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.)

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! 

 

In Case You Haven't Noticed

 ...my website has been down for like a week. Not that it matters, because before it was down, visitors were receiving a security warning before they were allowed to click through. That's the same thing as having no website at all, because nobody is going to click through that. 

Because Network Solutions wanted to charge me seven-hundred-and-something for an SSL certificate to fix the security issue - a benefit all the other hosting platforms offer for free - I finally had enough of them. I was off my feet anyway due to injury, so I had some time to make the switch. 

So I migrated, but that has not been without its own headaches. Hostgator is the most economical choice but it's pretty self-serve, which is a hassle as I am not especially techie. More than that, there have been a number of technical issues. For days I wasn't receiving any email. then I was receiving some but not others, even from the same address. Now I'm getting bounceback notices for emails I didn't send! It's a fucking mess. It's not seven-hundred-and-something dollars worth of mess, but it's a mess all the same. I am in the chat with support right now. I've been in the chat with support every day since Friday. 

That's why I haven't rebuilt my website - between these LOOOONG chat sessions trying to straighten out one problem after another, and my regular duties - class, Mom, studio - I have not had time. 

I keep reminding myself: some people are in real crises. They are in war zones or their children are seriously ill, or their homes got destroyed in floods. This is not a crisis! This is an annoyance, one that will hopefully be resolved soon, after which I can get back to posting about pottery. 
Thanks for your patience! 

Last Day Down

On what will hopefully be my last day of enforced inactivity, I finished the Social Media Webinar offered by UC Davis via Coursera. Want my advice? Skip this course. I can sum it up for you right here, and honestly I doubt it's anything you don't already know:

1. Be professional but not boring. Yeah, thanks so much for that sage advice. Good thing you told me, because I was planning to be a tedious clown. Most of the course was just this advice, worded different ways. 
2. Have a website. Also obvious! Don't have ads on your website! Um, okay, I wasn't going to.  
3. Write your "About Me" page with an eye to why readers would want to do business with you. This actually was a new idea for me & I will be rewriting my About Me page, when I rebuild my website on its new hosting platform. 
4. The rest was all reiterations of #1.

I'm a little irritated that the course was described as "Social Media Content Strategy," because there was absolutely nothing resembling strategy even touched on. You get what you pay for, I guess, and this course was free, so...

Anyway! I'm having my coffee, skipping my morning workout because I'm still feeling a little cautious about the knee, but getting back into the studio today! Less bitching, more making! Thanks for still being here. 

Long, Slow, Tedious

 When we last saw our hero, she had gotten distracted from her Social Media Strategy course by

Here's the eponymous Host Gator! 

thoughts of eliminating or rethinking her website. 

And by her, I mean me, of course. I will continue with that course today, as it seems I need another day (most of a day, lol) off my feet, but enforce stillness gave me an opportunity to tend to the website issue, which has needed attention for some time. 

First, it's pretty spendy! The Network Solutions hosting package is HUGE, and correspondingly expensive. It's way bigger than I need: of 300,000 mb, I was using 640. For the last several months, when people visited my website, they got a security warning about the certificate. Network Solutions told me I needed to pay hundreds more every year to secure the site. It was the boulder that broke the camel's back. I had been meaning to find a better solution for my website but the giant hassle of it always persuaded me to put it off. Enter my bad knee and two & a half days of sitting around, and I finally did so. 

I wasn't wrong; it's a tedious process, and Network Solutions does not make it easy. It's hard to find the function to transfer the domain name to a different registrar, for starters, and it takes THREE DAYS to get an authorization code to do so. I got that ball rolling but still waiting for that code. Every time I tried to unlock the domain name it automatically re-locked it. Took me like six tries! I feel like they were trying to get me to give up in frustration. 

I've downloaded the 3667 files that took up a tiny fraction of the hosting space, and are mostly pics that Doug stored there as a kind of free Dropbox - which he then never accessed. Those pics have been there undisturbed for well over a decade. (He'll have a cow if I delete them, so I am saving them to a thumb drive, which will sit untouched in a desk drawer until the end of time.) 

I will have to rebuild my website, although I can re-use some of the files. All this is reminding me how much I hate fiddly techie stuff! I'd mix glazes & grind kiln shelves all day instead of this, if I could, but it needs to be done. 
Anyway! Off to do the thing. Hoping for more interesting news soon! 

