Busy Work for a Snowy Night

So much of what we do as potters isn't making pots. Packing, shipping, contacting sales outlets, travelling. Tonight I was enjoying a cup of hot chocolate while pricing work for the Portland Pottery Show, opening on Thursday. Most of these are from my most recent firing. The firing was perfectly fine but glazes have lost my heart a bit since I started soda firing, I must admit. Still, good reds and celadons, I really can't complain.

Just for fun, here's a shot of the Emily Loelhe mug, slipcast earthenware, from which I was enjoying my hot chocolate. It's less blurry in real life. 

Change of Plans

Because of firing times and conflicts, we're firing stoneware rather than soda this weekend, so I get to use my Shinos. Above is the low cone pack: 012, 05, 3 & 6. The birthday candle is so I can see the pack thru the spy while I am loading, and the kiln is still (obviously) cold and dark. I'm all done glazing, I just have to spray-starch everything for transport, then wrap it up and drive it to the kiln. 

Glaze Craze

It’s Glaze week! Portland Pottery students are glazing all the work from this session in preparation for the Holiday Show and Sale, and then the year-end break. Adam, Kelly, Wil, and Karen are working like Santa’s Elves to squeeze through two glaze firings before the show opens on December 11th. Here’s Adam, loading. 
I look forward to the holiday break every year, although I miss my students, especially long-timers like Holly and my book-buddy Gail. Every year I swear I will devote the extra time to the studio…with mixed success. 
It’s glaze week here at Fine Mess Pottery, too, as Doug and I prepare to fire the soda kiln on Friday. Our work styles are so different: I plod along steadily, spending a couple hours in the studio everyday, until I have enough for a load. Doug starts working the week before the firing, and makes dozens of slab-built pots in several six or eight hour stretches. Lately he’s been working on square drinking tumblers, a simple, functional shape dressed up with a decorative medallion on the front. 
We’ll have the pots from this weekend’s firing at the PP show.

Idea!

Here's how I keep track of my rings while I am working in clay. I used to put them in my pocket, but I was always worried that they would fall out while I was at the wheel, so I'd have to keep checking. This way I can feel the weight reassuring me that, indeed, the rings are still there. Not only that, but I am still wearing them!

Meltdown!

I am wracking my brains to figure out how this could have happened. Obviously, this former bowl (and two others in the same firing) was made out of a lower temperature clay than the Cone 10 stoneware that this soda firing called for -- but how? I know all were made from recycled clay; I know I used a low-fire body in my studio briefly, about a year ago, and hubby has been experimenting with a local earthenware clay. But we were very careful to keep the earthenware separate (at least, we thought we were), and it's very visibly obvious in the green state that it is not stoneware. So...I don't know. Obviously we screwed up.
The good news is that none of the pieces which I really needed from the firing were damaged, and we were able to save the shelves.
More careful in future!

Passing it On

My niece and nephew are up for a visit! As it happens I am loading and firing this weekend as well, so I exploited their curiosity and put them to work. Here's Danny, 15,  helping out with glazing, while Hallie, 13,  rolls the wadding into balls prior to loading. (So much better to have the wadding pre-rolled...avoids getting smears and scars on pots) Hallie also helped me load the kiln, in the drizzle and dark -- a real trooper that kid is. 
The other obsession I passed on? Star Trek, TNG! They've never seen any of the Star Trek series. It's so much fun to have someone who really wants to know all the details of the Star Trek universe.

Throwing List

• 25 Cat Urns
• Wedding Platter (yes, again)
• Small S&P shalers

edit 11/10: I didn't get any of the items on my list thrown over the weekend.

Apple Crisp for a Cold November Day

I like to tell my students that functional pottery is artwork which is not finished until it is in use. With that in mind, I thought I'd share an image of one of my baking dishes in use, and a recipe.
In Maine in the fall, apples are plentiful and unbelievably good -- fresh and tart. I got a big bag from the Apple Man -- just this old fellow who walks around town selling apples.

My First Ever Apple Crisp

• 4 cups chopped MacIntosh Apples (about 5)
• 2/3 c. brown sugar (pack)
• 1/2 c. flour
• 1/2 c. rolled oats
• 3/4 tsp. cinnamon
• 1/3 cup chopped walnuts
• 1/3 c. softened butter

Place apples in baking dish. In mixing bowl, blend other ingredients until crumbly. Spread over apples. Starting in cold oven, bake 40-45 minutes. Serve immediately. 

I have a confession to make: I am planning to have some of this for breakfast tomorrow. Come on, all those oats and apples, it has to be healthy. 

Slip Trailing

Decorating with thick slip is one of the most relaxing things I do in the studio. Making all those tiny dots or squiggles can be quite hypnotic. I use a white and a brown trailing slip, one each made from the clay bodies that I use in the studio, which are Miller Clay's B-mix 10, and their #700. I used to mix clay from my own recipe; I stopped, but that is a whole 'nother post. Today I mixed up brown trailing slip.

Every studio should have a blender. I got mine at the Salvation Army for $4, (after hubby fried my old one, also a thrift store find.) I also use a palette knife, just in case I have to stick something in the blender to work the clay mass loose. Even if the appliance is unplugged, those blades are sharp!  I fill the blender about halfway up with slurry from my recycle bucket, then hit "liquefy" on the settings. I'll have to add water a couple of times, trying to get to a cake-batter consistency.After pouring it into a plastic tub, I thump the container on the tabletop maybe about twenty times, to get the air bubbles to rise up and pop. This is an important step; if you skip it you will be slipping along, making tiny little dots, when your bottle will suddenly make a flatulent noise and spit out a messy splatter of slip, and you'll have to sponge it all off and start over again.
My brown slip trailing bottle has two tips. (I use seperate bottles for the white slip.) The broad tip is great for fluid lines; the pointy tip makes dots.
And here's another 'tip' for you: you can star making those fluid lines off the side when you are decorating a platter, so that the "starting blob" is left on the tabletop not on the platter. 
I get inspired to do slip work looking at Steven Hill's platters, like this one.

Choose a Mug

A customer from New York recently requested a replacement mug for one she bought in Brunswick, Maine, and later broke. I usually don't do custom work -- had too many bad experiences -- but since I am going to make mugs like the ones she wanted anyway, I made an exception. Here are the mugs to choose from:



Let's call the mugs A, B, C, and D, from the top.
I apologize for the blurry shots -- my photographer husband would be mortified. But they get the idea across. I should note for my customer that although all four of my fingers fit into the handles of all four mugs, as she prefers, Mug B has the smallest handle. If she has large hands, B might not be the best choice. Other readers can vote on their preference in the poll to the right.

Gala Opening!

Friday November 14th, 5- 7 pm

Over 225 Maine artists' work

Music and Refreshments

24 Service Center Drive, West Gardiner, Maine

This Weekend in the Studio

To Do List:

• Pack & ship pots
• Throw replacement wedding platter
• Put handles on mugs 
• Load bisque
• Photograph mugs for J. Reed
• Pick up pots at KRA
• Bring pots to Wyler

I got off to a slow start this morning, as I woke up to a freezing cold house. Some crucial part of the furnace had given up the ghost overnight. It was far too cold to work in the studio, so I huddled in our office with the only space heater, writing an entry in my other blog.  When that was done, I vacuumed, made beds, and generally picked up the house, keeping moving to stay warm. I couldn't leave, because I was waiting for the furnace guy to come and charge me $250. 

Even without a heating crisis, I have a bad habit of putting household tasks before my studio work. I'm not Felix Unger, but I feel guilty if I am potting away when the carpets need vacuumed or there are dishes in the sink. My hubby has no such compunctions, so why do I?