Are you ready for Mug Season?

The month of April may be Mud Season in the rest of Maine, but in Kennebec County, it's MUG SEASON!! The artists of CMCA join up with local coffee shops in this annual fundraiser to support local arts programming. Last year we were able to offer more than $500 in support of arts education in Central Maine. Buy a handmade mug for only $20, and get a your cup of coffee free at these participating coffee shops.
If the Maine Pottery Tour were a movie, Mug Season would be the trailer.

The Central Maine Clay Artists - the potters' guild who organizes this event - got together last night to tag & sort the mugs. As usual when potters get together it was laughter & work in an equal balance. 

I love how, in every picture I have of Robbi, she's laughing.
Visit her at Maple Lane Pottery during the pottery tour & see for yourself!

So, what's in Mug Season for you? Well, free coffee for one thing, and a chance to pick up a mug from one of your faves for only $20. 

Maine Pottery Tour!

March is when my work organizing the Maine Pottery Tour really ramps up. Some of it is tedious - writing press releases, sending emails nagging potters for money or photos - but some is really fun! For example, I love making the postcards each year.

Just finished the image for 2019! Now I need to write the blurb for the back (probably just a minor re-work of what I wrote last year), figure out how many we need, and place the order. All that takes longer than it should (doesn't everything?) but I expect cards to be in mailboxes by mid-April. Or maybe there's a marketing person out there who cold tell me: is it better to wait? If they arrive too early, people will forget. If they arrive too late, people won't have time to plan. So: what's the optimum time for an announcement of an event to arrive via snail mail? A week before? Two weeks before?
In addition to the postcards, press releases, and our usual social media blitz, this year we have a sponsorship campaign on Maine Public Radio. Beginning in mid-April, we will have 18 spots on various Maine Public & Maine Public Classical programs. My thinking is, we need to reach people who are not already connected with one of the studios on the tour.

If you'd like to be on the mailing list - snail- or e-  - shoot me an email at info@finemesspottery.com

Mugs and Minis to the Rescue

I got chatting with a far-off potter online yesterday, while I was waiting for my kiln to cool. Foolishly, I said it had been years since I needed a trash can nearby while I unloaded. I forgot about the demons! The five demons devoted to the tormenting of potters. One of them must have heard me, because this was a moderately crappy firing, and some pots were fit for nothing but the bin.

There's no saving these losers. 

Eh. It happens. But the kiln gods also giveth, even as they taketh away: the items I really needed - mugs for the upcoming Mug Season event - those were fine. More than fine, those were beautiful!

For now these are only available at Mug Season coffee shops. :)

Here are a few of them . Another blessing? I had enough good mini vases alone to pay for the propane. A third: most of the unhappy pots can be refired. It was a pretty windy day, the day I fired the kiln, and I think the wind sucked the soda vapor out of the kiln too quickly for it to really circulate around well. As a result, some of the pots had one juicy side, and one quite dry.

I spent the afternoon photographing the pots that were not immediately needed elsewhere, and posting them to the shop. Got a couple new bargain  demo pots, too. Check it out here! Remember to scroll down for the 2nds & Demos section.

Waiting Almost Patiently

Tomorrow is unloading day, always my favorite day! The kiln is probably cool enough to unload now, but I don't want to rush it - I've got classes to teach in Portland this afternoon - and the upper shelves may still be a bit too hot. I couldn't refrain, however, from reaching my arm thru the spy & pulling out this mini vase! I'm even more eager to see the rests of the load now.

FINALLY: Mug Rounders 4U!

Remember, like, a year ago (no, it was more than that...) when I told you I'd made myself a new tool? The Mug Rounder works like this:

This looks like a job for...The MUG ROUNDER!!

Oooo, look it's round again!

Press it in, lightly collar the rim inward towards the rounder, give it a little spank & a twist, and presto! Your inadvertent wonk has been corrected. (Also a good option: Embrace the Wonk!)

If you throw, you could easily make one, of course, but if you don't, or just don't feel like making your own, waiting through a bisque cycle, etc...you could always buy one of mine! I finally got around to listing them in my online shop. To be fair to myself, the main reason I didn't was because I was selling them to friends & students. I've caught up with the lucrative people-I-know market, so now I can offer them to the world at large. 😊

First Firing 2019

I always think I am going to get tons done during a firing. I have all day, and I have to be home for the kiln! In practice I'm lucky if I get a couple of loads of laundry done, and maybe scoop the litterboxes. The flame is so pretty! and I am so tired form the couple of day so intense work that precede the firing.
Here's the back pressure shortly after adding the last soda load for this firing. Just waiting for that last cone to fall now.

Checking in: 19 for '19

Back in January, following a suggestion I heard on a podcast, I made myself a list of 19 things I want to do in 2019. Some are one-time experiences ("NCECA") and others are habits I want to acquire or maintain. Mid-March seems like a good time to check in with myself and see how well I am progressing with these goals. Some, of course, I can't tell how I'm doing; how do I know if I am doing well or poorly on #2, for example. "At least one canoe trip?" It's still winter. Some others, tho, I can judge:

Pedal 100 miles a week - this is probably my most successful resolution, made possible by the Fitdesk, which I am pedaling right now! Usually I do about 120 miles a week, and I really hate to break my streak, so I'll make an extra push if it looks like I am going to fail. 