Coursera: Social Media Content Strategy

 

I'm out of commission for a few days with a bum knee - I overdid it, during the pottery tour and the days leading up to it. Rest, ice, compression, elevation. It's harder than it sounds! I keep thinking of things I should be doing or things I want to be doing, starting to get up, then remembering I'm not supposed to and sitting back down. I'm getting really sick of the wintergreen smell of Icy Hot.

To use the time at least a little bit productively, I decided to do that Coursera course I've been thinking about, on Social Media Content Strategy. Notes below! 

"You're never entitled to the attention of your audience. You have to earn it every day." 

"Be curious about everything going on in this organization." Well, I think I've got that part down, anyway. I am this organization! I'm going to translate as "be interested in every aspect of your business," and I can honestly say that I am. I'm interested in every stage: wet clay, surface treatment, glaze chemistry, the art & science of firing. I'm interested in work flow and marketing and tech tools for those things. I'm interested in how the pieces are used in the real world. 

"Content must move the audience in some way." Kk

"If people aren't consuming your content, it might not be good enough." Yeah, no shit, that's literally why I am here. 

"Three things your content needs to do:

1. Move your audience
2. Earn your audience's attention
3. Has to have a 'spark.'"

Um, those are all the same thing. So far this is just annoying. "Be good at marketing by being really good at it!" Let's hope we get into some more concrete information. 

"The first thing that good effective content marketing normally will have is a headline that instantly commands attention." OK BUT HOW? If I knew how to do that I wouldn't need this course. 

Have your own website. yeah cool, got that already - although I am not entirely thrilled with Network Solutions. (I was actually thinking of ditching the website - it's super expensive and I'm not sure anyone visits it, anyway. But that's a thought for another time.)

That's it for today, because ol' ADHD brain over here got distracted with if I should delete my website or wait no maybe move it to another host...? And there I go, wandering away...

Blame it on the Rain

 

I guess we'll just blame it on the rain. 

Day One of the 2025 Maine Pottery Tour was down about half from last year. We had a few good hours in the morning, but spotty rain all afternoon, topped off by a downpour just at 5 pm when we were putting up the tent walls. I had a bit of a crowd for the kiln opening, although most were my students, who had work in that kiln, and people they brought with them. It was a lot of fun! And I was lucky to have the help of Liz Downs manning the sales table, because I could not have done both. The firing was very good, which was a great relief to me after its rocky start. Oh & the unnecessary  $200 baso valve arrived in the mail yesterday...at least I will have one on hand if it should act up again. 

Day Two awaits! Rain is continuing, so I don't have high hopes, but maybe I will make a couple hundred dollars more. If not, well, I still have the ware, and stores awaiting. 

If clay life has taught me anything, it's that you can't control everything, and the weather is at the top of a very long list. You learn to roll with whatever happens. 

Ready, Mostly

 The Friday before is actually the hardest day of the pottery tour. I've been working since 7 am, but I am mostly done. Good thing, too, because my feet are killing me! Somehow it seems harder this year. Or maybe I am just older.

This is the first time in 13 years that I have not organized the tour. I was very much looking forward to putting all the time & effort that I had been spending promoting the tour as a whole into promoting my individual event. I didn't quite reach that level but I came pretty close! I sent out over 300 postcards, about 150 email announcements, sponsored a public radio announcement, and sent press releases to every newspaper in Maine. I've been posting to social media nearly every day. I bought a Facebook ad. 

I still have a few things to take care of in the morning:

• My wheel - I need to carry it down to the yard, so I can do demos. Honestly I would have preferred to do this today but I can't do it without Doug, & he had already gotten cozy for the evening, so asked if we could do it tomorrow. 
  
• Snacks! It's always a challenge to choose appropriate foods. Must be ok to sit out all day, edible with just fingers, not too messy, appealing. I usually get grapes & cookies, and some seltzer water. 
• I have to make sure my Square app is working. Nothing worse than trying to make a sale & you can't get your reader working! 

Now I need to get to sleep. 

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! 

