet Life. (I find it helps, especially for taking wholesale orders, if I name the lines. Yes, the names are a bit corny! That's marketing for ya.) I'm only posting a few Sweet Life pots, because the Dotopia pots are in stores now. Damn, I really need to fire more often, because I need more inventory. 

Anyway, the pots are here. I'll be posting these in my online shop today! 

I'll be posting the links here as soon as I get these listed. Stay tuned! 

Getting Ready!

 

A peek into the spyhole! Unloading Saturday at 11

This might be my busiest day of the year: the day before the Maine Pottery Tour! (& yet here I am blogging, lol.) No matter how prepared I think I am, there is always too much to do on this day. Get change, print flyers, price pots, double check the Square app, set up the road signs. I would normally set up the shelves on Friday but we are meant to get high winds today, so that seems like a Bad Plan. Guess I'll just have to get up way early tomorrow!

Anyway. I was pretty excited to see how nice things look thru the spy, can't wait to unload with visitors tomorrow!! 

Third Firing is in the Books!

 Despite having the mother of all colds (definitely not covid; I have tested 3 times now - 2 at-home & one pcr), I could not wait to unload the third glaze firing of the new soda kiln this morning. Got some amazing color - kind of a bronze-y gold - on the bare bmix body; and the Bauer orange, that reliable standby, got almost uniformly glossy & bright. See for yourself!

There were a couple disappointing factors, tho - some of the pieces were made before I started slow-drying anything with slip decoration, and as a result there was a little bit of popping off. Slow drying seems to have solved this problem, so yay; but of course those individual pieces will have to be seconds. 

And speaking of seconds, some of the Dotopia pieces - the ones with Oribe dots, as opposed to yellow dots - some of those will have to be 2nds also, because a lot of the dots jumped right off the ware & onto the kiln shelves (mostly) or other pots. This is a super annoying new problem, which I suspect is caused by a change I made it response to advice, and upped my bisque temperature from ^08 to ^05. I can't see any advantage to this - just higher fuel costs - & now it has made my glaze behave badly. So, not to put to fine a point on it, fuck that. 

Some dot pots that didn't have that annoying problem

You might think I am unhappy with this firing but - au contraire! - I am quite delighted. I got a lot of good pots, I know (at least I think I know) how to correct the problems, and best of all I feel like I am getting a good handle on how to fire this kiln. I think the level of reduction & amount of soda were just about perfect. 

I am always happy when I am learning new things. 

Some of these pots are off to Mainely Gallery in Belfast; a few - mostly mugs - are headed for Bay View Company; and the rest will be available for sale here at my studio during the Maine Pottery Tour. 

Lessons from the Firing!

1.  I definitely didn't have to worry about not enough soda! It was plenty and more. There is a lot of pearl gray in this kiln. Don't get me wrong, I like pearl gray! But I was hoping for more variation. 
2. On the plus side, every pot save one is saleable! I wanted more variation in the load but each individual pot is quite nice. When has that ever happened? Only a few even need to be ground. 
3. When I turned the kiln off, ^11 was soft. When I opened the door ^11 was flat. This kiln is so tight it sorta kept on firing after I turned the burners off. Good to know! 
4. During the firing, I noted that the back pressure looks different than I am accustomed to, due to the power blowers. It was more turbulent & also a different color. This made it hard to determine how deep the reduction was. Again, I needn't have worried! There was plenty of reduction. Could do with a little less, even. 
5. The top back got the lightest soda & the lightest reduction. In future - since I will be decreasing both - I should remember to put glazed pots there, or pots that will do well with paler colors. 

   

   Some peachy pots up under the arch. 

6. I can't wait to fire again! I have about...idk, maybe 30% of a load ready to go. 
7. Despite heavy soda on the pots, the shelves are only very lightly affected. I will grind them, just as a best-practice, but they don't really need it. The post-firing of this kiln is going ot be a lot less work than the old one! 
   
   

The Law Of Old Kilns

 

Are you familiar with the Law of Bad Hair? That refers to that phenomenon that happens when, after weeks of hating your hairstyle & wanting a change, the day of your appointment finally comes...and on that day, you wake up & you hair looks perfect, exactly as you hoped it would when you chose that style in the first place. 