Finish the kitchen counter - Working on it. 

Learn how to felt soap - Haven't gotten to this yet, but I'm optimistic

Get credit card down to 7K - Making enough progress that it looks like this will happen, barring some disaster. 

One social thing per month - This is actually the hardest one for me! I failed at this in February, unless a funeral counts as a "social thing." I have plans for 2 in March (counting seeing friends at NCECA) to make up it. 
Studio work & firings on schedule - I need to actually write the schedule to know if I am sticking to it! So, yeah, can't count this as a success, not yet. 
Declutter hallway desk - Haven't gone anywhere near it. ☹️

20 hrs per week in the studio - This I have been doing pretty well, although I did amend it to include photographing & delivering work. 

Use Instagram better for business - I've been using it more; i don't know if I've been using it better. 

5 postcards to voters per month - I am 3 for 3 on this! Win!

Almost-daily 2 minutes of yoga - C+...but that reminds me [unfurls mat...]

1 blog post /wk - Pretty close!

Drink more water - I'd say I'm drinking the same amount of water, but spending less on it, as I am now in the habit of keeping a jug in the refrigerator. Half credit? 

Increase online sales - This has been a successful effort! I could still get better, but it helps to list more stuff & share the links to the listed stuff. That should be obvious, I guess, but I tool the resolution to make me do it regularly. 

NCECA - Got everything lined up to go! 

Brush + floss teeth 2ce daily - I'm embarrassed that this even has to be on the list, but I noticed that when I get really busy, sometimes I forget, especially the flossing. Having it on the list has been a huge improvement. I know I should do it 3 times a day, and sometimes I do, but twice seemed like a more manageable goal, again especially the flossing.  

All in all I am pretty pleased with myself. 

Trying Something New: Nichrome Wire

Nichrome is a non-magnetic alloy of nickel and chromium. The wire made from it is commonly used by potters for kiln repair, such as the little pins that hold elements in place in an electric kiln. It may also be the material of the elements themselves...I didn't dive that deep. I have used it to hold kiln wool (ins wool or kao wool) in place by making flat stoneware disks with holes in them, then pushing the wire through both the wool & the button, and twisting it in place. 

Recently I have been playing around with a different use for it - as handles or decorative elements on pottery. Nichrome wire will easily withstand ^10 (okay, maybe not "easily!" It will bend if you make big loops or place weight on it, as with bead stands.) I just push the wire into the clay at early leatherhard, then smooth a little clay over the holes. 

Using needle nose pliers, I bend the wire like this:

The little hook-shapes on the ends insure that the wire will not pop out after the piece is fired.

I can see that there are some trade offs in utility - it would be a bad idea to put this piece in the microwave, for instance - I love the tension of the delicate (and yet sort of industrial!) linear element of the wire versus the mass and solidity of the clay.

I have ideas about this - like, could I make a loop handle on a lid & maybe thread a clay bead on it? Would that stand up? - and will be playing around with it more eventually. I have to put it on hold for a few weeks, though - got a firing this weekend, then next week is all grinding, sorting, pricing, packing, & delivering, then after that NCECA! - but I wanted to record it here so I remember to come back to this idea.

This butter dish is available in the 2nds & Demos section of my online store. 


Did you find this content useful? Buy me a coffee!

Demos & Seconds & One-offs, Oh My!

Every pottery teacher amasses demos. I teach 5 classes, all mixed skill levels, so I make a lot of demo pots. I don't fire all of them, but I do a lot of glazing demos, also, so many of them do eventually emerge a a finished product. It's the nature of teaching that I teach many techniques and forms that are not in my usually body of work, and also, I don't do the types of detail work - sanding the bottoms, for example - that I do on what I think of as my "real" work.

In addition, my firing method - soda-firing - generates a fair amount of seconds. Pasty, not-enough-glaze pots, big blobs of soda in unfortunate places, warps, minor cracks...all of those fall in the category of aesthetic seconds: flaws that don't compromise the function of the piece.

What to do with all these oddballs? In the summer I sell many of them from my front yard "pottery stairs," but in the winter they just pile up. Since one of my 19 for 2019 was to increase online sales, I decided to offer these imperfect-but-fine pieces a place in my online store. Upside: maybe sell some pots! Downside: photographing & listing takes time - way more time than just sticking them on shelves in the yard & letting them sell themselves. It may turn out to be not worth it. Also, the flaws do not decrease the cost of shipping, so they are not as much of a bargain for online shoppers as they are for drive-bys. In spite of these, I decided to give it a try. Here are the pots I've listed so far:

Serving Bowl w Green Dots, $30
(Some of the dots are smudged)

Butter Dish with Dots (& a Blotch) , $32

The flaw is the blotch, obviously! But this one is nevertheless my favorite. 