Just Playing: Creating a Twisted Ridge Bowl

Sometimes in clay we have to let go of the expectation of making a piece to keep & fire, and just focus on the process. Recently in class I tried to figure out with student how to make a twisted ridge shape if we are making a bowl rather than a cylinder. The result is not amazing! But it's progress on figuring out the technique.
To see the full video become a paid subscriber to my Patreon page. Paid subscriptions start at $1.50/month. 🙂

 

Feeding the Beast: Social Media Marketing for Artists

Read an interesting comment on a SubReddit about social media marketing: nobody scrolls to learn. They scroll to feel.

I am not shy to admit, I suck at marketing! I'm a pretty good potter and a fine educator, but I think I'm too wonky and in-the-weeds to shine at marketing. Like, I love to talk about process! (WANNA HEAR SOME MORE ABOUT BURNER VALVES?? Didn't think so 😄) You know who likes to hear about process? Other potters! You know who has the least money or need for handmade pottery? You guessed it: other potters! (OH HAI OTHER POTTERS! Glad to see you here) What can I say? That's my authentic self. If people scrolled to learn, I'd be a champion at social media. And if "ifs & buts" were candy & nuts, we'd all have a very merry Christmas. 

Also, most people hate being sold-to. They want to be entertained & engaged. If they buy from you, they want it to be their idea.

So, if people scroll to feel, what might we try to make them feel? Curiosity, wonder, amusement. In this vein - not that I recommend doing it on purpose! - stories of minor studio disasters get a lot of sympathy engagement. My recent burner difficulties were too technical to be interesting to most people (except maybe you guys!) but I know of a potter who deliberately topples boards full of freshly thrown pots, because his audience responds. I would not do that, for all the reasons, not the least because it's the very definition of inauthentic. It works for him, though: he gets thousands of comments on those posts. 

I need to learn this skill better, so after the pottery tour, I plan to sign up for a Social Media Marketing course through Coursera. I'd have to choose a free one, obvs; if I were making enough money to pay tuition I wouldn't need the course in the first place. Have any of you done one of these? What did you think?

Also, I'd love to hear about your approaches to social media marketing, your successes and, if you want to share, your failures. I mostly use Instagram and Facebook, have just started on Bluesky, and of course you've heard me mention Patreon. I guess Blogger counts, too? Those all seem to require different approaches. TikTok is right out, for me: all content creation is work but videos are a shit ton of work & I just don't have the time or tbh the sparkling personality for that. I do a little bit on YouTube, but I can only do it because I give myself permission to suck at it and not care too much that I suck at it. (It's called authenticity, ok?? 😄)

Leave your ideas in the comments! XO L

3 Rims and a Fail

 

I recently did a demo for one of my wheel-throwing classes; I wanted to show them some rim options The rim is a frequently overlooked part of the pot; often the rim is just the place where the clay runs out. Unconsidered, as it were. A good rim can make a pot more durable, for sure - a little extra thickness just at the rim makes chips & cracks less likely - but a rim can also add charm. Let's not forget that aesthetics is a part of function. 
The whole demo, including a fail! - is available for subscribers at the Water, Air, and Fire levels on my Patreon page. 

The Heat of the Night

Color in the kiln at 10 pm

After a rough day & a half of alternately trying to fix my burner and then despairing of same, yesterday afternoon my baso valve recovered from its ailment. Not immediately after I whacked it with a steel wrench, but not long after either! (I'm told the term for this is "percussive maintenance" 😄) That was around 3:30 pm. So, YAY, my burner is working but also...how long will it continue to work? If the valve is balky, it might not still be working on Wednesday, the next full day I have off. 

I have already pretty heavily advertised the kiln unloading Saturday morning, and people do turn out for that. I knew I'd feel like an idiot if I didn't have a firing to unload, and I needed to change the marketing sooner rather than later if it wasn't going to happen. Wednesday felt too late, Monday & Tuesday I have to teach my classes, so...that meant overnight. 

I haven't fired overnight (not counting electric, which doesn't need my attention, usually) since graduate school. As my mom so kindly reminded me, I was a lot younger then! But one thing hasn't changed: I do what it takes. (Within reason! I wouldn't, like, kill a puppy or idk steal a car. Luckily ceramics rarely requires such measures.) What it was going to take this time: firing the kiln overnight. I was kind of dreading it, to be honest.