Call it the law of old kilns: my last few firings - all of the ones I have done since scheduling the rebuild - have been amazing. This one is no exception. I used about 6 lbs of soda (1/2 ash, 1/2 bicarbonate) in a 20(ish) cf kiln. 

The very first piece I unloaded sold as soon as I posted it. It's unlike my other work - mostly I was determining how the underglaze decals from San Bao would perform in soda. Answer: like a champion! I don't expect to use decals in most of my work, but they are a fun change. This one was applied at leatherhard. There's no glaze on the exterior, so all the color you see is just the Bmix clay interacting with the soda vapor. 

Also in that kiln, work for the upcoming group show at Monkitree, Exploring Maine: A Maker's Journey. Here are the pieces (probably!) for that show. 

Just about everything in this kiln was spoken for, headed to a store or gallery, right down to the gap-fillers: these minis are on their way to Maine Local Market, a new store in Hallowell. 

Additionally I have pots for the Portland Pottery Café, pots for Bayview Company, pots for Mainely Pottery. 

One of the reasons I need a new kiln - aside from the ever-flattening arch - is exactly that: when I unload a firing, a few days later all the pots are gone! Not what you would call a problem, exactly, or, at least, a nice problem to have; but it meant I can't take on any more shops, and I can't build up inventory for shows. My kiln capacity is the bottleneck to how much work I can make. 

It remains to be seen if I can budget the time to fill the new kiln in a timely manner; I mean, I will, because I'll have to, but whether I can do it & still keep all of my classes is the question. 

Anyway! Usually when I unload I have a few pieces to list in the online shop, which I offer here, but this time I don't think I will, once I sort out which pieces are going to what shops. Sorry! 😞 If you'd like to order a mug out of the first firing of the new kiln, you can do that at this link. 

The Skill of Letting Go

I put off unloading, because Friday & Saturday were so bitterly cold, and because no one is waiting for these pots. Today warmed up to a near-balmy 23°, sunny and perfect for unloading. Right off the bat, I suffered the traditional unloading nick, which bled like a mad bastard until I finally gave in, went inside & got a bandaid. 

As inevitable as the nick is the loss of a few pieces. Some firing processes demand more sacrifices to the kiln gods than others; these pots got some bits of wadding crumbled into them from between the bricks of the door. (Not sure why there was more crumbling than usual. I'll have to think about that.)

In the past I might have argued with myself that I could dremel out the bits, apply more glaze, and refire; or that I should save them for a magical someday when I will have time to make a mosaic with my broken pieces; or that I should place them between plants in the perennial garden. Now I'm just like, Nah, toss 'em. The sooner they are out of my sight the sooner they don't matter. If I saved all the pots that didn't work out I'd be surrounded by now, obstructed in every direction by buckets & boxes of unusable pots. Letting go is a valuable skill, for a potter. It's one I teach my students, when their handle separate or their rims crack: let it go. Take the lesson & let the piece go. Make another one. I try to live my own advice. 

Otherwise the firing was pretty good. The very bottom layer was a little pale - I stacked differently, and it affected the way the soda vapor moved around the kiln. (I don't have to let go of those, because they don't require any additional work from me - just load em in the next kiln as if it were the first time.) Mostly mugs & pasta bowls, a few dip dishes & berry colanders. Bread & butter ware, so to speak, although no actual butter dishes. 

Speaking of actual butter dishes, I have some in progress that need assembling, so that's where I'm headed now. 

My Fave from the Firing

 Pretty much a drive-by post, but I wanted to share this: 

It's porcelain with slip trailing. It got only the barest blush of soda, and I just love the delicacy of the color. Being porcelain it has a bit of sheen even without glaze or soda glass. 

How's your October? I've got a new Mug!

I've had sort of a bumpy fall, for no good reason - just have been in a holding pattern for a few weeks now, able to make myself do the tasks necessary to keep the lights on & the pets fed but not much more than that. You may have noticed the dearth of posts! Recently I've been overwhelmed trying to do even stuff like respond to emails or [shudder] phone calls. Could be upset over events in the national arena, could be the leading edge of a depressive episode - I'm not sure. Depression is something I struggle with periodically, as regular readers know.