Green quilted mug, $22
I got distracted while doing this demo for my class, and mis-spaced one of the quilting lines.

See that funky diagonal? That's what I get for trying to do too many things at once. 

We'll see how it goes. Worst case, they don't sell, and will find homes when summer comes.

Wax Erosion

I've been demonstrating this technique in my classes this week: wax erosion. The short of it is, you apply wax in an image or pattern to bone-dry ware, then wipe with a sponge. Wherever the wax is will not erode, wherever the wax is not will. This creates a low-relief surface. You can do several layers - foreground, middle ground, background - for an illusion of depth.

Starts with a porcelain greenware cup

First layer of wax

I want to say a word about wax, here. I've used paraffin in the above picture, but the cup at the top of the post was made using water-based wax. The paraffin is harder and doesn't rub off as easily, but it has drawbacks too (besides fire danger) which we will see in a minute.

After rubbing with wet sponge

I wipe the surface of the pot with a wet sponge. The wax resists the eroding action of the water, while the clay around it gets worn away, leaving a raised pattern. Careful not to use too much water! If your greenware absorbs water too quickly it will crack.

More wax, on top of or around the first wax

More wiping...

Now, waaay over do it & wipe right through the wall of the pot!

You can skip that step if you don't feel like being a giant fuck-up. This, though, was the disadvantage of the paraffin wax; because you can wipe away a lot of clay before it starts to remove the paraffin, wiping all the way through the porcelain is possible. That would be a lot harder to do using water-based wax, because you either have to create a much shallower relief, or stop every minute or so, examine the pot, and re-apply wax where it has begun to erode.
Here are the two side by side! Water-based wax on the left, paraffin wax on the right.

 The wax - either kind - will of course just burn away in the bisque. I'm thinking celadon or clear glaze, or maybe just let the soda vapor do its thing.

Spring 2019, Coming Up Sooner Than You Think!

A few of the Central Maine Clay Artist, the group responsible for Mug Season!

In one of my favorite signs of spring, the Central Maine Clay Artists have begun preparation for Mug Season, during which we partner with local coffee shops to raise money for school arts programs. Customers buy a mug at a crazy-good price ($20 for mugs that usually sell for $36) and get their coffee free. Mug Season runs for the month of April. (That reminds me! Updating that website is on my rather long to-do list for today.)

But before we get to that, I've got NCECA to think about! Super excited to be heading back to my old stomping grounds in Minneapolis (well...close to my grounds. I actually lived in St. Paul.) In addition to seeing the folks I only see at NCECA, I hope to see friends whose smiles I have been missing since September 2000, when I drove that U-Haul outta town, dragging the Dauntless, my old Dodge Caravan, behind it.

And after Mug Season, there's the Maine Pottery Tour!  I'm already working to get that organized. The weekend is May 4th & 5th this year. I organize the tour every year, so lots to do for that! If you are a Maine potter who would like to be a part, give me a shout at info@finemesspottery.com. Do it quick, tho - the deadline is any minute now.

It was a hard winter in many ways; it's not over, not really. But we can see the light at the end of the tunnel. It'll be busy in the studio, for the next few weeks.

Busy is good.

The Wheels Turn Slowly

Not that wheel! I mean, sometimes that one turns slowly, and sometimes quickly. Lately it's been turning very noisily, which I need to address but haven't yet.  No, I mena the gears in my brain. I've been working on a couple of ideas for sideline products - and by "working on," I mean briefly remembering that they exist - for maybe two years now. One of those is handmade address numbers for homes. It's been rattling around in my brain since I made a set for my own house. I made a couple of sets for relatives for Christmas, and they came out well - now it's time to make the prototypes and templates.

I did some quick math, first: if I want the numbers to be 4" high after firing, I have to make them...let's see...4.6. So, 4 5/8, if I don't feel like switching to metric. I would, if I had a need to be precise, but a finished size of 4-ish inches works here. I'm feeling good about all the letters except maybe the 8...the 0 also maybe needs the hole a little bigger. I want them to look like they belong together, a sorta-casual, funky, handmade font...the 8 is a little bit formal, the 0 a little bit cartoonish.

Or perhaps I'm over-thinking again.

Anyway, got these cut out, and the edges compressed...now for the slow work of preventing warping. The easiest way would be to dry between two pieces of drywall, but I only have one. So I put down some newsprint beneath the letters, covered them with plastic, and put a towel over that, and a bat on top of that. That's how I persuaded these soon-to-be Christmas ornaments to stay flat.

Yes, I made Christmas ornaments. In February. As I say, the wheels turn slowly! If I want to have them in December, I have to start now. I don't do much Christmas decorating myself - I'm a "quiet contemplation" kinda lady, myself - but when I saw this cookie cutter, it made immediately imagine the fun of decorating these. I'm not much for sweets (WHO AM I KIDDING?? I am TOO much for sweets, that's the problem) but as a tree ornament? Kinda clever, right?