It was not nearly as bad as I thought! I did have to do a brief candle, to avoid blowing up the cone packs, so I didn't light the burners proper until around 6 pm. There's not much to do in the early part of the firing, so I just kept an eye on it. I went to bed around 9 pm (see also: older than I used to be!) but set an alarm for 1 hour. I just kept doing that until body reduction was finished, after which I set my alarm every two hours. At 3:30, ^10 was falling & I had to hurry to get the soda mix ready. Spraying was done around 4:15, and the draw rings looked good. I was only worried that I'd be too keyed up to get back to sleep. LOL: no problem there! 

Anyway! That's they story of how I felt like a grad student again, peering at cones in the wee, small hours. Public unloading Saturday! If I can get my act together - always a big if - I will have an unloading video up at Patreon. 
I hope you can visit during the tour! 

Baso Bother, Valve Vexation

ETA: We're back in business! Against all odds I got my burner fixed (after I ordered another one, of course) I'm firing right now, even though I will likely have to be up all night with it. See you Saturday for the unloading!! Or pop by any time during the tour, it's gonna be fun! 

I guess it's time for me to learn something new! I love learning new things...in theory. I love it le
ss in those urgent, figure-it-out-or-fail situations that I seem to find myself in all too often. On the other hand, things turn out ok a ridiculous amount of the time, as well, and not always or even usually because I figure things out. 

Let's hope I do this time.

Last night I turned the pilot lights on, to candle my firing overnight. This is the firing that will be unloaded during the Maine Pottery Tour, so I kind of need it to happen on time. The pilots lit, no problem, although the gas pressure on one - the one which later had a problem - did seem low; they were still burning in the morning, no problem; then I opened the flow regulator to turn on the burner proper. 
What should have happened: gas should have flowed out of the burner & immediately ignited when it encountered the flame of the pilot. Exactly like a gas burner on a stove, except larger. What did happen: nothing. 

There are only a few things that could have gone wrong here. Gas is getting to the pilot, so we can eliminate the valves upstream of where the line to the pilot diverges from the line to the burner. There are three valves involved beyond (or at) the point of separation: the baso, a safety valve that shuts off the gas if the pilot goes out; the solenoid, which senses whether there is power to the blowers; and the flow regulator valve, a very simple device that controls how much gas is passing through the line. 

The Baso Safety Shutoff Valve

The Solenoid

The Flow Regulator Valve

We can...I think...eliminate the solenoid as the problem. I can hear it click open when I plug in the blower.

We can probably eliminate the flow regulator, as it is such a simple device that there's not really anything that can got wrong with it - at least nothing that could have occurred in the two weeks since I last fired. (This short interval, along with the season here in Maine, rule out things like insect activity.) 

That leaves the baso valve. The function of the baso is to shut off the flow of gas to both burner and pilot if the flame of the pilot goes out for any reason. It's attached to a thermocouple, a sensor which contains two pieces of metal that expand when hot, closing an electrical circuit which then opens the valve. Conversely, when the metal cools, the pieces shrink and are no longer in contact, so the circuit is broken and the valve it shut. The default position of the baso is in the closed position. There's a button to temporarily open the baso valve, which allows us to light the pilot only. My theory is that my baso is stuck in this intermediate position. 

The baso is an expensive part and sort of messy to replace - I have to disconnect a bunch of other stuff to do so - so I'd rather not replace it if I don't have to. With that in mind, I started googling, and found this article from 2003 by Marc Ward, with some wisdom about first steps before you go disassembling your burner to replace a baso valve. In short:

• Make sure your pilot is a continuous blue flame. Mine was not! I scrubbed the ports of the pilot & cleared them with a needle tool. Now the flame, while still low, is steady blue. This did not solve the problem.
• Ward suggests hitting the sensor end of the thermocouple with a handheld propane torch, until it glow orange. I did this. This did not solve the problem, but it did change the problem: whereas before, when I went opened the flow regulator, nothing happened, now when I open the flow regulator the gas shuts off to the pilot as well. Open flow regulator, pilot turns off; close flow regular, pilot relights. I'm gonna count this as progress. 
• He also suggests cleaning the contact between the thermocouple and the baso. That's next on my list.
  
• Lastly, if cleaning the contact fails, I will replace the thermocouple. That's a relatively cheap fix - might cost me $15 - and even if it's not the problem, it's good to have a spare thermocouple around. 
  
