The Week of Tools

 

I didn't mean for this to be the week of tools; it just shook out that way.

It started in one of my classes, when a student brought in a piece that had run badly in the kiln, with the bottom ground & smoothed beautifully. She had achieved this minor miracle using Diamondcore's grinding bats. I started musing about possibly getting a set myself - although, the way I fire, glaze runs and sharp bottoms are uncommon - when another student took me aside & offered to pay for half of the set if I would grind a bunch of bowls of hers that ran, that she was especially disappointed with. I took the deal & BOOM! there's tool number one.

Except.
Using those grinding bats is LOUD. And slow. And about a thousand times harder than just using a bench grinder, which I own.  I still think of it as my Dad's bench grinder...READ MORE

More fun with slip!

 

I've been doing demos for my class of a fun & spontaneous way to work with trailing slip, by applying it directly by hand. The vase above was decorated using a hand-application method. I've been having so much fun with it that I decided to created a limited line: mugs, bowls, plates, tumblers...maybe a sugar jar & butter dish. I want to keep it limited, because it sometimes happens that I get fascinated with a technique for a few months and then suddenly, abruptly lose interest in it - so I don't want to offer this to my accounts only to discover in idk March that I'm painfully bored of it! 

I've started working on how the mugs & plates will look, and I need to think about an interior glaze...maybe a periwinkle color I've gotten in the past by adding Mason stain to my basic white.

 I posted a video for paid subscribers at my Patreon page on the slip application technique. 

In other news, the firing I unloaded last Tuesday was very good! The draw rings have really evened out my game; no more over-glazed, pitted work & no more dry, gritty pots. Most of those will go to stores - I just packed up inventory for the Maine Potters Market & the gallery at Portland Pottery - but I expect to have an update to the online store this weekend.

We've been having a stretch of amazing weather this autumn here in Maine, so I'll probably take Wednesday to enjoy it with Doug. Photography Thursday, shop update maybe Friday. 

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. 

By the Hum of the Burners

I loaded the glaze kiln last night, placing the last cone pack around 9 pm. The firing is humming along; the kiln was in reduction by 9 am. 

I always think I am going to get so much done during the firing! Today my list looks like this:

• Taxes! I got an extension to file my taxes, because April 15th landed right in the middle of the most intense part of planning the pottery tour. I had all summer to do em but, well, you know...
• Clean studio & set up for making. Yeah, this one is not going to happen.
• Harvest herb garden & start processing. Probably not this one, either.
• Clean turtle tank! My little guy, Red, is inside until spring now. He deserves clean water. I already did this one. 

Looking at that list, I guess I better get going - especially item #1, since today is the last day I will have a chance to do it! Here are a couple more shots from the kiln. Soda spray is maybe 2 hours out.  

 

Blah, Blah, Blah...

 ...Patreon. 
The weekly (free!) photo dump post is up. Thanks for reading! If you feel like subscribing - even for free - that's helpful to me, as Patreon puts pages with more subscribers higher in the Search results. 

Either way, happy Sunday!
OH WAIT I ALMOST FORGOT

The Pottery Stairs are out on Cony St. 

Throwing a Knob on a Leatherhard Lid

Today will be the last day of wetwork for this cycle...I'll try to get a live wheelcam event going on Patreon, unless I can't get out of my own way, which regular readers know is all too likely! In hte meantime, enjoy this video! After trimming my leatherhard jar, I attached a little ball of clay & threw a knob. 

 

Wheel Cam!

 It's a throwing week - my favorite! Although I am kind of like a dog that way, every week is my favorite. Tonight I hosted - if you want to call it that - a live wheel cam event on YouTube, making mugs. It's not live anymore, but you can still watch the video:

If you'd like to get an invite when I'll be live at the wheel, become a paid subscriber on Patreon! (I feel like I should create a macro that just types "Blah, blah, blah, Patreon." Sorry to keep banging on about it! I've got this idea that it could be an income stream, call me crazy. 🤪)

Prevent Warping with this One Weird Trick!

One Weird Trick is a recurring feature at my Patreon page, usually for paid subscribers; this particular trick is so useful I wanted to make sure as many potters as possible saw it. The newspaper traps a pocket of air inside the pot, and also lends stiffness to the rim, allowing you to get it off the wheel without creating a distortion that the clay might later "remember," even if you re-round the rim. 

The video is here in its entirety, but if you liked it or found it helpful, subscribe at Patreon for free, or paid options start at $1.50/month. Thanks for being here! 

 

Fat Bears 2024

 Inspired by the annual Fat Bear contest at Katmai National Park, I made chubby bears with my handbuilding class on Monday. 

These will be soda fired, hopefully a nice dark chocolate brown. Look for them in early October! 

Are We There Yet?

 Not yet!
But almost. 

These are the first 16 of what will eventually be 25 available cat dishes for the sorta-annual Cat Dish Fundraiser! I've missed a couple of years, but we're back. For every 10 of these that I sell, I will sponsor a cat's adoption fee at Kennebec Valley Humane Society. I choose whichever cat has been there the longest.

I have 10-12 more in progress, which will hopefully be fired & ready in about 10 days. I think I'll do this as a drop! Once I get them all fired, I will announce a drop date/time. Like every shop update, it will be available first to paid subscribers to my Patreon page - but (sadly!😂) there aren't that many of them, so I expect plenty of dishes still available to the general public. 
Luckily my funk from yesterday did not last long - just long enough to remind me how much those moods suck. Thanks for all the kind messages. I love you guys. 

My Old Friend

For no particular reason, I am having a difficult week. It doesn't make any rational sense; the weather has been amazing; everybody, both 2- and 4- legged, is healthy; there haven't been any crises of any kind. My classes are always full, and my sales, if still not setting the world on fire, are better than last year at this time. Why is there a persistent voice in my head constantly muttering, Wow, you really suck at this. You should probably give up. 

Hello, darkness, my old friend. 

In spite of a row of moderate successes - & let's face it, just keeping the lights on, as a single-income studio potter is a kind of success - anything that falls short of my expectations is landing on me like anvil on Wile E. Coyote.  

 I sleep like crap. My jaw aches from grinding my teeth. It's been a while since I've fought off this particular demon, and I've sort of lost the knack of it. 

Anyway, sorry for the dreary post. There are a couple of new less-whiny posts up at Patreon. I don't have the heart right now to link or cross post, but I promise (both readers & myself) that this won't last forever. 

Shop Update!

Finally got my items photographed and, after an hour and a half on the phone with support, listed in the online store. Lots of bowls this time, a couple of mugs, one sweet little lidded jar! Check them out here if you've got a minute. 

I did something a little different, with the photo set up: instead of tearing apart my living room, I tried setting up outside on the deck. Not in direct sun - the shadows would be harsh. My deck is in shade all afternoon, so I tried that. It was easier & I think pretty successful. 

I own one of those nylon photo tents but my friends, I am here to tell you, those absolutely SUCK. Or else I am doing something wrong, but I can't imagine what. I couldn't get a good pic out of the thing to save my life. For me the graduated paper is the way to go. I think this is the one I got, but I've had it for like 15 years so I can't remember for sure.