I received a little boost on Tuesday, though, when I unloaded a really great firing! While soda usually generates more seconds than your standard stoneware firing, only two out of maybe 60 pots were unacceptable from this firing. I was pleased by the even-but-not-too-even soda distribution - just uneven enough to create a handsome directional effect, just a little silver kiss, on most of the ware.

We (that's the royal "we!") have a little tradition here at Fine Mess Pottery: we (snicker! 😉) choose one mug from the lot, and use it for a few weeks, until the next firing, after which we wash it well & stick a price tag on it! I find it helps me identify the functional strengths & weaknesses on my work...and it's fun. If you ever start making pots that you are not drawn to use, change it up. You aren't making good pots.

Sometimes it only takes a little boost to break a down spiral. Here's hoping! I am pedaling my FitDesk right now (exercise has been shown to be helpful in staving off depression!), using my temporary new mug, and planning my day.

Hope your October is going well.

Murphy's Law is Not So Bad!

If I didn't clarify before, my last firing was only a Murphy's Law firing if Murphy's Law was about screw-ups. Everything that went wrong in this firing was something I did wrong or failed to do! It's something of a pattern: I have a few super-smooth firings in a row, then I get over-confident - or maybe lazy is the word I want here - and make things harder for myself. For example:

• The cone pack exploded because 

1. I made the packs just a few hours before lighting the burners
2. I didn't poke vents in the clay of the pack with a needle tool, to allow the water vapor to escape more easily; and
3. I turned up the burners too quickly

• The burner fluffed out repeatedly because the thermocouple was failing. That's nobody's fault - thermocouples don't last forever - but usually I have extras around. 
• I forgot to buy wood shavings and soda ash ahead of time
• And, as I was reminded when I unloaded, I forgot to do my basic kiln hygiene and knock the stalactites off the underside of the arch! These turn into ugly, lumpy grey-green drips in the firing, and I lost some pots on the top shelf to them. 

All in all, though, I have to say I was incredibly lucky. The soda glass is evenly distributed, the colors are rich and clear, even the exploded cone pack didn't damage anything! Most importantly, the steins that I need for Watershed's Salad Days event came through beautifully. (Enough of them, anyway! One was lost in the bisque to a separating handle, and two got the aforementioned ugly soda drips on them. that still leaves more than I need!)

It's 87° today, so I am going to take a bit of a break from the heat. I still need to grind a few bottoms, then sort, price, and pack the pots for Belfast Arts in the Park.

Some of these pots should be available online after the 13th. 

I'm gonna make some notes here about the firing schedule that worked out so well so I can refer to it for future firings:

• Lit one burner on 1# pressure at 9 pm
• Lit all burners on 1# pressure at 10 pm (TOO FAST - Cone pack exploded)
• Tapped burners up just a bit at midnight
• Went to bed!
• 4 am - red heat, turned up burners
• ^012 falling at 7 am, turned up burners & pushed in damper
• G-D f*ckin burner went out about 4 times between ^012 & ^3
• ^6 falling at noonish - started adding soda mix
• Kiln stalled for over two hours at ^6. Stopped adding soda & put kiln in lightest possible reduction
• ^8 falling, resumed soda. Finished soda maybe an hour before the kiln went off
• Had only one cone pack, in the typical hot spot, so I laid ^11 down to make sure the cool spot got to ^10

Good Pots Good Day

Too tired to say much more, but here are some photos from Day 1 of the Maine Pottery Tour.
We had a nice crowd for the unloading - that was fun! Especially because the firing was good. It would have been...well, less fun if I were unloading crap pots.
One of my visitors was a photographer, & she volunteered to take my cell & snap some shots. Good lesson here, for me: always wear a hat, if I think there's a chance someone might take my picture! I always hate my hair, in photos.

A reporter and photogra[her from the Kennebec Journal also came by. They spent a couple hours talking to me & visitors, and I'm told we'll be in the paper tomorrow! Pretty excited about that.
Excited, but, as I said, super tired! Gonna go take a bath, then maybe watch a show or otherwise shut my weary brain off.
If you're anywhere near me, come visit tomorrow! The Pottery Tour continues, 11-4.