  

Not that it's worth mentioning but all this is happening in the icy, pelting rain. Rain doesn't much affect the firing but the potter? That's another story. 
Anyway, I've finished my coffee & it's time to venture back out into the cold wet. I'll let you know how I fared. 

Where Does the Lone Ranger Take His Trash?

 

🎵To the dump, to the dump, to the dump-dump-dump...!🎶

I didn't see him while I was there today, though. I had a mattress & box spring to dispose of, as I finally got a new one. Replacing those has been on my list for like 20 years! Other than that, here are my three days in the studio. You know the ones: Yesterday, Today, & Tomorrow. 

• Yesterday: A couple hours in Vassalboro to help my sister move (although I mostly waited around to meet the movers.) Also made chicken vegetable soup & loaded the kiln for the firing I will unload during the Maine Pottery Tour. 
• Today: the aforementioned dump trip; an hour or so posting my Maine Pottery Tour event to community calendars, and sending out press releases; the last few things into the kiln; and tonight I've got class
• Tomorrow: hopefully firing the kiln! And doing a bunch of yardwork to get ready for the tour. 

Hands, Brains, and Happiness: It's all connected

My pottery friends often say of their messy hobby: "It's cheaper than therapy." It's meant as a joke, of course, but like the best jokes, it contains a grain of truth. Neuroscience has some possible explanations for why your pottery hobby can help prevent or ease depression. 

The Effort-Driven Reward Circuit

Dr. Kelly Lambert, a neuroscientist at the University of Richmond, has written on the subject of behavior-induced neuroplasticity Lambert believes that human brains are innately wired to induce well-being when performing certain physical tasks. She calls this the Effort-Driven Reward Circuit, involving brain regions connected to emotion, reason, and creativity, and it could be key to a happy brain. Lamberts notes that in the 19th century doctors sometimes prescribed knitting to address anxiety. It makes sense to her:  "Repetitive movement, increasing certain neurochemicals, and then if you produce something - a hat, or a scarf - there's the reward."

Work has changed since the environment our brains evolved in! For many of us our work tasks are almost exclusively intellectual, with very little physical activity. A hands-on hobby with a creative aspect can help spark up that neglected brain circuitry & generate some of those happy-making brain chemicals. 

This must be what inspires me to say I am a dopamine queen. (I sometimes think I've never been interested in recreational drugs, because I sort for employ brain chemicals for a similar purpose. I used to be an oxytocin queen - yeah, don't do that. Lotta bad decisions came out of that.) 
Anyway: tl;dr: get into your studio & make stuff! You'll be happier for it. 

April Rewards!

I had no idea so many people were into stickers! Since I started the patreon page a year ago, I've had several people ask if I would offer stickers. Like everything I do, it took me a while to get around to it, but I did get there: this month's reward at the $5 level (the Water tier! Earth, Water, Air, Fire, get it?🙂) and up, is a sticker! You may remember this image from the t-shirts I created - you can still get one of those here -  and I still had the .jpg lying around. Stickers it is! 

I used a company called Sticker Invasion, who are reasonably priced but maybe a bit slower than the larger operations? My sense is that it's one guy, doing everything, not unlike Fine Mess Pottery, and I do have a soft spot for very small businesses. 

I ordered some extra, so I will have some for sale at the Maine Pottery Tour (come visit!) 

I've also ordered screens made from Little Chair Printing, with which I can screen print tshirts, aprons, and tote bags. I did make the sane decision not to try to offer a screen-printing event at the tour, but now I have a whole year to re-learn this process, so I can do it next year. Those practice pieces - the ones that are actually successful - will probably find their way to patrons too, probably at the Air & Fire Levels. Maybe I will make artwear out of the ones I goof up! 

Maine Pottery Tour 2025

It's the same, only it's different. 

Longtime readers may remember that I founded the Maine Pottery Tour in...2012? Or 2011, I forget. I didn't have grand ideas, at the time; I just needed an event after a long winter. Here in greater Augusta, we're blessed to have six or seven studios within a few miles of each other. I persuaded my potter-neighbors to all hold our spring open house events on the same day, to share promotional efforts & make it more of a thing. 

And what a thing it became! It has grown every year. 

But this year, I'm not organizing it. I did, up until last year's tour, and while it was a lot of work, it was also a lot of fun. Or maybe fun isn't the word I want...it was satisfying, like figuring out a puzzle. How much/fast can we grow without each individual event suffering? I tried to grow the audience along with the tour itself, because the individual studios' success was the whole point. The tour itself was just a means to that end. 

Inevitably, it grew beyond my ability to manage it. It was always a volunteer effort, and everything we did to make it better also made it more work. More studios also mean more work, and more questions to answer. I couldn't carry it anymore. 
Lucky for me, Milly Welsh of Zwellyn Pottery was willing to pick up the torch. We both understood that it had to become a paying concern if it were going to continue - and Milly thinks she can do that. 
So far it seems to be going great! There are 80 studios this year. Because Milly & her team run a web development company, they were able to automate many functions, lightening some of the load. 

Anyway! This year I was looking forward to having time & energy to promote my own event as zealously as I previously promoted the tour as a whole. It didn't happen quite like that - I spent more time making pots and - confession - more time just not working. That's actually pretty nice, not working sometimes, have you tried it?
Now here we are three weeks out & I'm back in the groove. I sent out the 75 postcards that came as part of my tour package, but my mailing list is like 300 people. It's actually cheaper for me to create my own Fine-Mess-specific postcard & send those out to the rest of the folks. The image above is what I came up with. I wanted to include some process photos, because to me that's what makes the tour a happening; without the demos & the projects & the kilns, it's just shopping. I've always worked to make my event more than that. The shopping is what makes it possible, but building connections between artists and audience is its real purpose. 
If you're anywhere near Maine the first weekend in May, I hope you'll come visit me. Read more about what's on offer at Fine Mess Pottery here; plan what studios you'd like to visit with the Plan My Tour app. 

Photo Dump: So, This Happened...

 It's been a minute since I did a photo dump! The biggest thing that happened in the last two weeks is, I fired the soda kiln. Here's a shot from the first peek inside: 

It was overall a good firing, a no-more-than-expected rate of flawed pots & a nice even coat of soda, with just enough directional effect to make things interesting. Possible I am crazy, but I'm hoping to get two more firings in before the Pottery Tour: one for inventory to sell, one to unload during the event.

I was planning to do a silk screening activity as well, but my friend Ellen, of Peeper Pond Studio (also known as the voice of sanity) persuaded me that it was too ambitious, considering that I have not silk screened anything for 30 years. In my recollection, it is not difficult to do, but making, loading & firing two kiln loads, as well as all the other prep for the tour, really does not leave time for me to remind myself how to do this.

Unloading day means grinding, sanding, sorting, pricing, packing, & delivering. I brought new pots to the Maine Potters Market and to the gallery at Portland Pottery.

You've probably seen some of my clay critters, if you've been reading for a while. I feel pretty confident making bears, cats, birds & rabbits; I've been wanting to figure out otters for a while. This was my first attempt. It's recognizably an otter, but needs work; the head is too big & the forehead too domed. It's a start. 

 Then, this happened! I was shopping an antique store in Hallowell when I saw this mug on the shelf:

The one there in the middle? That's my mug! Not mine as in it belongs to me, but mine as in, I made it! Maybe like 10 years ago? I'm not sure i am old enough to have made any actual antiques! 😄 I was tempted to buy it, as it's only $12, and it's a really good mug, but to be honest, I do not need another mug. If you're local to Hallowell, it's at the Hallowell Antiques Mall.

I might make some more like that, though. I had forgotten about that style.

And last, but hardly least, my crocuses have come into full flower. I am fond of crocuses, and in fact they may be why I am a gardener at all. I have an early memory - I was maybe 6? My family had moved a few months before, from Brewer, Maine to Scarborough, and this was our first winter in our new house. There had been a heavy snow, but it must have been a spring storm, because my mom brought my sister & I outside to the southern corner of the house. She knelt down & brushed away the snow, and lo & behold, there were flowers! Blooming under the snow! To my child's mind it seemed magical. Crocuses still seem magical to me.

And, here's the blah-blah: crossposted from Patreon! If you enjoy this content & want to support, you an subscribe for as little as $1.50/month. 

Thanks for reading! 

Shop Update is LIVE!

Practically hot out of the kiln! 😄
Check it out here. For discount codes, (future) early access to new pots, and great exclusive content subscribe at the Pottery Patron level or above. This month's discount code gets you 10% off, so if you're planning to purchase it might be worth it for that alone. 

 

Shop Update Preview

 I spent the day today photographing ware. I'll spend most of tomorrow listing them online. Choose your faves now! 

Maine Magnets

I found this stainless steel cookie cutter from a shop on Etsy - I may have mentioned, I hate Etsy as a seller but enjoy it as a buyer! I got it for a specific purpose: to make what will become refrigerator magnets for the Maine Pottery Tour. 

Two quick tips for using cookie cutters with clay: 1) cut your shape through think plastic. It rounds the edges, giving a pillowy effect, and saves you some time when smoothing the edges; they will already be pretty smooth and 

2) Place the rolled slab on a piece of smooth fabric before cutting; otherwise it's hard to get the cut piece off the tabletop without distorting it. 

These will be available only at my studio during the Maine Pottery Tour. 

The Fiscardo Wreck

 

Enormous Roman Shipwreck Found Off Greek Island

One of the things I love about being a potter (side note: I start a lot of sentences that way) is how it connects me to history. People have been making things out of clay for tens of thousands of years. The oldest known piece of fired clay is estimated to be 27,000 years old!
With that in mind, I'm interested in stories that highlight the role ceramics has played in human history, like this one: Enormous Roman Shipwreck Found Off Greek Island

We don't know the name of the ship that went down; it's called the Fiscardo Wreck for its location at the northeastern tip of the island of Kefalonia, close to the entrance to the...[read more]

An Opportunity!

 ...for the right person. 
The Northern Clay Center, an institution in the ceramics world for decades, is seeking an executive director. 

I taught at NCC in the 90s. It was an amazing organization then & it has only gotten better. I was (briefly!) tempted to apply for this myself until I remembered that A) I'm probably not qualified and B) I no longer live in Minnesota. (Even then I was like, but I could work remotely? Briefly.)

Anyway, maybe you are qualified, and do live in Minnesota, or are at a life stage when moving is a reasonable possibility. If so, here's your chance! I am the tiniest bit jealous of you. Briefly. 

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. 

Kiln is Loaded, Pilots are Lit!

 ....Aaand, we're rolling! Granted, we're not rolling very fast at the moment, and those darn pilot lights keep threatening to go out, but this firing is happening! 

It seemed to take longer than usual to load the kiln. I kept taking breaks to warm my hands; I can't wear gloves because I have to handle the wet sticky wadding. As usual, I couldn't fit as much ware as I hoped, but I think I got everything in that I really needed to. There's a LOT of wax in this firing. I'll have to get up around 3 am to turn on the burners, so my neighbors don't call the fire department when they see the smoke from the burning wax. That has happened before! 

Best guess, I'll be spraying soda around 4 pm, pulling draw rings shortly after. It's been too long! I'm super excited for this firing. 

Glaze Layering & a Quick Tip

Due to the vagaries of firing, I'm never sure what a piece will look like until I actually take it out of the kiln. In case that's not enough uncertainty for ya, we can make the result even less predictable by layering glazes! Each glaze has its own factors a variation, and they all interact with each other.

Does that sounds insane? Like, why would you do that? Because the fired results can be so complex and intriguing and beautiful! 

Take this piece:

The balloon is to keep the rim from warping while drying. That is the Quick Tip! It worked perfectly. 

I have since glazed and fired this mug, using thinly brushed layers of three different glazes. I brushed on the glazes because three dipped layers would be a lot of glaze, so would have the potential to flow off the pot & onto the kiln shelf. Brushed glaze also tends to be more unevenly applied than dipped glaze, which we usually think of as a disadvantage to that method, but in this case, it creates greater variation for a more visually active surface.

See links to the glaze recipes here! 

The Grind

The lovely weather we've had in Maine this weekend marks the beginning of firing season; but before firing comes shelf-grinding.

I can't say it's my favorite part of making. It's dirty, heavy work, with none of the joy that comes from the creative parts of the making process. Still, dopamine queen that I am, there's a satisfaction to it, looking at the freshly smooth, washed shelves.
And then there's the bisque firing itself! The bisque is the less complex of the two firings that make up the cycle...[read more]